Sinn Fein activists joined Cavan-Monaghan TD Caoimhghin O'Caolain at the front of Dail Eireann today to pay tribute to IRA-man Kieran Doherty who died on hunger strike in 1981.
Mr Doherty was elected TD for the same constituency as Mr O'Caolain in the general election of June
Cavan-Monaghan TD Caoimhghin O'Caolain
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.
Leading tributes, Mr O'Caolain said: "It is with both sadness and pride that I recall my predecessor Kieran Doherty, who was elected during the heroic hunger strike of 1981."
Mr 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 the Fermanagh/South Tyrone in April 1981.
Doherty, from Andersonstown, west Belfast, lasted 73 days on hunger strike, the longest of all the ten IRA and INLA prisoners who died.
Deputy O'Caolain said he was proud that Mr Doherty was elected despite hostility from 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," he said.
"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.
"On June 11, 1981 republican Ireland gave its answer with a huge vote for hunger-striker candidates and other supporters of the prison struggle.
"It was a decisive step in the broadening of the battlefield to secure Irish freedom, a battle that is not yet won, but whose eventual success was brought closer by the courage and dedication of Kieran and his comrades in the H Blocks."