A BANNER commemorating the 1981 republican hunger-strike in the H-Blocks in which ten men died has gone on display for the first time at the Ulster Museum.
The National Hunger Strike Commemoration came to Belfast in August 2025 and the banner was carried as part of the procession. Donated to the museum by the National Graves Association, the banner includes the photographs of the ten men who died in the 1981 prison protest over the removal of Special Category Status, as well as republican prisoners Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg who died on hunger-strike while in prison in England in the 1970s.
The banner includes the inscription 'Comóradh buantúıl ar an stailc ocrai – An enduring commemoration of the hunger strike'.
The banner was donated to the museum by Joe Austin, Chair of National Graves Association, and is now part of the ‘Troubles and Beyond’ initiative at the museum. It will be on display for three months.
Speaking to the Andersonstown News, Joe Austin said the inclusion of the banner as part of the collection at the Ulster Museum is “hugely significant”.
“The Ulster Museum have been working with historian Tom Hartley to try and include more republican emblems and artefacts in their collection,” he said.
“The banner is from last year’s National Hunger Strike Commemoration march. It is a hugely significant banner.
“Looking back on the hunger strike, the whole strategy of the British Government was to criminalise the prisoners.
“Today we now have a republican banner depicting the hunger strikers on display in the museum.
“It has really gone full circle. It also means that people who are not from Ireland can look at the hunger strike and realise that this was not a criminal conspiracy and that there was a perfectly logical explanation why the prisoners resisted.
“The hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981 changed politics in Ireland. It led to many things and is now rightly part of the collection in the museum.”
