July 1981

O’Rawe Told Me His Concerns

Brendan Hughes • Irish News, 19 May 2006

IT is not my intention to take sides in the ongoing debate over the claims made in the book Blanketmen by its author Richard O’Rawe.

I am not in a position to speak authoritatively on the matter.

I was in the same block as Richard O’Rawe at the time of the events he refers to but not on the same wing.

However, there has been some attempt to present O’Rawe as a person who made no effort to tell any former prisoner of his suspicions over a 24-year period. This is simply not so.

I am a former prisoner whom O’Rawe talked to on a number of occasions about the things that concerned him and which eventually appeared in his book.

I can also state I am not the only former prisoner O’Rawe has raised the matter with.

BRENDAN HUGHES
Former O/C of the H-Block Blanket men
Belfast