Sinn Féin activists joined the Cavan/Monaghan TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin at the front of Leinster House in Dublin yesterday to pay tribute to IRA man Kieran Doherty, who died on hunger strike in 1981.
Doherty was elected TD for the same constituency as Mr Ó Caoláin in the general election of June 1981 - three weeks into his fast - after he received 9,121 votes. On August 2nd, aged 25, he became the eighth man to die of starvation.
Marking the 25th anniversary of his death, party members gathered on Kildare Street for a peaceful vigil.
Doherty was the second IRA hunger striker to become an elected representative while in the H-Blocks following Bobby Sands, who became Westminster MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone in April 1981.
From Andersonstown, west Belfast, Doherty lasted 73 days on hunger strike, the longest of all the 10 IRA and INLA prisoners who died.
Mr Ó Caoláin said he was proud that Doherty had been elected despite hostility from the political establishment and the media in Ireland. "I was proud to have helped, along with hundreds of others, in securing his election, and I am proud to have inherited Kieran's seat as a republican representative for this constituency.
"Kieran was elected despite the incredible hostility shown by the political establishment and media in this State towards his and his comrades' reasonable demands, not to mention the massive campaign of harassment of hunger strike activists by the Garda Special Branch." - (PA)