A LITTLE-KNOWN chapter of recent Irish history was recalled at the weekend with the launch of a book on Irishmen and Cypriots who were imprisoned together in British jails in the late 1950s.
The book, Cypriot and Irish Political Prisonersby Vias Livadas, published by Power Publishing of Nicosia, shows how Irish republicans and Cypriot Eoka guerrillas developed close links in such institutions as Wormwood Scrubs and Wakefield Prison.
Speaking at a reception in the Pearse Centre in Dublin, former family home of 1916 leader Pádraig Pearse, the journalist and historian Tim Pat Coogan noted that Ireland and Cyprus were both subjected to partition.
"Neither of us really got what we started out for, but it's coming, and coming quickly," he said. But whereas Ireland historically had to deal with only one major power, "Cyprus is tossed like a cork in a storm set off by many cyclones."
Mr Livadas, said the Irish and Cypriot prisoners were jointly known as "the rebellious team" and that their "permanent goal" was escape. Among the Irish contingent were well-known republicans such as the late Cathal Goulding and Seán Mac Stiofáin.
Among the attendance were Cypriot Ambassador to Ireland, Sotos Liassides; Prof Frixos Joannides, formerly of University College Dublin; Cathal Óg Goulding, son of the late Cathal Goulding; Máire Mhic Stiofáin, widow of Seán Mac Stiofáin; ex-Eoka member Renos Kyriakides and former Sinn Féin abstentionist MP for Mid-Ulster, Tom Mitchell.