Extract from Pawns in the Game - Irish Hunger Strikes 1912–1981 by Barry Flynn is published by The Collins Press. It is available in all good bookshops and online from www.collinspress.ie.

Periodically throughout the 1930s hunger striking would be used by IRA members to highlight conditions within prisons. In June 1931 two republicans, George Mooney and Sean McGuinness, ended their eleven-day hunger strike in Mountjoy Prison on the request of the then Chief of Staff of the IRA, Maurice Twomey. Mooney, who had been convicted of possession of guns and explosives, and McGuinness, who had received a sentence for acting as a marshal at a republican rally, had been held in solitary confinement for upwards of nineteen months as a punishment for refusing to accept their categorisation as criminals. On 3 June the two men had commenced a hunger strike in protest at the inhumane treatment they were undergoing, which included beatings and being placed in straitjackets. On 5 June a Mayo republican, Patrick Norton, was released from Mountjoy after serving a short sentence for the then misdemeanour of selling Easter lilies. Having witnessed the conditions under which both Mooney and McGuinness were held, he swore an affidavit, which served to publicise the prisoners' plight and drew attention to their hunger strike. In the Dail on 11 June the Minister for Justice, James Fitzgerald Kenney spoke about the government's attitude towards the strike in terms of the greatest possible

It is for these young men to continue or cease this hunger strike themselves. If they choose to injure themselves, it is their look out. They are free agents. They are free to exercise as other prisoners are. They are free to go off hunger strike any moment they like. If they do not, the responsibility is theirs. They are not going to shorten the term of their imprisonment by any hunger strike in which they may indulge. Let it be clearly and distinctly understood that they are not going to abridge by one hour the term of their imprisonment by going on hunger strike.
Dail Eireann Debates, vol. 39: 11.6.31

The minister's statement caused Thomas Mullins, Fianna FA TD for Cork West; to accuse the government of copying the policy of 1923 towards the IRA prisoners, which he labelled; `Let them rot'. Perhaps, with the bitter memories of the deaths in 1923 still in the collective memory, IRA leader Maurice Twomey sensed that the protest was futile and sent a letter to the prison to advise Mooney and McGuinness of his view:

We have learned with horror of the brutal assaults and ill-treatment to which you have been subjected by your jailers ... I am instructed to say that we [the IRA] highly appreciate your spirited action in resorting to hunger strike and realise that it was only under provocation that this action was determined on. Nevertheless, after consideration of the whole question, we have decided to urge you that you should both call off the hunger strike.
Irish Independent, 13 June 1931

With that the fast ended as external pragmatism was brought to bear on the prisoners.