Hunger Strike Anniversary

By Martin Galvin (for the Blanket)

News of the protest against criminalization, by Republican political prisoners at Maghaberry, will strike a chord deep within the hearts and memories of many nationalists and Republicans. Twenty -five years ago, ten Irish patriots gave their lives in an unequal battle, resisting a British plan to brand them and their country’s struggle against British rule as criminal. Now, even as we pay homage to the memory of the hunger strikers of 1981, the British appear to be marking the anniversary in their own peculiar fashion, by attempting the same criminalization policy which triggered so much suffering a quarter century ago. Such measures will have undeniable implications for the prisoners, their families, the British government and for those nationalist political parties which have endorsed the Stormont deal.

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