Former republican prisoner Jim Gibney here reviews and praises a new book about the struggle waged by Irish prisoners incarcerated in British jails throughout the recent conflict: When the Balcombe Street men walked into the 1998 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, they were...

A print bearing a quote from Bobby Sands was unveiled in Belfast City Hall last Thursday, 8th December, by the former IRA leader of the blanket men, Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane. The print is a copy of a canvass painted by muralist and former republican POW Gerry ‘Mo...

Hugh Doherty is a former IRA POW who was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment after his and his comrades’ arrest in London in 1975. Now a successful artist, samples of Hugh’s works are currently being exhibited in the new Culturlann gallery on the Falls Road. In this...

Dozens of books have been written about the political fall-out from the 1981 H-Block hunger-strike and Margaret Thatcher’s criminalization policy that preceded it. Several have been written from the perspective of the prisoners and hunger-strikers themselves. A...

  Jim Gibney writes about a unique reunion of former prisoners – those who took part in the protest for political status in Armagh Jail and the H-Blocks between 1976 and 1981: There have been many episodes in the conflict over the last fifty years when republicans...

Veteran republican Gerry O’Hare reviews former POW Síle Darragh’s memoir of life for imprisoned women during the struggle for political status: It is a grey hulk so familiar to us all.  Armagh Women’s Gaol.  The very name is redolent of another age. But, it has to be...

The BBC has produced a website dedicated to the story of the protest for political status, including the blanket protest and the two hunger strikes, involving footage that has been rarely seen. Five short videos are used to illustrate the atmosphere between 1976 and...

Former hunger striker Laurence McKeown, in a powerful analysis of 1981, writes of the legacy of that historic period, how it informs today’s struggle for freedom and independence and how republicans and unionists can attempt to come to terms with the past. Laurence...

                      Síle Darragh was the IRA O/C in Armagh Gaol during the hunger strike in 1980 and until her release in 1981. Earlier this month her book about her time in jail during the protest for political status was launched during Féile an Phobail in West...

Thousands of republicans from across Ireland and many overseas supporters marched through Camlough last Sunday, in the national commemoration to honour the 1981 hunger strikers and Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg who had died on hunger strike in English jails in 1974...