Between 1976 and 1981 the prisons in the Six Counties became front lines in the struggle for Irish freedom with an intensity and for a duration never seen before in Irish history. This stemmed from the attempt begun 50 years ago by the British government to brand Irish Republicans prisoners as criminals. Free article

Gerard Shannon, author of the first ever biography of Rory O'Connor, speaks to An Phoblacht's Mícheál Mac Donncha. Best remembered for his execution by the Free State government with Liam Mellows, Joe McKelvey and Richard Barrett on 8 December 1922, Rory O'Connor was a key member of the IRA leadership from 1917 on, though mostly out of the public eye. Free article

Derrin Ó Brádaigh tracks the links between Frank Stagg’s hunger strike 50 years ago and the Palestinian activists who spent 73 days on hunger strike this year. Free article

Irish Republican Frank Stagg was in a battle for his rights and against brutal English prison conditions from the day of his arrest in Coventry in 1973 until the hour he died in Wakefield Prison on 12th February 1976. His death after 62 days on hunger strike had been preceded by efforts in Ireland and Britain by campaigners, including his family, to win his demands and to save his life. Free article

50 years ago this week Proinsias (Frank) Stagg was on the last days of his hunger strike. His protest was to demand an end to the inhuman treatment to which he had been subjected as an Irish Republican prisoner in English jails, and for repatriation to a jail in the Six Counties. His family and comrades had campaigned tirelessly for him but the British Labour government proved totally intransigent. Frank came from a Republican family in County Mayo and his elder brother Joe was foremost in the campaign. Here we republish an article by Joe first published in ‘The Irish Prisoner’ by the Prisoners’ Aid Committee in 1977.  Joe Stagg died in November 2015.  Free article

Eoghan Mac Cormaic spoke at the annual Seán Sabhat Commemoration this year. Below we include his full oration, where he saluted ‘the selfless bravery’ of volunteers in the 1950s who were a bridge in revolutionary struggle. Free article

Veteran activist, Volunteer and republican prisoner Ronnie McCartney died recently. Danny Morrison gave the funeral oration, and we publish the whole text here. Free article

Justice for the Forgotten, which represents the bereaved and the survivors of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of May 1974 and other fatal attacks in the period, has disputed the claim in the Operation Denton report that the UVF was capable on its own of carrying out the three co-ordinated Dublin car-bomb attacks which killed 27 people. Free article

As the year 1925 drew to a close there was anticipation in Ireland about the imminent outcome of the Boundary Commission established under the Treaty. Free article

THOMAS DAVIS was one of the most significant Irish nationalists of the 19th century. His writings helped to shape Irish nationalism itself and they exercised a key influence on the cultural and political revival of the early 20th century. Free article

The grave of an Irish Republican who died in prison in England in 1977 was marked with a new headstone in Glasnevin Cemetery on 7 September by the National Graves Association. Free article

Thomas McElwee, at the age of 23, was the tenth man to join the 1981 Hunger Strike. From Bellaghy in south Derry, he was imprisoned in 1976 after a premature bomb explosion in which he lost an eye. Free article

On the 250th anniversary of the birth of Daniel O’Connell we republish this article which was first published in August 2019. Free article

On the 50th anniversary of the Miami Showband massacre we re-publish this article by the late Ella O’Dwyer, first published in 2007. Free article

An historic statement was issued by Óglaigh na hÉireann, the Irish Republican Army on Thursday 28 July 2005. It brought an end to the IRA’s armed campaign and opened a new phase in the Republican struggle. Free article