At a recent lecture on Ernie O’Malley by the historian and Sinn Féin Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha, I was chatting with Belinda Nugent from the O’Malley/Russell Cumann and I mentioned that my Granda Michael Smyth knew Ernie O’Malley and was instrumental in his famous escape from Kilmainham Gaol in 1921 along with Simon Donnelly and Frank Teeling. Free article

THURSDAY, 21 MAY 1981, witnessed the deaths of two more Hunger Strikers. Raymond McCreesh passed away at 2:30am. That evening, Patsy O’Hara died. The deaths of Raymond and Patsy – who had started the strike on the same day, died on the same day and were born within a fortnight of each other in February 1957 – marked a critical escalation in the prison struggle as well as the struggle outside the prisons walls. Free article

The death of Francis Hughes at the age of 25 on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh saw not the end of a legend but a new chapter in what was, by any measure, the story of one of the most fearless and tenacious guerrilla fighters of the 20th Century and of the Irish Republican Army. Free article

On Saturday 29 April, eve of the centenary of the 1923 IRA ceasefire, Sinn Féin in Ennis, County Clare, unveiled a refurbished plaque to three Volunteers executed in the Free State barracks 100 years ago, some of the final Civil War executions. Speaking at the event Mícheál Mac Donncha looked back at the Counter-Revolution and how its centenary has been marked. This article is based on that address. Free article

Liam Lynch died around 8.45pm on the evening of 10 April 1923, 100 years ago. His death signalled the end of the war and moves were made soon after to conclude that phase of the IRA’s campaign. Free article

Pádraic Wilson was the Officer Commanding Republican Prisoners in the H-Blocks from 1996 to 1999. Here he writes of the key events within the prisons in the months before and after the Good Friday Agreement. Free article

Former Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams takes us inside the last hours of the talks that culminated in the Good Friday Agreement. Free article

November 1922 saw a general sweep by Free Staters through Donegal in an effort to end Republican opposition in the county. This sweep was successful in that it captured the vast bulk of Volunteers operating in the county or forced them to go on the run in other counties. Free article

By the beginning of March 1923 the Civil War had taken a terrible toll across Ireland and worse was yet to come, especially in County Kerry. The war was intense there, with fierce fighting and many casualties between the strongly anti-Treaty Kerry IRA and the Free State forces that had invaded by sea at Fenit and captured Tralee the previous August. Free article

Eoin Ó Broin TD will launch a new book produced by Galway Sinn Féin on the county’s republican Roll of Honour. The launch will take place in Club Áras na nGael, Galway City, on Monday, February 20 next at 7pm. Free article

Brendan Behan was born of republican parents Stephen Behan and Kathleen Kearney on 9 February 1923, in Holles Street Hospital, Dublin. The Civil War was at its height and Stephen was an IRA prisoner in Kilmainham Jail. Brendan's association with Irish republicanism, though chequered, was to last his lifetime. Free article

Sinn Féin figures from across Ireland, including former Party President Gerry Adams and former Cavan/Monaghan TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, joined hundreds of republicans from across the island to honour and remember Óglach Henry ‘Hensey’ McKenna. Free article

One hundred years ago, the Liverpool-born IRA Volunteer, George King was fatally wounded by Free State forces. On his centenary weekend, Irish republicans from across Ireland and Britain gathered in Liverpool to commemorate his life and sacrifice. Free article

Lifelong republican Óglach John Joe Donnelly died on 15 January. Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly gave the funeral oration at Aughamullan and Brocagh in Tyrone. Free article

Generations of republicans from across Ireland gathered in December for the funeral of veteran republican Tommy Devereux. The graveside oration was delivered by Martin Ferris. Free article