PADDY O’HANLON , who has died aged 64, was a civil rights activist, a founder member of Northern Ireland’s Social Democratic and Labour Party, and the party’s chief whip during the ill-fated powersharing administration at Stormont in the 1970s.
By Ashleigh McDonald – Originally Published: Irish News 25 August 2008 A MEMORIAL stone to commemorate the first ever civil rights march in Northern Ireland was unveiled this weekend in the centre of Coalisland. Around 300 people attended the unveiling, which took place in the Co Tyrone town on Saturday afternoon. Yesterday marked the 40th … Read more
Click photo to enlarge Dr. Conn and Mrs. Patricia McCluskey of Dungannon, Co. Tyrone, were founders of the Campaign for Social Justice in N. Ireland. After extensive lobbying, in Tyrone and other counties, and despite several disappointments it was launched at a press conference in the Wellington Park Hotel, Belfast on 14 January 1964. It … Read more
The hundreds of people who attended Rebecca McGlade’s funeral last Sunday was testimony to the love and respect she had built up during her life. Rebecca was a Republican in the truest sense of the word and she was fiercely proud of her beliefs. Her republicanism was that of Wolfe Tone and she spent her … Read more
Please click on an image to view the large version… Cathy Harkin died on 22nd July, 1985 On her headstone are the words: “It was as brief as it was difficult.” Though the words were placed by Cathy in memory of her greatly loved mother, no words could better sum up Cathy’s own life. Cathy … Read more
Opinion by Austin Currie Irish News 14/03/06 A tribute to Gerry Fitt, delivered by Austin Currie at a Memorial Service last Friday at Belfast City Hall Gerry Fitts contribution to public life must, of course, be assessed in the context of the political conditions of his time. When Gerry was first elected to Belfast Corporation … Read more
By Eamonn McCann – Author “War & an Irish Town” et al. The obituary cliche that “He didn’t suffer fools gladly” was never more apt than for John McGuffin, which occasionally presented him with problems of an inter-personal nature, since McGuffin tended to regard a remarkably wide section of the earth’s population as fools. Anybody … Read more
Originally Published – Derry Journal, Tuesday 31st July, 2007 Ninety-nine-year-old Mary Ellen O’Doherty [nee Hegarty] described by prominent civil rights leaders as the”mother” of the movement – was laid to rest recently in Derry. Mrs. O’Doherty died peacefully at Altnagelvin Hospital, on June 16th, after a short illness, comforted by all her children, and son-in-law, … Read more
IT WAS with profound shock and sadness that the people of the Bogside district, and much further afield, learnt of the death of Mr. Vincent Coyle. He was a self-professed socialist, who became one of the best known and extremely popular figures of the civil rights movement from the mid-1960s’, including and beyond the tragic … Read more
Originally Published – Unity, 9th February 1991 MADGE DAVISON, Communist, feminist, activist and ardent Civil Rights campaigner died on Sunday 27 January 1991 at the tragically early age of 41. At her funeral the following Wednesday, the many people from all walks of life, who in her friend Anne Hope’s words came “to celebrate Madge’s … Read more