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hunger strikes

Looking Back at the Hunger Strike

By Patrick Farrelly

May 1991

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He has chosen death: Refusing to eat or drink, that he may bring Disgrace upon me; for there is a custom, An old and foolish custom, that it a man Be wronged, or think that he is wronged, and starve Upon another's threshold till he die, The Common People, for all time to come, Will raise a heavy cry against that threshold, Even though it be the King's. From The King's Threshold … [Read more...] about Looking Back at the Hunger Strike

Remembering Bobby Sands and the Nine Other Men Who Died on Hunger Strike

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On May 5, 1981, after 66 days on hunger strike, republican prisoner Bobby Sands died in the H-Block prison hospital at Long Kesh. By the time the prison hunger strike ended on October 3, 1981, 10 young men had starved themselves to death. The hunger strike was a last effort by the inmates to be recognized as political prisoners. The protest had started in 1976, when the … [Read more...] about Remembering Bobby Sands and the Nine Other Men Who Died on Hunger Strike

Endgame: The Road to
Peace in Northern Ireland

By Siobhán Tracey, Contributor
October / November 2002

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"This is the first time the inside story of the Irish peace process has been told by so many of the major politicians and paramilitary leaders who helped shape it." – WGBH executive producer Zvi Dor-Ner ℘℘℘ Endgame in Ireland, a four-hour PBS special documenting the hard-fought road to peace in Northern Ireland from the onset of The Troubles in the late 1960s to the IRA … [Read more...] about Endgame: The Road to
Peace in Northern Ireland

New York Remembers
Bobby Sands

By Irish America Staff
April / May 2001

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Plans to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the death of hunger striker Bobby Sands on May 5 in New York, have Unionists hot under the collar. The Irish papers reported that Gerald Kelly, the Belfast painter who together with other artists will create a mural to Sands, had been given a $75,000 grant from the City of New York. Sammy Wilson, the Democratic Unionist Lord … [Read more...] about New York Remembers
Bobby Sands

Fionnula Flanagan: Up Close and Personal

By Patricia Harty, Editor-in-Chief
January / February 1997

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Actress Fionnula Flanagan is a beautiful woman who is not afraid to ditch the glamour if the role demands it Audiences who remember her as the green-eyed, sultry redhead in the TV series Rich Man Poor Man for which she won an Emmy, and How the West Was Won, might have a hard time recognizing her in Some Mother's Son. Flanagan's opening shot shows her wearing no makeup, her hair … [Read more...] about Fionnula Flanagan: Up Close and Personal