Ógra Shinn Féin Remember Francis Hughes
international |
miscellaneous |
news report 
Friday May 12, 2006 19:45
by Ógra B - Ógra Shinn Féin
Be Like Francis!
Ógra Shinn Féin held a white line vigil in Omagh town centre on Friday 12th May. Ógra activists were there to remember the 25th Anniversary of Francis Hughes.
Francis was the second hunger striker to die in Long Kesh on the 59th Day of his hunger strike, on May 12th 1981.
Francis Hughes began his Hunger Strike a fortnight after the leader of the Hunger Strike, Bobby Sands. Indeed the South Derry prisoner was described by the RUC as their ‘most wanted man’ in the north of Ireland before his capture. After being arrested in a gun battle with the SAS Frances was sentenced to Jail, in Long Kesh. With the escalation of the prison protest in Long Kesh and Armagh womens jail, Frances followed the path of Bobby Sands on Hunger Strike and died on 12th May 1981 at 5.43 p.m.
Speaking on the white line vigil Ógra Shinn Féin spokesperson Barry McNally said “Francis Hughes lived his life to promote the republican cause in Ireland. Today we are proud to remember his sacrifice 25 years on. Of the people here today involved in this vigil only one person was born when Frances Hughes sided. That is a small indication of how the hunger strikers of 1981 inspired another generation of Republican youth to finish the work which the hunger strikers and others died to achieve”
