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16 June 2011

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Election wins hammer criminalisation policy

BY JUNE 1981, four prisoners — Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara — had died on hunger strike and four more — Joe McDonnell, Kieran Doherty, Kevin Lynch and Martin Hurson — had joined the fast.
Outside the jails, IRA Volunteers George McBrearty and Charles ‘Pop’ Maguire had been killed in action in an ambush by British forces in Derry City in the last week of May.
Marches, rallies, pickets and other protests multiplied across Ireland and internationally in support of the prisoners’ demands for the restoration of political status.
On June 8th, Thomas McElwee, from Bellaghy, south Derry, joined the Hunger Strike. He was 23 years old.
June 10th saw eight republican prisoners on remand shoot their way to freedom from Belfast’s Crumlin Road Jail, the most heavily guarded prison in Europe.
The political nature of the Hunger Strike was brought home to the Dublin Establishment with nine H-Blocks candidates —eight of them protesting prisoners — standing in the Dáil general election on June 11th. Two of the prisoners — Hunger Striker Kieran Doherty and protesting POW and Blanket man Paddy Agnew, from Dundalk — were to be elected as TDs. Kieran Doherty TD was to die on hunger strike (see opposite page).
An Phoblacht published a special supplement featuring the first 17 days of The Diary of Bobby Sands.
On June 15th, Paddy Quinn, from Belleeks, south Armagh, joined the Hunger Strike. He was 28 years old.
On June 22nd, Michael Devine, from the Creggan, Derry City, joined the Hunger Strike. He was 27 years old.
On June 29th, Laurence McKeown, from Randalstown, County Antrim, joined the Hunger Strike. He was 24 years old.
Margaret Thatcher’s Westminster Government, seething at the worldwide humiliation of her criminalisation policy by the election or IRA Volunteer Bobby Sands as the Member of Parliament for Fermanagh/South Tyrone, pushed through legislation barring prisoner candidates from standing in the future. Republicans were not to be defeated so easily, though, and Bobby’s election agent, Owen Carron, was mooted as the candidate for the by-election.
Elections were continuing to be an unfolding and important area of struggle.

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