On The Shoulders Of Giants . . . 'A Rare Interview With IRA Volunteer Mairéad Farrell'
This month, as part of our On The Shoulders of Giants series, and on the 37th anniversary of the executions of Mairéad Farrell, and her comrades Seán Savage and Daniel McCann in Gibraltar, we repost a rare interview she gave in Springhill Community House in West Belfast shortly before her death.
In the interview, Mairéad speaks about the years of struggle in Armagh and Maghaberry Gaols through the no wash protests, the 1980 and 1981 hunger strikes, the beatings and forced strip-searches, solitary confinement and the constant physical and psychological torture inflicted on her and her comrades by the prison authorities.
Seán Savage, Daniel McCann, and Maireád Farrell.
The killings of Maireád Farrell (31), Seán Savage (24) and Daniel McCann (30) were the first deaths in a bloody two-week period in which a dozen people were killed.
British special forces shot the three unarmed volunteers while they were at a petrol station on Winston Churchill Avenue in Gibraltar. Both McCann and Farrell were shot at the petrol station, while Savage was shot as he attempted to escape. The killings once again brought focus on the British state’s shoot to-kill policy.
A British inquest six months after the killings returned a verdict of l’awful killing’. The Dublin government’s hints at requesting a judicial inquiry or of taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights were quietly dropped after Six County direct ruler, Tom King, signalled Margaret Thatcher’s displeasure at the possibility of such a move.