Hungerstrike Exhibition In Jordanstown University

antrim | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Tuesday April 04, 2006 19:07 by Lappalitis - Ógra Shinn Féin osf6county at yahoo dot com

Onwards in memory of the Ten!

Hundreds of students and staff from the University of Ulster Jordanstown today (Tuesday 4th April) attended a hunger strike exhibition, organised and facilitated by the Ógra Shinn Fein cumann in Jordanstown.

Ógra activists pictured alongside Gerry McConville and Benny Lynch

The exhibition, which was compiled by the National 1981 Hungerstrike committee earlier this year, commemorates the 25th anniversary of the 1981 Hungerstrike which saw the death of 10 Irish Republicans in a protest initiated by Republican prisoners to secure their five demands and political status.

The exhibition has already visited many parts of the country although it is it’s first visit to a University. It details the
biographies of the 10 H-Block Martyrs who died in 1981 as well as Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg who died on Hunger-Strike in the 1970’s.

Belfast Republican and former Blanket-Man, Gerry McConville, was the guest speaker at a special lecture. Gerry spoke about the conditions in the prison during his imprisonment and events which led up to the 1981 Hunger-Strike
which claimed the lives of 10 young men.

He told the large audience that momentum was soon rebuilt when the prisoners demands were met. Within three years of the ending of the strike, Republican prisoners were
effectively commanding the prison structure. Taking full advantage of this, IRA POWs organised a mass escape from Long Kesh in 1983 of 38 IRA volunteers, many of whom had been incarcerated in the prison during the Hungerstrike.

Gerry also refered to the fact that Bobby Sands, had lived in the Rathcoole area, which is just a short distance from the university and described this as very fitting.

Commenting on the event, Jordanstown Ogra Shinn Fein chair, Joe Donnelly said “This is an important event of commemorating the sacrifice of 1981 H Block Martyrs and it has given students, many of whom weren’t even born
in 1981, an opportunity to learn more about that phase of the republican struggle through the photographs, comms and a first hand account from Gerry.”
Joe concluded by saying “ There is a genuine level of interest by the young people about the H Block struggle and also a desire to continue their legacy of concluding the struggle for Irish Freedom.”