The Revolutionary Communist Group extends its deepest sympathies to the family, friends and comrades of Lily Fitzsimons, who died on 17 February 2020 after a lifetime of struggle against the British occupation of Ireland.
Lily was a regular contributor by letter, interview and article to the RCG’s popular Hands Off Ireland journal, which began publication in late 1976. A determined rebel voice from the Turf Lodge estate of Belfast, her grim contributions detailed the on-the-ground experience of that community at the hands and boots of the British army through daily house raids, beatings, abuse and arrests.
Lily was to become a leading force in the Relatives Action Committees (RACs) which the working-class women of Belfast, Derry and other nationalist communities built in response to the British strategy of criminalisation of the Irish people’s war against British imperialism. The Labour government had in 1976 withdrawn the Special Category Status of Republican prisoners serving sentences for offences arising from the political struggle to free Ireland from British rule. Those predominantly young men were the sons and brothers of Lily and the rest of the beleaguered nationalist communities. They numbered hundreds but through the determined efforts of the RACs, tens of thousands were mobilised.
On Easter Monday 1976 the first RAC was formed by Lily and others in Belfast. As she explained in an interview in 2006: ‘…it was then a group of us came together, Maura McCrory and other women and said we are going to have to do something here, because there is no way we are going to allow our men to be classed as criminals. Because it’s a political war, a political situation.’
From this point until the tragic defeat of the heroic Hunger Strikes of 1980/81, the RACs took to the streets in massive solidarity with the protests in the prisons. As the struggle in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh escalated, the campaign faced harassment, plastic bullets, loyalist assassinations and Britain’s own death squads, the Special Air Service. The British ruling class was determined that the streets would be cleared of any demonstration of support for the prisoners and the war for Ireland’s freedom. They failed. Lily was very clear about British strategy: ‘We knew an enormous amount of support existed within the community, but many people were afraid to come out on to the streets because of the terror that was being inflicted on the community by the Army and the RUC.’
Undaunted, the women organised and mobilised everywhere: on their own streets, at the courts and prison gates, and right to the doors of British embassies and businesses around the world. The murderous and brutal reality of imperialist occupation was boldly exposed and challenged.
We salute the brave example of Lily Fitzsimons and the revolutionary struggle of her people.
Michael MacGregor
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 275, March/April 2020
