Dónal Donnelly, from Omagh, was sentenced to ten years for membership of the IRA in 1957, during the Border Campaign. However, three years into his sentence, using hacksaw blades, torn sheets and electric flex, and running a gauntlet of searchlights, alarms and...

“This grand little book was devoured, from cover to cover, in one sitting,” writes veteran republican Gerry O’Hare, “such was the quality of the writer’s skill in weaving us through the story of the graffiti, pictures and history within the grim, grey walls of...

Gerry Kelly, the former IRA hunger striker, escapee and currently the Sinn Féin MLA for North Belfast, was arrested in England in March 1973 and sentenced to two life sentences and twenty years. He and three of his comrades went on hunger strike seeking repatriation...

Former republican prisoner Gerry O’Hare reviews the monumental study on Irish political prisoners (1848-1922) by Professor Sean McConville which covers the period of the imprisonment of O’Donovan Rossa, Tom Clarke and Roger Casement. McConville shows how punishment...

We would like to apologise for the delay in updates in the past week or two. Due to serious computer problems and glitches we have not have access to emails and postings. We are still experiencing some problem which we hope to have completely sorted out over the...

The comms of Bobby Sands and others, smuggled out of the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, particularly during the hunger strike, are now world famous, writes Gerry O'Hare. Far less well-known is that a republican prisoner, as long ago as the 1950s, had written a prison diary,...

The Connolly Foundation, Scotland’s Irish charity has just launched its new website: see here. The site offers information about Connolly and the activities and charitable purposes of The Connolly Foundation. The republican leader and political prisoner, James...

Lisnaskea barracks in Fermanagh (see photograph) was just one of many attacks carried out by the IRA during its 1956-62 border campaign. Veteran republican Gerry O’Hare reviews a new book about this campaign, ‘Operation Harvest’, by Belfast author Barry Flynn. Like...

Edinburgh-based singer songwriter David Heavenor has written a song about Bobby Sands on his new CD. Heavenor says: “Sometimes ideas and subjects for songs seem to come from nowhere. I’d always had this idea about ‘Bobby in the Wire, Bobby in the War’ and it turned...

Veteran republican Gerry O’Hare did time, both as an internee and a sentenced prisoner, in Crumlin Road Jail between 1971 and 1973.  He also served sentences in Long Kesh, Mountjoy Jail and Portlaoise Jail. Here he reviews ‘The Crum’ by Patrick Greg. I have never read...