#OTD in 2008 – Death of Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes, aged 59.

16/02/2019.Reading time 3 minutes.

As leader of the Belfast brigade of the IRA, Hughes led one of the most effective campaigns seen during the Troubles. But he also endured the worst of the British prison regime at Long Kesh, spending 13 years in jail. Hughes spent 53 days on hunger strike in the famous H-Blocks in 1980, was Officer […]

#OTD in 1885 – Birth of patriot and nationalist, Thomas Ashe, in Lispole, Co Kerry.

12/01/2019.Reading time 6 minutes.

‘If I die, I die in a good cause.’ –Thomas Ashe shortly before his death. Thomas Patrick Ashe was born in Lispole, Co Kerry. He trained as a teacher in De La Salle College, Waterford and worked as a school principal in Lusk, Co Dublin. Ashe also enjoyed writing poetry and was a talented singer. […]

#OTD in 1920 – After 74 days on Hunger Strike in Brixton Prison, England, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney died.

25/10/2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

Following his court-martial in August 1920, Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, greeted his sentence of two years in prison by declaring: ‘I have decided the term of my imprisonment: I shall be free, alive or dead, within a month.’ Four days earlier, British troops had stormed the City Hall in Cork and arrested […]

#OTD in 1920 – Cork IRA volunteer, Michael Fitzgerald, dies following a sixty-seven day hunger strike.

12/10/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

Michael Fitzgerald also known as Mick Fitzgerald, was among the first members of the Irish Republican Army and played an important role in organising it. He rose to the rank of Commandant OC in the 1st Battalion, Cork No.2 Brigade. He died in the 1920 hunger strike at Cork Gaol. His death is credited with […]

#OTD in 1917 – Thomas Ashe dies in the Mater Hospital in Dublin from the combined effects of a hunger strike and forced feeding at Mountjoy Jail.

25/09/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

“You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea… you cannot confine it in the strongest prison cell that your slaves could ever build.” –Sean O’Casey Ashe was born in Lispole, a Gaeltacht village in Co Kerry in 1885 and at an early age became involved in nationalist politics. He joined the Irish […]

#OTD in 1920 – Court-martial of Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork for possession of seditious articles and documents.

16/08/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

‘One armed man cannot resist a multitude, nor one army conquer countless legions; but not all the armies of all the empires of earth can crush the spirit of one true man. And that one man will prevail’. –Terence MacSwiney Lord Mayor, Terence MacSwiney is under court-martial over which Colonel James, Staffordshire Regiment, presided, assembled […]

#OTD in 1918 – Hanna Sheehy Skeffington is recovering, at the Gower Hotel in London, from the effects of her recent hunger strike.

14/08/2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

In a letter to her sister, Mary Kettle, Mrs Sheehy Skeffington stated that while she was still weak, this hunger strike was not as traumatic as those that she had undertaken on behalf of the women’s suffrage movement. Sheehy Skeffington went on hunger strike last week after being arrested on Dublin’s Westmoreland Street. She was […]

#OTD in 1920 – Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, arrested by British; he immediately goes on hunger strike.

12/08/2018.Reading time 2 minutes.

“It’s not those who inflict the most, but those that endure the most, that shall prevail.” –Terence MacSwiney Terence MacSwiney was arrested in Cork for possession of seditious articles and documents, and also possession of a cipher key. He began a hunger strike in protest and was joined by ten other prisoners. IRA officers Liam […]

Brehon Law: The Troscad

11/08/2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

A method of exerting authority, available to all members of Celtic society, was the ritual fast, the troscad. As a legal form of redressing a grievance, this act emerged in the Brehon law system. That it was an ancient ritual can be demonstrated by the fact that it bears almost complete resemblance to the ancient […]

#OTD in 1981 – Death of Kieran Doherty, TD for Monaghan-Cavan, on the 73rd day of his hunger strike in Long Kesh prison.

02/08/2018.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Fuair siad bás ar son Saoirse na hÉireann. Kieran went on hunger-strike on Friday, 22nd May, having put his name forward for it long ago, as undaunted and full of fighting spirit as when he roamed free on the streets of Andersonstown. In June 1981, in the Free State general election, Kieran was elected a […]

Stair na hÉireann/History of Ireland

Tag: Hunger Strike