Siobhán O'Hanlon
Siobhán O'Hanlon (1963 – 11 April 2006)[1] was an IRA volunteer and Sinn Féin activist.[2]
Family
O'Hanlon was born in North
IRA activity
In 1983 O'Hanlon was jailed after being found in a bomb-making factory.
Some British newspapers claim she was involved in an attempted Provisional Irish Republican Army bombing in Gibraltar, prevented by the Special Air Service (SAS) in Operation Flavius.[7] In 2009 Professor Christopher Andrew was given access to MI5's records, to prepare a book for the centenary of the organisation. The book contains a surveillance photo of O'Hanlon taken in Gibraltar in 1988, prior to the shootings of three other IRA members by the SAS. It contains a map of her movements. The files indicate that she noticed she was under surveillance in Spain and returned to Ireland.[8]
Sinn Féin activity
O'Hanlon was a member of the first Sinn Féin delegation to meet the British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Downing Street in December 1997. She was heavily involved in Sinn Féin's negotiating team at Stormont in the run up to the Good Friday Agreement.[9] In October 2001, she arranged and accompanied Adams on a visit to South Africa where they met
Activism
O'Hanlon died from breast cancer at age 43, having been diagnosed three and a half years earlier. In that time she became a breast cancer activist who organised a conference as a way of bringing activists together to talk about breast cancer, raise awareness and draw attention to the mobile breast cancer screening units.[2]
O'Hanlon also co-founded the West Belfast Festival called
Tributes
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams was a pallbearer at O'Hanlon's funeral, which was attended by more than 1,000 mourners.[13] He eulogised: "She headed up our office here in West Belfast. When we think back to that time it was a very dangerous and difficult ... Comrades and friends were killed or wounded. And every day we picked ourselves up and worked on."[2] Adams dedicated his commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising to O'Hanlon.[14] Danny Morrison for the Daily Ireland wrote: "We shall benefit from the work Siobhán did in her life – in the freedom struggle, in the peace process, in the bridges she built, the international fraternities she established and maintained, for the goodwill she engendered towards republicanism – and for the huge political enterprises to which she contributed."[15][16]
See also
References
- ^ a b The Irish Times
- ^ a b c Sinn Féin website, sinnfein.ie
- ^ DannyMorrison.com Archived 12 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Warren Hoge, New Truce, New Questions, The New York Times, 22 July 1997
- ^ Sinn Fein Westminster Office, BBC Politics97
- ^ Darrell Dawsey, "Irish Activist Granted Release on $25,000 Bail Justice", Los Angeles Times, 14 November 1989
- ^ McKittrick, David (28 September 1995). "The gunshots that had terrible echoes across Ireland". The Independent. London. Retrieved 7 October 2009.
- ^ "IRA Gibraltar deaths 'a mistake'". BBC. 6 October 2009. Retrieved 6 October 2009.
- ^ Sinn Féin Archived 18 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ UTV Internet
- ^ North Carolina State University
- ^ Google.com
- ^ Boston.com
- ^ The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)
- ^ LjSEEK.com,
- ^ Forumer.com Archived 25 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine