16 July 1998 Edition
Martin Hurson remembered
The seventeenth anniversary of the death of Tyrone hunger striker, Martin Hurson, was commemorated in the village of Cappagh on Monday evening 13 July.
Several hundred Republicans gathered at Galbally Pearse's GAA club to walk to the monument which honours the hunger strikers of 1981, the eight Volunteers murdered at Loughgall in 1987 and all of Tyrone's patriot dead. They were led by a sixteen strong colour party, The Martin Hurson Memorial Flute Band and the recently formed Coalisland-Clonoe Flute Band. A minute's silence was observed on Cappagh's Main Street at the site of O'Boyle's bar where four men were murdered by a pro-British death squad.
At the monument wreaths were laid by the Hurson family, other local families and all sections of the Republican movement in the county.
In his oration Sinn Fein vice president Pat Doherty paid tribute to Tyrone's ``crucial role in the struggle for Irish freedom.''
He added ``Tyrone has always been at the forefront of the struggle for Irish independence and we owe it to those young people who died trying to bring about a united Ireland to do all we can in the coming months and years to further that objective. The tide of history demands that we continue going forward.''
Several hundred Republicans gathered at Galbally Pearse's GAA club to walk to the monument which honours the hunger strikers of 1981, the eight Volunteers murdered at Loughgall in 1987 and all of Tyrone's patriot dead. They were led by a sixteen strong colour party, The Martin Hurson Memorial Flute Band and the recently formed Coalisland-Clonoe Flute Band. A minute's silence was observed on Cappagh's Main Street at the site of O'Boyle's bar where four men were murdered by a pro-British death squad.
At the monument wreaths were laid by the Hurson family, other local families and all sections of the Republican movement in the county.
In his oration Sinn Fein vice president Pat Doherty paid tribute to Tyrone's ``crucial role in the struggle for Irish freedom.''
He added ``Tyrone has always been at the forefront of the struggle for Irish independence and we owe it to those young people who died trying to bring about a united Ireland to do all we can in the coming months and years to further that objective. The tide of history demands that we continue going forward.''