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WE WORE THE BLANKET
Laurence McKeown is a former republican prisoner. He spent sixteen years in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, was on the blanket protest for four and a half years, and on the 1981 hunger strike for seventy days. Laurence is currently an author,...
read moreThomas Ashe Commemorations
Many commemorations were held across Ireland to mark the centenary of the death of Thomas Ashe, who died as a result of force-feeding five days into a hunger strike in Mountjoy Jail in 1917. There was a march last Saturday from the GPO in O’Connell Street, Dublin, to...
read moreSeoladh ‘Cín Lae Bobby Sands’
Labhair Séanna Walsh dluth-chara de Bobby mar príomh-chainteoir ag an seoladh leabhair. Sé bliana is tríocha i ndiaidh á scríobh, sheol muid an leabhar beag cumhachtach i gCultúrlann MacAdam Ó Fiach. Tá sé ar fáil anois as Béarla, Francais, Iodálais agus Gailísis le...
read moreSolidarity Letter
The Bobby Sands Trust has sent a letter of solidarity to the Palestinian prisoners currently on hunger strike and to their families, expressing support for their cause and wishing them success in achieving their just demands. These include the right to family visits...
read more3pm, 3rd October 1981
Thirty five years ago today, at 3pm, Pat Sheehan (at that stage the longest on hunger strike and the most critically ill), his comrades, Jackie McMullan, Hugh Carville, John Pickering, Gerard Hodgins and Jim Devine, ended the epic H-Block hunger strike which had...
read more‘H-Block POWs’ in Reading Prison
H-Block themes and hunger striking feature in a new Oscar Wilde exhibition which opened in Reading Prison last Sunday. Artefacts on display acknowledge the Irish struggle for freedom. There are aerial drawings of the H-Blocks of Long Kesh by Rita Donagh, and two...
read moreNo Change, No Deal – Brit Confirmation
The Irish Times this week has quoted from newly released British government papers relating to the 1981 hunger strike which includes an important interview given by Sir John Blelloch to author/historian Padraig O’Malley five years after the deaths of ten Irish...
read moreWriting on the Wall
Stuart Borthwick’s book, The Writing on the Wall: A Visual History of Northern Ireland's Troubles, was given its Belfast launch during Féile an Phobail last week. Danny Devenny, an ex-political prisoner who served time in Cage 11 with Bobby Sands, is a former graphic...
read moreHuge Commemoration in Belfast
The 35th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike was commemorated nationally in a huge march and rally through West Belfast last Sunday. A video report on the parade and speeches can be viewed here. Here are some photographs (courtesy Peadar Whelan) from last Sunday's...
read moreDeath of Father John Murphy
Father John Murphy, who was known affectionately to former political prisoners in the H-Blocks as ‘Silvertop’, ‘Spud’ or ‘Murph’, died last weekend and was buried on Tuesday in St Peter’s graveyard at the Rock Chapel, Stoneyford. Former republican POW Jim Gibney, who...
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