A well-known prison poem, ‘A Bright Star’, authorship attributed to Bobby Sands for many decades, was actually written by another blanket man, Tony ‘Scatter’ O’Hara from Derry, whose brother Patsy, an INLA Volunteer, died on the 1981 hunger strike.

Back in 1980, Christy Moore and Donal Lunny produced the ‘H-Block’ album as part of the protest and solidarity campaign for the return of political status. As well as including a host of musicians it also included two poems, ‘A Bright Star’ and ‘A Retort’. These poems had been sourced from the Relatives Action Committee and the H-Block Information Centre at Sevastopol Street, where comms from the prisons were often seized in sudden British Army/RUC raids on the office. The majority, however, were saved by the archivist Tom Hartley and sent out to be kept in safe houses and these make up the bulk of the Bobby Sands Trust’s archive now in the National Library.

 

Christy Moore said: ‘Having written “90 miles to Dublin” I became aware that there were a number of people who wanted to give support to the men and women on the blanket in the H-Blocks and Armagh Jails. Mick Hanly wrote and performed “On the Blanket”, Stephen Rea read two works by Bobby Sands and one by Brian Ua Baoill. Dan Dowd played “Táimse I mo Chodladh”, Matt Molloy played “The Rights of Man” and “Repeal the Union”. Noel Hill and Tony Linnane played Reels and Anne and Francie Brolly sang “I’ll wear no convicts uniform”.’

After he turned eighty, Christy Moore donated his vast collection of manuscripts, including letters and prison comms, to the Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA). In November, TG4, in the course of preparing a documentary, Cartlann Christy Moore, on Christy’s life and his extensive archive, contacted the Bobby Sands Trust seeking permission to display the two poems referred to. The poems, of course, like some other of Bobby’s writings which were forwarded to different organisations for publicity purposes, are not part of the Trust’s archive of original material in the National Library. It then came to light that one of the album’s poems, ‘Bright Star’, might not be by Bobby after all.

Tony O’Hara had for a time shared a cell with Bobby in 1978. It was after his release that he had the opportunity of hearing the H-Block album for the first time. He says he was astonished and thrilled to hear his poem on the album, even though Bobby was cited as the author, but decided to say nothing, apart from one statement on the blog ‘The Pensive Quill’ almost thirty years later.

Of course, it was impossible to establish his authorship until an original copy of the poem was produced, as it was by the ITMA a few weeks ago, and was displayed on last night’s documentary. The reason for the misattribution is evident because the text of ‘A Bright Star’ is in a comm signed Marcella, Bobby Sands’s nom de guerre, which was his sister’s name. So it was long the assumption that Bobby Sands wrote the poem. (Often, messages from the Blocks would be duplicated by other prisoners to ensure that at least one smuggled copy survived being caught during the searches before a visit or whilst being passed over.)

Tony O’Hara, who had also written song lyrics, recalls Bobby (who wrote almost daily to the H-Block Information Centre) writing out his poem in H5 as Tony recited it. It is only when the comm is more closely scrutinized it is clear that above the signature Marcella appears ‘Bright Star’ and then the Irish word ‘le’ (meaning ‘by’), followed by ‘Scatter’: that is, ‘by Scatter’.

 

In June 1981, along with other prisoners, Tony O’Hara contested the Dublin West constituency in the general election from his cell to raise the issue of the hunger strike and the campaign for political status. Two blanket men were elected: Kieran Doherty (who was to die in August on hunger strike) and Paddy Agnew.

 

A Bright Star 

A bright star shines through my window each night
bringing me comfort in my trial and plight
high in the sky so far away and free
shining so bright, bringing comfort to me

My feeble existence is punishment for revolt
beatings, endless confinement, hunger and cold
for refusing to play along with their propaganda and lies
to forsake my cause and be criminalised

I have fought for my country and her liberation
for the people to decide their own determination
to break the shackles that invaders have enforced
and destroy the monster that kills without remorse

So on the blanket my struggle goes on
I never will yield for my spirit is strong
for a cause I am proud to have played up my part
serving my land with body and heart

So come bright star tonight you must stay
but soon disappear when dawns a new day
for your people that slept are now awaken
to join in the fight to take back what was taken

– Tony O’Hara H-Block 5, Long Kesh, 1978