Buses will be going from Derry to this year’s annual National Hunger Strike Commemoration, it has been confirmed.
Announcing the event, one of the biggest in the republican calendar, was to take place in Derrylin, Co Fermanagh, on Sunday, 3 August, Derry Sinn Fein MLA appealed to the wider republican community from Derry and neighbouring counties of Donegal and Tyrone to join in “remembering with pride the sacrifice of ten brave comrades who died in Long Kesh during those turbulent summer months of 1981.”
Mr McCartney added: “The prison struggle of the late 1970s and early 1980s were without any doubt a key moment in the Irish struggle for freedom and justice.
“And within that period the Hunger Strike of 1981 is of course the defining moment.
The 1981 Hunger Strike was a pivotal event in the course of Irish history – it politicised and radicalised large sections of the Irish people. For this generation of republicans its was akin to the emotion generated in the wake of the 1916 rising.”
Mr McCartney concluded: “The Hunger strike and related events mark 1981 out as a seminal year in the struggle for a united Ireland.”
A number of buses will be going from Derry for the event – details can be obtained by telephoning 02871 377551 or 02871 359747.
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