Portal:Ireland

Selected article

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 for convicted paramilitary prisoners. In 1978, after a number of attacks on prisoners leaving their cells to "slop out", the dispute escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused 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 British 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 by 100,000 people. The strike radicalised nationalist politics, and was the driving force that enabled Sinn Féin to become a mainstream political party. Read more...

Selected biography

Mary Therese Winifred Robinson (Irish: Máire Mhic Róibín; born 21 May 1944) was the first female President of Ireland, serving from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish senate (1969–1989). She defeated Fianna Fáil's Brian Lenihan and Fine Gael's Austin Currie in the 1990 presidential election becoming, as an Independent candidate nominated by the Labour Party, the Workers' Party of Ireland and independent senators, the first elected president in the office's history not to have the support of Fianna Fáil.

She is credited by many as having revitalised and liberalised a previously conservative political office. She resigned the presidency four months ahead of the end of her term of office to take up her post in the United Nations. Robinson has been Honorary President of Oxfam International since 2002, she is Chair of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and is also a founding member and Chair of the Council of Women World Leaders. Robinson is also one of the European members of the controversial Trilateral Commission.

She serves on many boards including the GAVI Fund. Robinson’s newest project is Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative, which promotes equitable trade and development, more humane migration policies and better responses to HIV/AIDS in Africa. The organization also promotes women's leadership and supports capacity building and good governance in developing countries. She is Chancellor of the University of Dublin. Since 2004, she has also been Professor of Practice in International Affairs at Columbia University, where she teaches international human rights. Robinson also visits other colleges and universities where she lectures on human rights.

In 2004, she received Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience Award for her work in promoting human rights. Read more...

1981 Irish hunger strike · Abbey Theatre · Aldfrith of Northumbria · Book of Kells · Andrew Cunningham · Tom Crean · Derry City F.C. · Geography of Ireland · Irish Victoria Cross recipients · Michael Gomez · Lady Gregory · Irish phonology · Paul Kane · James Joyce · James II of England · George Moore · Cillian Murphy · Arthur Ernest Percival · Postage stamps of Ireland · Representative peer · Ernest Shackleton · John Millington Synge · The Waterboys · William Butler Yeats · U2