Joe McDonnell And Martin Hurson Remembered With Black Flag Vigils In Dublin And Galway
Éirígí For a New Republic marked the 40th anniversaries of the deaths of Joe McDonell and Martin Hurson with black flag vigils in Dublin and Galway on July 8th and 13th, respectively.
In Dublin, Éirígí members and supporters gathered at the Wyckham Way roundabout in Dundrum to pay tribute to McDonnell, the 29 year-old from Belfast who was the fifth of the ten hunger strikers to die during the epic battle against criminalisation.
McDonnell ran for election to Leinster House while on hunger strike, running in the Sligo-Leitrim constituency. He received 5,639 firsts, narrowly missing out on election.
Joe McDonnell remembered in Dundrum on July 8th, 2021
In Galway, more than twenty people gathered in Eyre Square to honour Martin Hurson on the 40th anniversary of his death. The sixth hunger striker to die, the Tyrone native was 24 years-of-age when he passed away after 46 days without food.
Like his comrade McDonnell, Hurson ran in the Twenty-Six County general election while on hunger strike, in the Longford/Westmeath constituency. Receiving almost 4,500 first preference votes, he was only eliminated at the end of the sixth count.
Martin Hurson remembered in Eyre Square, Galway on July 13th
Both men spent most of their adult lives struggling against British imperialism, and for the creation of an all-Ireland Republic built on the ideals of liberty, equality, sovereignty, justice and democracy.
This struggle carried on inside the H-Blocks, culminating in the hunger strikes that lead to the deaths of McDonnell, Hurson, and their comrades Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O’Hara, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Tom McElwee and Mickey Devine.
This week’s Dublin and Galway black flag vigils were the latest events to be organised by Éirígí to honour The Ten in the 40th anniversary year of their deaths. Throughout 2021, Éirígí activists and supporters have been erecting posters and stickers in towns and cities across Ireland and further afield.
Posters of The Ten erected by Éirígí in Lurgan, Co Armagh to mark the 40th anniversary of their deaths
On May 5th, Éirígí held a commemorative vigil on O’Connell Bridge to mark the 40th anniversary of Bobby Sands’ death, as the party has done on every May 5th since 2009.
We will return to O’Connell Bridge for the final major commemorative event of the year – a black flag vigil to mark the 40th anniversary of the death of Mickey Devine, the last of the ten 1981 hunger strikers to die.
Please join us to pay public tribute to Devine and the other nine young men who died on hunger strike during that tumultuous summer of 1981. The vigil will run from 6pm to 7pm, with black flags and images of the The Ten supplied. Bígí linn.
40th anniversary of the death of Bobby Sands marked with black flag vigil on O’Connell Street on May 5th, 2021