IRA Volunteer Kieran Doherty, TD for Cavan/Monaghan, died at 7:15pm on Sunday 2 August 1981, the day after Kevin Lynch’s death. Kieran had joined the hunger strike one day before Kevin Lynch and survived one day longer. Free article

“The hardest place to be an Irish Republican at that time was in Britain” - Republicans in London and South Derry mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Derek Highsted. Free article

He spent 71 days on hunger strike from 23 May 1981. He died on 1 August 1981. Free article

Film documentary review by Mícheál Mac Donncha – ‘The Day innocence Died - Bloody Sunday and the Fight for Justice’. Directed by Hannan Majid & Richard York. Produced by Hannan Majid, Richard York & Adrian Kerr. Free article

“The prospect of Irish unity is no longer a distant dream. It is an achievable objective. That did not happen by accident. It was built by generations of republicans who refused to surrender hope.” So said Martina Anderson, speaking at the 50th anniversary commemoration of Volunteer Patrick Cannon in Balgriffin Cemetery, Dublin, on 18 July. Free article

THE death of IRA Volunteer Martin Hurson on 13 July 1981, after 46 days on the Hunger Strike, was unexpected. The suddenness of his death, coming only five days after that of Joe McDonnell, came as a shock since two other Hunger Strikers – Kieran Doherty and Kevin Lynch – had been almost a week on hunger strike ahead of Martin. Free article

I have just returned from Washington, where Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald met with congressional members and Irish American and Trade Union leaders. In Congress, we met a cross-section of representatives from all shades of the Republican and Democratic parties. 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

Forty years after the killing of IRA Volunteer Séamus McElwain, former political prisoner, Sinn Féin MLA and republican activist Seán Lynch reflects on the man he knew, the conflict they lived through, and the political path that followed. 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

Sinn Fein MLA Gerry Kelly gave the main oration to a gathering of over 1,000 people in Scotstown, Co. Monaghan, to honour IRA Volunteer Séamus McElwain on the 40th anniversary of his death in a British SAS ambush. Free article

Easter 1976 marked the 60th anniversary of the 1916 Rising with the armed conflict ongoing in the Six Counties while in Dublin the Fine Gael/Labour Coalition government turned its back on both the North and on the heritage of Easter 1916 which it once claimed.

The 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising had seen extensive State commemorations but in 1976 there were none. Sinn Féin... Free article

Gerry Adams remembers Terry 'Cruncher' O’Neill. He was ‘an incomparable singer of Irish songs of resistance’, and ‘a hard-working activist’ who was ‘a huge part of the growth of Sinn Féin in North Belfast following the Good Friday Agreement’. Free article

When six escaped Fenian prisoners in Western Australia climbed on board a whaling ship called the Catalpa in April 1876 it was the culmination of efforts that had spanned two continents, an entire ocean and nearly three years. It is one of the most remarkable stories in the history of Irish Republicanism. Free article

For one hundred years now Irish Republicans have worn the Easter Lily emblem to mark the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising and to pay tribute to all those who died for Irish freedom in every phase of struggle. In 1926 it was the women of Cumann na mBan who initiated what was to become the enduring symbol of Irish Republicanism. Free article