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Sinn Féin President to address National Hunger Strike rally in Derry

Published: 15 August, 2008

Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams is to be the keynote speaker at one of the biggest Republicans rallies ever seen in Derry. The rally to commemorate the 1981 Hunger Strike takes place in the city on Sunday .Thousands from across the country and abroad are expected to attend. With up to 20 bands, many from Scotland, floats, and various campaign groups taking part it promises to be a day to remember.

Speaking ahead of the rally Gerry Adams said

"This year Derry has been chosen as the venue for this National Hunger Strike Commemoration event. It is only right that Derry should be given this honour since five of the Hunger Strikers were volunteers from Derry: Patsy O'Hara and Michael Devine from the city and Francis Hughes, Tom McElwee and Kevin Lynch from the county. 2008 also marks the 40th Anniversary of the Civil Rights campaign and is reflected in the theme for this year's commemoration - "Civil Rights, Equality, and Freedom"

"For many Irish people this time of the year brings back immediate memories of those long 8 months in 1981 when ten men died on hunger strike. Almost 50 died outside the prison. Seven, including three children, were killed by plastic bullets and hundreds were also wounded.

"The conditions which led to the hunger strikes were created when the London government, supported by Dublin, tried to criminalise the republican freedom struggle by removing political status. The Brit logic was simple. If there were hundreds of political prisoners how could they depict the struggle as mere wanton criminality. Therefore, the British decided that the prisons were to be a breakers yard for the republican struggle. The British government didn't want a settlement. It wanted victory.

"But the republican prisoners, the women in Armagh and the Blanketmen, would not be criminalised. In extraordinary circumstances they took on the entire might of the British state.

"Of course the grief and anger at the death of the ten hunger strikers extended far beyond their families and friends. While many in the political establishment sat in silence, Derry came to a standstill. People stopped work, young people walked out of schools, many businesses closed; thousands took to the streets in scenes that were replicated across Ireland and the world

"On Sunday I expect thousands of people to once again return to the streets of Derry in memory of the ten men who died on hunger strike and the dozens who were killed and injured on the streets in support of the political prisoners during that dark period of our struggle in 1980-81 and to rededicate ourselves in 2008 to continue the struggle to achieve Civil Rights, Equality and Freedom