Pat Sheehan
Pat Sheehan (born May 28, 1958 in Belfast , Northern Ireland ) is a Sinn Féin politician in Northern Ireland and a former member of the IRA who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike in Maze Prison .
Sheehan grew up in a mixed, Protestant and Catholic Northern Irish area on Springfield Road in western Belfast. In 1970 his family was threatened and violently attacked by loyalists, after which they moved to Falls Road , an area inhabited by Catholics.
Sheehan joined the Fianna Éireann , a Republican youth organization, at the age of 16 . He was first imprisoned when he was 19. From 1979 he was held in Maze Prison in the H-Blocks, where he took part in the Blanket Protest . According to Sinn Fein weekly An Phoblacht , Sheehan was a quiet person in prison and was beaten by prison guards for his confidence. After Kieran Doherty's death , Sheehan went on a hunger strike on August 10, 1981. He had been on hunger strike for 55 days when it was canceled on October 3, 1981. He then had problems with his eyesight, was completely malnourished and was admitted to a hospital. In 1987 he was released from prison; In 1989, he was sentenced to 24 years in prison for dropping a bomb at a Belfast checkpoint.
In prison he studied philosophy and political science and graduated with a first-class certificate; He was released under the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Sheehan was married to the well-known Republican Siobhán O'Hanlon , a close associate of Gerry Adams , who died in 2006. He has a son with her.
On December 7, 2010, he succeeded Gerry Adams as a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for the constituency of West Belfast . Adams had stepped down to take part in the Irish general election in February 2011 .
Web links
- Pat Sheehan on westbelfastsinnfein.com
- Pat Sheehan picked to succeed Gerry Adams at Stormont on bbc.co.uk, November 16, 2010
Individual evidence
- ↑ Remembering 1981: seventh and eight men die on the fast. . anphoblacht.com
- ↑ a b Noel McAdam: Pat Sheehan: I'm humbled to be following Gerry Adams , belfasttelegraph.co.uk, November 18, 2010
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Sheehan, Pat |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Northern Irish politician of Sinn Féin, member of the IRA and hunger striker |
DATE OF BIRTH | May 28, 1958 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Belfast , Northern Ireland |