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16 June 2011

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Dublin South Central honours Hughie Byrne

HUGHIE BYRNE, a republican from Crumlin in Dublin and a delivery driver with An Phoblacht for over 18 years, is the honouree at this year’s Dublin South Central Sinn Féin Dinner Dance on June 17th.
In June 2007, Hughie retired as a driver with An Phoblacht for over 18 years. He was a familiar face at 58 Parnell Square and around the country where he delivered the then weekly An Phoblacht.
His cheerfulness shone through the dark days of conflict and Hughie was committed to getting the republican message out through An Phoblacht when there was state censorship of TV and radio and anti-republican bias in the Establishment print media, the mainstay of people’s information.
Looking back over two decades, Hughie says:
“In the early days, An Phoblacht was produced manually and the staff would be up all night working until the early hours of the next morning.
“In those days too, all the Phoblacht staff were subjected to regular harassment from the Garda or RUC Special Branch and you’d need a bit of savvy to get the paper out at all.”
Raised in Fenian Street in central Dublin until the age of seven, Hughie’s family then moved to Fatima Mansions in Rialto, an area once heavily afflicted with Dublin’s drug problems. Eventually, Hughie and his wife May, also a republican, and his seven children got a Corporation house in Crumlin. So what got Hughie Byrne interested in republicanism?
“When I saw what was going on at the start of ‘The Troubles’ in 1969 I got interested. Then there was Bloody Sunday and the riots. But down here you weren’t getting information. There wouldn’t be much in the papers about what was going on, just comments like ‘a bomb went off’ here or there. That was up until 1979 when a couple of lads came into the pub where I used to drink. They were selling An Phoblacht. I bought it, and filled out the application form in the paper to join Sinn Féin and gave it to the lads the next week. On the following Monday night I had a caller and that was it. The Frank Stagg Sinn Féin Cumann was being set up in the Liberties and I joined.
“My mother was republican but what really inspired me was meeting the former Blanket Man Kieran Nugent in 1980, just after his release from prison. I really admired Kieran because he had been on the No-Wash and Blanket Protests. He was talking about it all and I was really touched. He made a big impression because he went out on his own and started the protest.”
After joining Sinn Féin Hughie spent the following years going to cumann meetings, participating in anti-H-Block marches, anti-drugs protests, selling ‘the paper’ and doing collections . Then he became a driver for An Phoblacht.
“My friend, Rose Dugdale, said they needed a driver. It was a commitment I took on and I fulfilled it to the best of my ability.”
Asked if he’d do it all over again, Hughie said:
“Yes. I feel I achieved something and have made some great friends.”
That is why his many friends and comrades throughout Dublin South Central have chosen Hughie as this year’s honouree for the constituency’s Annual Sinn Féin Dinner Dance, a warm, dedicated, true and unrelenting republican activist through and through.

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