30TH ANNIVERSARY OF HUNGER STRIKE TD KIERAN DOHERTY REMEMBERED BY YOUNG AND OLD ALIKE
Over two hundred people gathered in Monaghan Town Centre on Bank Holiday Monday evening last to commemorate and celebrate the live of former Cavan Monaghan TD Kieran Doherty who died on Hunger Strike in Long Kesh prison 30 years ago this week.
In the Diamond, Monaghan the event was centred on the raised plinth in place as a result of the new streetscape and it proved to be an ideal setting for a concert that was, at times, moving, emotional and uplifting. It certainly was evidence that three decades on from when Kieran Doherty joined Bobby Sands and eight other Irish Republican prisoners on a fast to the death that their sacrifices is still remembered by many in County Monaghan.
Several references were made to the fact that while he was on Hunger Strike the people of Cavan and Monaghan elected Kieran Doherty as their Dáil deputy further dispelling the British governments’ lie that Republican prisoners had little support from the Irish people. Earlier in 1981 Bobby Sands had been elected as an MP by the voters of Fermanagh South Tyrone.
Members of Kieran Doherty’s family were in attendance as were many who campaigned on behalf of the Hunger Strikers thirty years ago including Kieran Doherty’s election agent, Charlie Boylan from Cavan. They were joined by many younger people who were not alive during that period but who are living testimony that the legacy of the Hunger Strikers lives on.
Cllr. Matt Carthy opened proceedings joking that in true Republican tradition they had waited for the first rain of the weekend before commencing. Thankfully despite a heavy shower at the outset the weather settled to match the mood of the event – pleasant and even enjoyable. Cllr. Carthy introduced the chairperson of the proceedings as Cavan Senator Kathryn Reilly.
Full report in The Northern Standard
Those were dark days, on the Sunday night that Kieran died there was raw emotion in Monaghan, we marched round the town, lost as to what to do or where to go, we expelled some anger on the Gardai, but that was misdirected. Thank God, that energy would eventually be invested in democratic politics. The conflict had its dark side, some of that darkness remains, however, Kieran Doherty was a true republican whose spirit will live on.