Features

‘Ninety Miles from Dublin’: The 1981 hunger strike; what it meant and why it happened.

Liam Cowley explores the factors which contributed to the 1981 hunger strike, and how its impact spread as far as the Middle East.

This year marks the 35th anniversary of the 1981 H-Blocks hunger strike in which ten Irish republicans died. The average age of the dead men was 25, with the youngest two, O’Hara and McElwee, aged 23. In Ireland’s most