###FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 06.04.2012###
Hunger Strike public debates and exhibition
The Irish Republican Socialist prisoner’s support group, Teach na Failte, are hosting a H-Block Hunger Strikes exhibition and a series of public discussions over a three day period, beginning on Wednesday 11th April and lasting until Friday 13th April, in the Cliftonville Community Centre, Manor Street, Belfast. The public meetings on events surrounding the Hunger Strikes will include guest speakers, Riichard O’Rawe, author of ‘Blanketmen’ and ‘Afterlives’ and former H Block Republican prisoners Willie Gallagher, Gerard Hodgins, John Nixon and others.
Event organiser, former INLA political prisoner and Teach na Failte project worker, Gerry Foster stated, “the 1981 Hunger Strike and the steady trickle of revelations concerning the existence of a ‘deal’ needs to be examined publicly. We invited Danny Morrison and Bik McFarlane to take part in the public meetings on the issues surrounding the Hunger Strikes but they did not bother to even reply. This would have been the perfect opportunity for them to go head to head with Richard O’Rawe or Willie Gallagher on the Hunger Strike deal issue but they have chosen not to participate.”
Gerry continued, “the exhibition itself is not limited to the struggle inside the prisons from 1976-81 but includes exhibits from the campaign outside the gaols led by the likes of the Relatives Action Committees and then the H Block/Armagh Committees, which Irish Republican Socialist Party activists were instrumental in establishing. Many of the IRSP’s most articulate members of the H Block campaigns, such as Ronnie Bunting, Miriam Daly and Noel Little were systematically sought out for extra-judicial execution by pro-British death-squads.”
The first public meeting will take place in Cliftonville Community Centre at 6pm on Wednesday, 11th April, with invited guest speakers Richard O’Rawe, Willie Gallagher and Rab Collins.
The second public meeting will be at 2pm on Thursday 12th, with guest speakers Gerard Hodgins, John Nixon, Tony O’Hara and a former Loyalist H Block prisoner.
The Hunger Strikes exhibition will be open to the public daily from 11am-5pm and from 6pm-9pm.
Everyone is welcome to take part in the public meetings and view the Hunger Strike exhibition.
For further details contact:
Gerry Foster; (028) 90323416 / 07871205565
Or:
Paul Little: 07590384792.
Alex McGuigan,
Chairperson,
Belfast Irish Republican Socialist Party,
Costello House,
392b Falls Road,
Belfast
BT12 6DH
###ENDS###
