ARCHIVES
‘Fuair Seosamh bás.’
Forty years ago today, IRA Volunteer Joe McDonnell became the fifth hunger striker to die in that epic seven-months’ long hunger strike. Joe also stood as an abstentionist candidate in that June’s general election in the South where two H-Block prisoners, Kieran...
The Friendship with Joe
Ciaran Quinn, Sinn Féin's North American representative, reviews Jaz McCann's prison memoir, 6000 Days, which was published earlier this year to widespread acclaim and takes its rightful place in the canon of enduring Irish republican prison writings. It is always a...
Bobby Sands’ Lecture
The Bobby Sands’ annual lecture took place at Áras Uí Chonghaile James Connolly Visitor Centre on the Falls Road in West Belfast on 9 May. Due to Covid restrictions the lecture was delivered in an online broadcast, featuring Bobby's school friend Mary McGinn; and...
Raymond & Patsy Remembered
On this day forty years ago, INLA Volunteer Patsy O’Hara and IRA Volunteer Raymond McCreesh, who had both begun the hunger strike on the same day, died within hours of each other in the prison hospital. Below are two tributes to the men. The first is a tribute by...
Francis Hughes – The Boy From Tamlaghduff
Today marks the fortieth anniversary of the death of Francis Hughes after fifty nine days on hunger strike. Frank, from Bellaghy, South Derry, joined Bobby Sands on hunger strike on 15th March, 1981. Here is a link to a tribute to Francis Hughes, including...
About the Writing of Bobby Sands’ Diary
NVTV's In Focus broadcast this film on Wednesday night, 5 May, the fortieth anniversary of the death of Bobby Sands. The film looks at the the writing of Bobby Sands' prison diary and has readings, including as Gaeilge, from young people, and an interview with Danny...
Bobby Sands – 40th Anniversary
Forty years ago, in the early hours of this morning, Bobby Sands died after sixty-six days on hunger striker. During that time he was elected MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone and his became a household name in Ireland and internationally. Radio stations around the...
Owen Carron recalls 1981
Owen Carron who was Bobby Sands’ election agent in the April 1981 by-election in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, and who after Bobby's death held the seat in a second by-election, speaks here about that incredible period, the seven months of the hunger strike....
VOICES OF ’81
Guthanna Voices of ’81 is a series of broadcasts of interviews about the 1981 hunger strike. So far in the series those recalling the historic prison protest period have included Bik McFarlane, Síle Darragh, Colm Scullion, Mary Nelis, Andrea Connolly, Francie Molloy,...
Blanket Man’s Memoir Third Re-Print
There has been huge interest in Jim 'Jaz' McCann's prison memoir, 6000 Days, which has had to be reprinted to cater for the phenomenal demand. McCann served time on the blanket and knew several of the 1981 hunger strikers about whom he writes intimately and...
