Top Issue 1-2024

Kieran Doherty TD – Died on 2 August 1981 after 73 days on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh

1 August 2023

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

Death of INLA Volunteer Kevin Lynch – 1 August 1981

31 July 2023

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

National Hunger Strike Commemoration to be held in Cork

26 July 2023

The annual National Hunger Strike Commemoration will be held in Cork City for the first time ever this year on Sunday 27 August. Sinn Féin’s National Commemorations Committee is urging people from all across Ireland to attend this event. Free article

Óglach Gerry Quinn remembered

18 July 2023

Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh remembers Volunteer and former Portlaoise Prison hunger striker Gerry Quinn who died recently. Free article

Henry Joy McCracken - faithful to the last

17 July 2023

17 July is the 225th anniversary of the execution of United Irish leader Henry Joy McCracken. We republish here an article by Aengus Ó Snodaigh first published in 1998. Free article

Martin Hurson — Died on 13 July 1981 after 46 days on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh

12 July 2023

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

Neil ‘Plunkett’ O’Boyle remembered by Irish republicans in Scotland

29 June 2023

“We are the generation who are going to deliver on what Neil ‘Plunkett’ O’Boyle and so many others gave their lives for”. These were the words of Sinn Féin TD for Donegal Pearse Doherty speaking at a centenary dinner in Motherwell commemorating Donegal and Newmains republican Neil ‘Plunkett’ O’Boyle. Free article

Tom Dunn: Rostrevor’s revolutionary hedge school master

9 June 2023

Chris Hazzard and Mick Murphy visited the grave of United Irishman Tom Dunn. Chris gives context to importance of Dunn 225 years since the 1798 rebellion. Free article

“I’ll finish as I started”

7 June 2023

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

Lions in slumber

25 May 2023

On the 225th anniversary of the 1798 rebellion Joe Dwyer delves into an overlooked part of early Irish republican history – that of republicans in Britain and the allies they found there. Free article

The legalised lawlessness of the British Empire

25 May 2023

In the days before the coronation of Charles III, indigenous leaders and other representatives from 12 Commonwealth countries, former British colonies, issued a joint call on the new monarch to formally apologise for British imperial crimes and to make reparations by redistributing the wealth of the British crown and returning artefacts and human remains to their rightful owners. Free article

Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara – Died on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, 21 May 1981

20 May 2023

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

Francis Hughes – Died on 12 May 1981 on hunger strike in the H-Blocks

11 May 2023

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

A journey through the Counter-Revolution

4 May 2023

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

Centenary of the death of Liam Lynch

9 April 2023

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

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