Ireland's OWN: Women Freedom Fighters

Mairéad Farrell
—by Míchealín Dhochartaigh

Everyone tells me I’m a feminist. All I know is that I’m just as good as others…and that especially means men. I am definitely a socialist and I’m definitely a Republican. I believe in a united socialist country…definitely socialist. Capitalism can offer our people nothing, and yet that’s the main interest of the British in Ireland." —Mairéad Farrell.

Born in Belfast in 1957, the Republican roots of Mairéad Farrell ran deep. Her grandfather had done battle with the Black and Tans and was imprisoned in 1920.

At age 18, immediately upon leaving school, Mairéad joined the IRA. In 1976, she was arrested and convicted for her part in the bombing of the Conway Hotel in Belfast. Mairéad would be imprisoned first in Armagh and then in Maghaberry Prison.

While in Armagh, Mairéad became the Commanding Officer of all women POWs…a very difficult role to take on. She said, “There’s no real honour in this. I had to make decisions which affected all of the prisoners. There were times when I felt very alone, even though I had the support of all the other prisoners. Yet, regardless of the difficulty, she served her fellow POWs to the absolute best of her ability.

When the male POWs in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh Prison began their hunger strike in 1980, Mairéad led the women POWs in Armagh, including Mairéad Nugent and Mary Doyle, on a hunger strike of their own to show solidarity. On December 18, the Long Kesh the hunger strike was called off when the British government seemed to acquiesce to the POW’s demands. The women called off their strike one day later. This, of course was just another in a long series of British lies to achieve their goals against the Irish Republican Movement. Not one of the demands were met, and so another hunger strike was planned in the H-Blocks.

In March of 1981, Bobby Sands began his hunger strike. One by one, his fellow POWs joined him in trying to force the British Government into granting five demands.

The women of Armagh fully supported the protest by Bobby and the others. In his diary, Bobby wrote:

“I’ve been thinking of Mary Doyle, Ellen McGuigan and all the rest of the women in Armagh. How can I ever forget them?”

Between May 6 and August 20, 1981, 10 POWs, including Bobby Sands, died as the result of their commitment to the hunger strike. The British, then conceded to one demand: the prisoners were allowed to wear their own clothes. Gibraltar Three, Murder on the Rocks - Mural

After the deaths of her fellow patriots, Mairéad devoted her remaining prison time to the study of political science and economics. Finally, in 1986, after ten and one-half years, she was set free.

Upon being accepted into Queens University, Mairéad became active in the political campaign against the strip searching of women in prisons. This led to her attending meetings and conducting lectures all over Ireland.

The end came on March 6, 1988.A meticulously planned ambush by the British Army’s Special Air Services (SAS) in Gibraltar, known as Operation Flavius (or Death On The Rocks) saw the execution of three Oglaigh Na hEireann volunteers — Mairéad Farrell (31), Sean Savage (24), and Danny McCann (30).

One eyewitness testified that when Mairéad and Daniel saw guns pointed at them, they raised their hands in surrender. The SAS opened fire, anyway, finishing off the three volunteers as they lay helpless on the ground. Sean was shot 16 times, Dan five times, and Mairéad eight times.

The European Court of Human Rights was convened in September of 1995 to review the unmerciful killings. It was decided by the court that the Gibraltar Three were unlawfully killed in breach of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was shown that the British Army had once again violated law by using “unreasonable force”.

“I am oppressed as a woman, and I’m also oppressed as an Irish person. Everybody in this country is oppressed, and yet we can only end our oppression as women if we end the oppression of our nation as a whole. But I don’t think that, that alone is enough. This isn’t the first time that women have been seen as secondary. But women today have been through so much that they won’t just let things be. I hope I am still alive when the British are driven out. Then, the struggle begins anew.”— Mairéad Farrell.

See Also Ballad of Mairéad Farrell; and, for more information, visit the following websites:

Death On The Rocks
Stakeknife: He is said to have passed on the details which led to the SAS ambush in Gibraltar in 1988.