It was early August 1981 in H Block 3, Long Kesh. I don’t remember the precise date. Nor do I remember how I came into possession of the small, cling film-wrapped comm in my hand, or who gave it to me, but I knew what the comm was about and with my heart in my mouth and shaky hands I unwrapped the tiny letter. It was the most important letter I would ever receive in my life. Free article

Former 'An Phoblacht' journalist Chrissie McAuley remembers the 1981 hunger strike Free article

I was released from Armagh Gaol on 5 August 1981, three days before the death on hunger strike of Thomas McElwee. I left behind some of the bravest and best friends and comrades I have met during my long involvement in republicanism. The years leading up to and after the hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981 will forever be a part of me and what shapes me to this day. Free article

On the 40th anniversary of the elections of Bobby Sands, Kieran Doherty, Paddy Agnew, and Owen Carron, Jim Gibney looks back at the emerging Sinn Féin electoral strategy. Free article

Roy Greenslade looks back at the British media newspaper coverage of the 1981 hunger strike Free article

The 1980 and 1981 hunger-strikes were international events with expressions of support for the republican prisoners carried out around the world. Joe Dwyer looks at how the support for the Hunger Strikers in Britain interacted with the London Marathon, the Brixton Riots, People’s March for Jobs, a Royal Wedding, a Deputy Leadership Contest, and a proposed Papal visit. Free article

The struggle in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh and in Armagh Women’s Prison, culminating in the Hunger Strikes of 1980 and 1981, has produced a library that, 40 years on, continues to grow. This article takes a look at just some of those books and is not intended to be a comprehensive survey but is a personal perspective. Free article

Professor and Co-Director of the Centre for Sustainability, Equality and Climate Action at Queen’s University Belfast, and former Green Party councillor John Barry, writes on the democratic and constitutional challenges of tackling the climate emergency. Free article

The ‘Postcards from the New Republic’ series is a hat tip to British designer, artist, entrepreneur, and socialist William Morris’s News from Nowhere series of articles from 1890 published in the Commonweal, the newspaper of the Socialist League and set in a distant future where Morris’s socialist and romantic utopia has been secured. Our story’s protagonists are Willa Ní Chuairteoir and Lucy Byrne accompanied by their four children James, Afric, Banba, and Alroy who together enjoy and endure the equity and exigency of the future’s New Republic. Free article