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Kieran Nugent
Kieran Nugent (1958 – 4 May 2000) was an Irish volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and best known for being the first IRA 'blanket man' in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. When sentenced to three years for hijacking a bus, Nugent refused to wear a prison uniform and said the prison guards would have to "...nail it to my back". Early life Nugent was an adolescent in Northern Ireland during the most intense years of the Troubles. On 20 March 1973, aged 15, he was standing with a friend on the corner of Merrion Street and Grosvenor Road, when a car pulled up beside them and one of the occupants asked them for directions. Another occupant of the vehicle then opened fire with a submachine gun. Nugent was seriously wounded after being shot eight times in the chest, arms and back by the loyalists in the car. His friend, Bernard McErlean, aged 16, was killed. Prison life At some point afterwards, Nugent joined the IRA. He was arrested, aged 16, by the British Arm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volunteer (Irish Republican)
Volunteer, often abbreviated Vol., is a term used by a number of Irish republican paramilitary organisations to describe their members. Among these have been the various forms of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) and the Irish People's Liberation Organization (IPLO). ' is the equivalent title in the Irish language. Background The Irish Volunteers were formed in 1913, in reaction to the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force earlier that year, to protect the interests of Irish nationalists during the Home Rule Crisis. The Volunteers took part in the 1916 Easter Rising and—as the Irish Republican Army (IRA)—in the Irish War of Independence. The title "Volunteer" or "Vol." was used for members of the Volunteers, such as Michael Malone and Charles Monaghan, who were involved in the 1916 Rising, and in the War of Independence. A number of witness statements given to the Bureau of Military History make frequent use of "Volunteer" as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Category Status
In July 1972, William Whitelaw, the Conservative British government's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, granted Special Category Status (SCS) to all prisoners serving sentences in Northern Ireland for Troubles-related offences. This had been one of the conditions set by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) when they negotiated a meeting with the government to discuss a truce. Special category (or "political") status was ''de facto'' prisoner of war (POW) status, providing them with some of the privileges of POWs, such as those specified in the Geneva Conventions. This meant prisoners did not have to wear prison uniforms or do prison work, were housed within their paramilitary factions, and were allowed extra visits and food parcels. SCS was introduced in 1972 by William Whitelaw while serving as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. That year, Whitelaw explained the status in the House of Commons, while denying that political status had been granted: In Janua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1981 Irish Hunger Strike
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special Category Status (prisoner of war rather than criminal status) for convicted paramilitary prisoners. In 1978, the dispute escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to leave their cells to wash and covered the walls of their cells with excrement. In 1980, seven prisoners participated in the first hunger strike, which ended after 53 days. The second hunger strike took place in 1981 and was a showdown between the prisoners and the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. One hunger striker, Bobby Sands, was elected as a member of parliament during the strike, prompting media interest from around the world. The strike was called off after ten prisoners had starved themselves to death, including Sands, whose funeral was attended ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Status
In international law three categories of Political status are usually recognized: #Independent countries e.g.: France, Canada #Internal independent countries which are under the protection of another country in matters of defense and foreign affairs, e.g.: Netherlands Antilles, the Faroe Islands, British Virgin Islands etc. #Colonies and other dependent political units e.g. Puerto Rico. There are, furthermore, several unrecognized countries and independence, secessionist, autonomy and nationalist movements throughout the world. See list of unrecognized countries. Political status in Northern Ireland Political Status was an alternative name for Special Category Status. Political status around the world * Constitutional status of Cornwall * Constitutional status of Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles *Disputed status of Gibraltar *Disputed status of the isthmus between Gibraltar and Spain * Disputed territories of Northern Iraq *Falkland Islands sovereignty dispute * Internatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, it is preceded by the season of Advent or the Nativity Fast and initiates the season of Christmastide, which historically in the West lasts twelve days and culminates on Twelfth Night. Christmas Day is a public holiday in many countries, is celebrated religiously by a majority of Christians, as well as culturally by many non-Christians, and forms an integral part of the holiday season organized around it. The traditional Christmas narrative recounted in the New Testament, known as the Nativity of Jesus, says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in accordance with messianic prophecies. When Joseph and Mary arrived in the city, the inn had no room and so they were offered a stable where the Christ Child was soon born, with angels p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lower Falls (District Electoral Area)
Lower Falls was one of the nine district electoral areas which existed in Belfast, Northern Ireland from 1985 to 2014. Located in the west of the city, the district elected five members to Belfast City Council and contained the wards of Beechmount; Clonard; Falls; Upper Springfield; and Whiterock. Lower Falls formed part of the Belfast West constituencies for the Northern Ireland Assembly and UK Parliament. The district, along with the neighbouring Upper Falls district took its name from the Falls Road, one of the main arterial routes in the west of the city. History Lower Falls was created for the 1985 local elections. The Falls and Clonard wards had previously been in Area F, with the remaining wards part of Area D. It was abolished for the 2014 local elections. The Falls and Clonard wards joined the Court District Electoral Area, while the remaining wards became part of a new Black Mountain District Electoral Area. Wards Councillors 2011 Elections See also *Belfa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish Republican
Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate. The development of nationalist and democratic sentiment throughout Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, distilled into the contemporary ideology known as republican radicalism, was reflected in Ireland in the emergence of republicanism, in opposition to British rule. Discrimination against Catholics and Protestant nonconformists, attempts by the British administration to suppress Irish culture, and the belief that Ireland was economically disadvantaged as a result of the Acts of Union were among the specific factors leading to such opposition. The Society of United Irishmen, formed in 1791 and led primarily by liberal Protestants, launched the 1798 Rebellion with the help of troops sent by Revolutionary France, but the uprising ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grove/Atlantic Inc
Grove Atlantic, Inc. is an American independent publisher, based in New York City. Formerly styled "Grove/Atlantic, Inc.", it was created in 1993 by the merger of Grove Press and Atlantic Monthly Press. As of 2018 Grove Atlantic calls itself "An Independent Literary Publisher Since 1917". That refers to the official date Atlantic Monthly Press was established by the Boston magazine ''The Atlantic Monthly''. History and operations The company's imprints Grove Press, Atlantic Monthly Press, The Mysterious Press, and Black Cat (as of October 2018) publish literary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama and translations. Former imprints include Canongate U.S. and Open City. Its authors include Donna Leon, Kathy Acker, Samuel Beckett, Mark Bowden, William S. Burroughs, Frantz Fanon, Richard Ford, Charles Frazier, Jay McInerney, Jim Harrison, Henry Miller, Kenzaburō Ōe, Harold Pinter, Kay Ryan, John Kennedy Toole, and Jeanette Winterson. In 1990 the imprint Atlantic Monthly Press ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jackie McMullan
Jackie "Teapot" McMullan (born 1956) is a former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike. Background and IRA activity McMullan was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1956, the third eldest of a family of seven children. He studied at a boarding school in Athlone in the Republic of Ireland before returning to Belfast in 1971. Following the introduction of internment in August 1971, McMullan's home was raided several times and, in September 1971, his older brother Michael was interned. Later that year McMullan joined the IRA's youth wing Fianna Éireann: In 1973, aged 17, McMullan joined the IRA's Belfast Brigade. In 1975 he acquired the nickname "Teapot" after the top of his ear was shot off during an attack on a British Army patrol. He was arrested in 1976 in possession of a revolver following a gun attack on a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) base, and remanded to Crumlin Road Jail charged with attempting to mur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blanket Protest
The blanket protest was part of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners held in the Maze prison (also known as "Long Kesh") in Northern Ireland. The republican prisoners' status as political prisoners, known as Special Category Status, had begun to be phased out in 1976. Among other things, this meant that they would now be required to wear prison uniforms like ordinary convicts. The prisoners refused to accept that they had been administratively designated as ordinary criminals, and refused to wear the prison uniform. In mid June 1943 a form of blanket protest was carried out by Irish Republican prisoners in Crumlin Road Jail when 22 prisoners went on a "strip strike' for political treatment. Each morning every article (except a towel) was removed from each cell and the prisoners were left to sit on the floor until night time when the bedding was returned. Background Convicted pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Cane and Conoghan (editors), '' The New Oxford Companion to Law'', Oxford University Press, 2008 (), p. 263Google Books). though statutory definitions have been provided for certain purposes. The most popular view is that crime is a category created by law; in other words, something is a crime if declared as such by the relevant and applicable law. One proposed definition is that a crime or offence (or criminal offence) is an act harmful not only to some individual but also to a community, society, or the state ("a public wrong"). Such acts are forbidden and punishable by law. The notion that acts such as murder, rape, and theft are to be prohibited exists worldwide. What precisely is a criminal offence is defined by the criminal la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Political Prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although numerous similar definitions have been proposed by various organizations and scholars, and there is a general consensus among scholars that "individuals have been sanctioned by legal systems and imprisoned by political regimes not for their violation of codified laws but for their thoughts and ideas that have fundamentally challenged existing power relations". The status of a political prisoner is generally awarded to individuals based on declarations of non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International, on a case-by-case basis. While such status are often widely recognized by the international public opinion, they are often rejected by individual governments accused of holding political prisoners, which tend to deny any bias in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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