NINETY MILES FROM DUBLIN
Lyrics by: Christy Moore

I'm ninety miles from Dublin town
I'm in an H-Block cell
To help you understand me plight
This story now I'll tell

I'm on the blanket protest
My efforts must not fail
For I'm joined by men and women
In the Kesh and Armagh jail

It all began one morning
I was dragged to Castleragh
And though it was three years ago
It seems like yesterday

For three days kicked and beaten
I then was forced to sign
Confessions that convicted me
Of deeds that were not mine

Sentenced in a Diplock court
My protest it began
I could not wear this prison gear
I was a blanket man

I'll not accept their status
I'll not be criminalised
That's the issue in the blocks
For which we give our lives
Over there in London town
Oh how they'd laugh and sneer
If they could only make us wear
Their loathsome prison gear

Prisoners of war that's what we are
And that we must remain
The blanket protest cannot end
Till status we regain

I've been beaten round the romper room
Because I won't say 'Sir'
I've been frog marched down the landing
And dragged back by the hair

I've suffered degradation
Humility and pain
Still the spirit does not falter
British torture is in vain
I've been held in scalding water
While me back with deck scrubs was tore
I've beenscratched and cut from head to foot
Then thrown out on the floor

I've suffered mirror searches
Been probed by drunken bears
I've heard me comrades cry and scream
Then utter useless prayers

Now with the news that's coming in
Our protest must not fail
For now we're joined by thirty girls
In Armagh's women's jail

So pay attention Irishmen
And Irish women too
And show the Free State rulers that
Their silence will not do

Though it's ninety miles from Dublin town
It seems so far away
There's more attention to our plight
In the USA

Now you've heard the story
Of this filthy living hell
Remember ninety miles away
I'm still in an H-Block cell

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Christy Moore wrote Ninety Miles From Dublin after he had visited Brendan McFarlane. The story goes that Brendan McFarlane, who lived on the blanket in the H-Blocks of Her Majesty's Prison Maze, asked Christy Moore to inform the people in the Republic of Ireland about the living conditions of the so-called blanket men.

From the early 1970's until the mid-1990's the people in the Republic of Ireland were rather uninformed about the situation in Northern Ireland because the government maintained a policy of distancing. The general idea was that preventing media access of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (pIRA) and Sinn Féin would benefit the peace process (for some reason Falty Towers "Don't mention the war comes to mind"). To provide a legal base an existing heavy gun was polished and put in place.

By Section 31 of the 1960 Broadcasting Authority Act the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs gained the possibility to direct Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ), or Radio and Television of Ireland, to refrain from broadcasting any particular matter or matter of any particular class, and the Authority shall comply with the direction.. Usually these matters concerned abortion and sexuality related issues. In 1971 however Section 31 was renewed and broadcasting an interview or a statement by spokesmen of a number of organisations, such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (pIRA) and Sinn Féin, was explicitly not allowed.

Disobedience resulted in the dismissal of the whole RTÉ Authority in 1972 and the following management is often accused of overzealously in following the directives. Journalists in the United Kingdom, who were bound by a similar rule, tried to push the envelope by for example dubbing interviews. The audience watched the interviewee but listened to the voice of an actor. Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) on the other hand spontaneously imposed a form of self-censorship that went beyond the scoop of Section 31. Not only spokesmen, but also bands, such as The Wolfe Tones, and songs were banned from the airwaves.

The majority of the press, which was as far as we know not bound by Section 31 or something alike, maintained voluntarily similar reserves in the coverage of Northern Ireland related news.

As a result of Section 31, which was lifted in 1994, and the self-imposed censorship of the media in the Republic of Ireland the people of Dublin had only a vague idea of what was going on ninety miles to the north in the Maze and in Castlereagh Detention Centre.

From this website: HERE

Hope this helps.

B.