The passing of Vias Livadas is mourned by not only his own countrymen, but also Irish Republicans, as the passing of a true friend and comrade in struggle. Over 50 years ago bonds of comradeship, solidarity and friendship were forged in British prisons between the revolutionaries of Cyprus and Ireland which have endured to the present day. Leaving aside political differences, Vias Livadas and his generation of Cypriots wrote a heroic chapter in their nation’s history resisting the British occupation of their country, a struggle which the Irish people could readily identify with.
IF one goes into an in-depth study of Irish and Cypriot history and the legacy of conflict that has been evident in both countries, it becomes apparent that Cyprus and Ireland share a number of parallels.
When Irish President Mary McAleese visited Cyprus, she spoke of the similarities between the two islands, adding that both countries were divided with “a legacy of mistrust”.
The tale of a joint Cypriot-Irish escape plot from the British prison of Wakefield of 1959 proves, however, that this legacy does not extend to the political prisoners of EOKA and the IRA, who did not appear to have any problem in trusting each other.
Even though the plot was largely unsuccessful on both the part of EOKA and the IRA, the two nationalist organisations fighting against British colonial rule in the 20th century, none of the prisoners that were incarcerated together in the British prison for around four years have ever forgotten what EOKA fighter Vias Livadas describes a “special relationship with our brothers-in-arms”.
In an interview with the Cyprus Sunday Mail , former IRA volunteer Seamus Murphy, the only one of the five prisoners involved in the plot that actually managed to escape, tells of the unique relationship between the Cypriot and Irish prisoners as well as the attempted escape.
“The punishment I had received at the time was imprisonment for life, back in 1955 as the Cypriot struggle for independence was beginning,” he said.
“The Cypriot prisoners that were brought to Wakefield were placed in the same wing as us and we all interacted and spoke to each other about our various experiences during work in the tailor shop and the exercise yard. We talked about anything and everything, from politics to how to defeat the British. Anybody fighting the British Empire was a great friend of ours,” he said.
The interview, that took place just before an event marking the launch of Livadas’ book Cypriot and Irish political prisoners in English prisons, was interrupted by the arrival of another EOKA fighter, Renos Kyriakides.
Murphy leaped out of his chair and engaged in a long embrace with Kyriakides, telling me what a great man he was. The old friends had been re-united after 50 years, but it seemed that they had not spent a day apart.
As we got back to business, Murphy told me of the extent of the relationship between the prisoners.
“A number of our lads started learning Greek, two IRA guys had learnt the language at one stage. After more than 50 years, I heard two of the prisoners who were at Wakefield communicating with each other over the phone in Greek,” he said.
Livadas’ book has been dedicated to Nicholas Ioannou, an EOKA fighter the prisoners believe was killed by the British Special Branch after the British authorities became aware of his part in their plans of a joint escape.
Murphy said that before his death, Ioannou had visited Dublin and the contacts between EOKA and the IRA in Dublin had been established.
According to Murphy, the prisoners spent a lot of their time discussing how to escape from Wakefield.
“We actually had a number of different plans, many of them quite extreme to be honest. We had even thought of attacking the prisons using an airplane, however strange that may sound.
“There were five men that had been earmarked for the escape. Two of them were EOKA men [George Skotinos and Nicos Sampson], another two were IRA, myself and Joe Doyle, while there was also a fifth with us, Tony Martin, who had deserted the British army in Cyprus and fought on the side of EOKA before he was arrested,” he said.
When I asked Murphy how they managed to keep the attempted escape a secret, he attributed this to the trust that the men had with each other.
“We definitely kept very low key and only on the morning did the other Cypriot prisoners become aware of what we were planning. I had actually told Vias [Livadas] because we were extremely close, but not many people knew what we were up to.”
“On the day [February 12, 1959], we had prepared thoroughly, we had smuggled in a number of hack saw blades so that we can cut through the bars and men who had come all the way from Dublin were expecting us on the other side. They had cars, money and clothes with them and two safe houses had been rented in Manchester.
“I was the only one who actually managed to escape on the night by scaling the wall and made my way back to Ireland with the help of the other IRA men.
“Thankfully, the Cypriot struggle for independence ended later on in the year and the other prisoners were also released.”
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment