‘They were the stuff of which Irish martyrs could be made: two young, slim, dark girls, devout yet dedicated to terrorism,’ Jenkins later recalled. He feared that the ramifications of ‘the death of these charismatic colleens’ would be incalculable. Privately, Jenkins regarded their demand for repatriation to be ‘not totally unreasonable’. But he felt that the government could not appear to be making any concessions under such duress. Terrorism was a ‘contagion’, Jenkins believed. Bending to the demands of the hunger strikers would only validate their methods and encourage others to adopt them.
