Joe O'Connell (Irish Republican)
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Joe O'Connell (Irish Republican)
Martin Joseph O'Connell (born 1951), better known as Joe, is an Irish republican and a former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). He is most noted for having been a member of the Balcombe Street gang. Early life and IRA career O'Connell was born in Kilkee, in rural County Clare, 'a stronghold of Gaelic-speaking inhabitants and old-guard IRA sympathisers', to a farming family. He was scholastically gifted, doing well at Querrin National School, and eventually went to work for Marconi in Cork as a radio operator and electronics trainee; this experience and training in electronics made him a skilled bomb-maker when recruited in 1973 by Brian Keenan. Keenan was then IRA Quartermaster General and in charge of the England Department, responsible for the latest campaign in Britain, and specifically London. O'Connell lived for a time in Lower Market Street in Ennis, sharing a flat with a future member of the same Active Service Unit (ASU), Harry Duggan. Irish rep ...
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Kilkee
Kilkee () is a small coastal town in County Clare, Ireland. It is in the parish of Kilkee, formerly Kilfearagh. Kilkee is midway between Kilrush and Doonbeg on the N67 road. The town is popular as a seaside resort. The horseshoe bay is protected from the Atlantic Ocean by the Duggerna Reef. History During the early part of the 19th century, Kilkee was just a small fishing village but in the 1820s when a paddle steamer service from Limerick to Kilrush was launched, it began to attract visitors. It has been a resort since then and was featured on the front page of ''The Illustrated London News'' as the premier bathing spot in what was then the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Gradually the town grew as the demand for holiday homes by the sea increased, resulting in a building boom in the 1830s. As demand for lodgings in Kilkee grew, several hotels were built. Along with these, three churches were built, a Roman Catholic church in 1831, a Protestant church in 184 ...
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Heathrow
Heathrow Airport (), called ''London Airport'' until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow , is a major international airport in London, England. It is the largest of the six international airports in the London airport system (the others being Gatwick, City, Luton, Stansted and Southend). The airport facility is owned and operated by Heathrow Airport Holdings. In 2021, it was the seventh-busiest airport in the world by international passenger traffic and eighth-busiest in Europe by total passenger traffic. Heathrow was founded as a small airfield in 1929 but was developed into a much larger airport after World War II. The airport lies west of Central London on a site that covers . It was gradually expanded over seventy-five years and now has two parallel east-west runways, four operational passengers terminals and one cargo terminal. The airport is the primary hub for both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. Location Heathrow is west of central London. It is located ...
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Liam Quinn
William Joseph Quinn, known as Liam Quinn, (born 1949) is a United States-born former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army who shot dead Stephen Tibble, an off-duty police officer, in London on 26 February 1975. Tibble saw Quinn fleeing from the police after he had been noticed acting suspiciously near a house in which Quinn and members of the Balcombe Street Gang were later found to have been preparing bombs. Tibble chased Quinn on his motorbike and, while attempting to stop him, was fatally shot twice in the chest. Extradition Quinn escaped to Dublin in the aftermath of the shooting and served a short prison sentence after his arrest for assaulting a police officer there. After his release in 1978 he returned to his hometown of San Francisco but was arrested in 1981 and later extradited to England in February 1988 where he was convicted of murder and jailed for life with a recommended minimum term of 35 years. Quinn served 11 years before he was released in Apr ...
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Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African Internal resistance to apartheid, anti-apartheid activist who served as the President of South Africa, first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a Universal suffrage, fully representative democratic election. Presidency of Nelson Mandela, His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial Conflict resolution, reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialism, socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. A Xhosa people, Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu people, Thembu royal family in Mvezo, Union of South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African ...
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Ardfheis
or ''ardfheis'' ( , ; "high assembly"; plural ''ardfheiseanna'') is the name used by many Irish political parties for their annual party conference. The term was first used by Conradh na Gaeilge, the Irish language cultural organisation, for its annual convention. Usage Among the parties who use the term ''Ardfheis'' are: *Fine Gael *Fianna Fáil *Sinn Féin *Éirígí *Green Party * Republican Sinn Féin * National Party * Workers' Party *Aontú In Northern Ireland, the term is not used by the Social Democratic and Labour Party, or by those parties which are not Irish nationalist in outlook, such as the Alliance Party, Ulster Unionist Party and the Democratic Unionist Party. In the Republic of Ireland, the Labour Party, Communist Party, Solidarity–People Before Profit and the Social Democrats do not use the term ''ardfheis''. ''Ard chomhairle'' Many political parties who use the term ''ardfheis'', also use the term ''ard chomhairle'' which means ''national executive ...
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Gerry Adams
Gerard Adams ( ga, Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh; born 6 October 1948) is an Irish republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin between 13 November 1983 and 10 February 2018, and served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for Louth from 2011 to 2020. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he followed the policy of abstentionism as a Member of Parliament (MP) of the British Parliament for the Belfast West constituency. Adams first became involved in Irish republicanism in the late 1960s, and had been an established figure in Irish activism for more than a decade before his 1983 election to Parliament. In 1984, Adams was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt by several gunmen from the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), including John Gregg. From the late 1980s onwards, he was an important figure in the Northern Ireland peace process, entering into talks initially with Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume and then subsequently with the Irish and Britis ...
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Portlaoise Prison
Portlaoise Prison ( ga, Príosún Phort Laoise) is a maximum security prison in Portlaoise, County Laois, Ireland. Until 1929 it was called the Maryborough Gaol. It should not be confused with the Midlands Prison, which is a newer, medium security prison directly beside it; or with Dunamaise Arts Centre, which was the original Maryborough Gaol built . Portlaoise Prison was built in the 1830s, making it one of the oldest still operating today in the Irish prison system. It is the prison in which people convicted of membership of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other illegal paramilitary and designated terrorist organisations are usually detained. A number of IRA and dissident republican prisoners are housed in "E Block". Anyone charged under Section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act must be sent to the prison because of its unique security measures. Soldiers from the Irish Army patrol Portlaoise Prison on a permanent basis. Security Soldiers guard the ...
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Whole Life Tariff
In England and Wales, life imprisonment is a sentence that lasts until the death of the prisoner, although in most cases the prisoner will be eligible for early release after a minimum term set by the judge. In exceptional cases, however, a judge may impose a "whole life order", meaning that the offender is never considered for parole, although they may still be released on compassionate grounds at the discretion of the Home Secretary. Whole life orders are usually imposed for aggravated murder, and can only be imposed where the offender was at least 21 years old at the time of the offence being committed. Until 1957, the mandatory penalty for all adults convicted of murder was death by hanging. The Homicide Act of that year limited the circumstances in which murderers could be executed, mandating life imprisonment in all other cases. The death penalty for murder was suspended for five years by the 1965 Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act and was abolished in 1969 (1973 ...
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Life Sentences
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for which, in some countries, a person could receive this sentence include murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, drug trafficking, drug possession, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, aggravated criminal damage, arson, kidnapping, burglary, and robbery, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or any three felonies in case of three-strikes law. Life imprisonment (as a maximum term) can also be imposed, in certain countries, for traffic offences causing death. Life imprisonment is not used in all countries; Portugal was the first country to abolish life imprisonment, in 1884. Where life imprisonment is a possible sentence, there ...
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Balcombe Street Siege
The Balcombe Street siege was an incident involving members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and London's Metropolitan Police lasting from 6 to 12 December 1975. The siege ended with the surrender of the four IRA members and the release of their two hostages. The events were televised and watched by millions. Background In 1974 and 1975, London was subjected to an intense 14-month campaign of gun and bomb attacks by the Provisional IRA. In one incident the ''Guinness Book of Records'' co-founder and conservative political activist Ross McWhirter was assassinated; he had offered a £50,000 reward to anyone willing to inform the security forces of IRA activity.1975: Balcombe Street siege ends
BBC News "On this day": 12 December 1975
The four members of what be ...
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Harrow School
(The Faithful Dispensation of the Gifts of God) , established = (Royal Charter) , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head Master , head = Alastair Land , r_head_label = , r_head = , chair_label = Chairman of the Governors , chair = J P Batting , founder = John Lyon of Preston , specialist = , address = 5 High Street, Harrow on the Hill , city = London Borough of Harrow , county = London , country = England , postcode = HA1 3HP , local_authority = , urn = 102245 , ofsted = , staff = ~200 (full-time) , e ...
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