THIS WEEK is particularly poignant in two ways: as we mark the 29th anniversary of the death on hunger strike of Bobby Sands MP in Long Kesh on May 5th 1981 against the criminalistaion of Irish political prisoners, voters across the Six Counties go to the polls again, and once more especially in Fermanagh & South Tyrone, where Bobby was returned as 'The People's MP'. Nine of Bobby's comrades were to lose their lives alongside him in their struggle in the H-Blocks against the British Conservative Government's attempted criminalistaion of Ireland's struggle. Free article

GREECE is in trouble. On May 19th, the government has to pay an €8.5 billion bill for money borrowed on the private markets 10 years ago. But the Greek Government is broke and can't borrow any more from the private sector to pay its debts. It runs the risk of being the first developed capitalist economy to default on its debts in the current crisis. Free article

SINN FÉIN MLA Francie Molloy was Director of Elections for Bobby Sands in the historic 1981 by-election in the constituency then known as Fermanagh/South Tyrone. He spoke to An Phoblacht's ARAN FOLEY about the election campaign Free article

ARMAGH JAIL, like Long Kesh, is closed. Unlike the Kesh, though, there are no plans to maintain any part of it for future posterity, which made it all the more important that some of the first republican political prisoners got a chance to visit the prison before the key was turned for the last time. Free article

AND so the anti-democratic and reactionary politics of the Honduran elite have begun to bear their predictable fruit. Isolated within Latin America since the 2009 coup, the country is on a downward economic trajectory and social tensions are escalating. Free article

Book review The Unknown Commandant - The Life and Times of Denis Barry By Denis Barry Published by Collins Press. REVIEWED BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA Free article

THÁINIG an imirce ón tír suas i gcomhrá againn anseo an tseachtain seo nó tá buíon daltaí scoile ar chuairt sa cheantar ón Bhriotáin ar thóir 'cultúr' na hÉireann. "Tá leabhar agam duit ón Bhriotáin" arsa duine de na múinteoirí, 'bronntanas a chuirfidh tú spéis ann, is dócha". Bhí leabhar aige a d'fhoilsigh Briotánach agus Éireannach, Alain le Noac'h agus Éamon Ó Ciosáin, dar theideal Immigrés Irlandais au XVIIe Siècle en Bretagne (Iwerzhoniz o tivroañ e Breizh (XVII vet kantved). Free article

BOBBY SANDS was the most prolific writer of the republican prisoners in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh during the Blanket Protest which lasted from 1976 until 1981. He was in prison for most of that time, being arrested in October 1976 and sentenced in September 1977. During his earlier term as a political prisoner, from 1973 until April 1976, Bobby was in 'the Cages' of Long Kesh where he and his comrades had special category status, effectively prisoner-of-war conditions. It was the British Government's decision to end this status for people sentenced from March 1st 1976, in a bid to brand IRA prisoners as criminals, that led to the tragedy of the H-Blocks which would take the life of Bobby and nine of his comrades. Free article