Eyewitness accounts – Hunger Strike

Art O Donnell was a republican prisoner who took part in the 1917 Mountjoy Hunger Strike on which Thomas Ashe died O Donnell was one of the last people to see Ashe alive:

“Forcible feeding was commenced and the hunger-strikers were fed for the first time with milk and eggs pumped through rubber tubing into the stomach. The operation was repeated on Sunday, twice on Monday and once on Tuesday morning. I was taken to be forcibly fed on this Tuesday morning. A new doctor named Dr. Lowe was in the cell where the food was forcibly administered and he proceeded to insert the tube, which I thought hurt more than usual, and on the first stroke of the pump I coughed violently. Dr. Lowe withdrew the tube, re-inserted it after the fit of coughing had ceased and then completed the operation. I was on the ground floor and after I was taken back to the cell I saw Thomas Ashe going to be forcibly fed. After A short while I saw a warder go to his cell, which was placed on the floor over mine and opposite to me, and I then saw the warder return with his overcoat …”