The last hunger-striker to die was Michael Devine, a member of the INLA and a convinced socialist. David Beresford described his final hours as follows: Father Pat Buckley took Mass in the hospital and went in to see Mickey, who had been too ill to make it. There was an awful smell – almost cancerous of the eating away of flesh mainly from his mouth, but so pervasive that his whole body seemed to be breathing it. Mickey confessed that he was scared, afraid to die. Buckley asked him why he was afraid – he was a free agent; if he was not happy he did not have to do it. Mickey said he felt it was
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