Habitus, the Writings of Irish Hunger Strikers and Elias's 'The Loneliness of the Dying'

Abstract

Elias maintained that over the course of several centuries death has become associated with greater shame and embarrassment feelings due mainly to four interwoven processes. In this paper we consider how these specific processes or ‘special conditions’ Elias referred to, in conjunction with other processes, shaped the experience of dying and the image of death for twentieth century Irish hunger strikers.