A LARGE crowd of family, friends and comrades braved torrential rain on Sunday afternoon to attend the unveiling of the newly repainted Kieran Doherty mural in Andersonstown.
Kieran Doherty TD (25) died on 2 August 1981 after 73 days on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. The mural at Slemish Way recalls Kieran, his parents Margaret and Alfie and depicts his funeral and the firing party outside his Andersonstown home.
The event was organised by the Andersonstown Commemoration Committee.
Siobhán McCallin chaired proceedings at which Roseleen Walsh read a poem celebrating Kieran’s life. The event concluded with an address by former Sinn Féin President and West Belfast MP Gerry Adams who first met Kieran when he was a 17 year old internee.
“Kieran was the third son in a family of six children," recalled Gerry Adams.
"His mother Margaret was a Protestant woman from the Shankill who married Alfie a Catholic man from the Falls. They went on to enjoy each other’s company for a very long time.
"Kieran was deeply influenced by the pogroms of 1969, the Falls Curfew in 1970, the introduction of internment in 1971 and the Bloody Sunday murder of 14 people in Derry in January 1972”.
Gerry told of Kieran’s decision to join Na Fianna Éireann and then the IRA and of his arrest and imprisonment. He was interned in February 1973 and it was while he was in Cage 3 that Gerry Adams first met him.
“He was a youngster and like Big Bobby Storey, who was in the same Cage. They were two giants," said Gerry.
After his release Kieran became active again in the IRA. He was captured in January 1978 and was sentenced to 18 years. He joined the blanket protest in the H-Blocks where conditions were harsh, including vicious beatings, mirror searches and deprivation of sleep.
“On 22 May 1981 Kieran joined the hunger strike," added Gerry.
"The following month he stood as a prisoner candidate in the Southern general election for Cavan Monaghan and won a seat with over 9,000 votes. Big Doc was the first republican TD of this generation. He led the way”.
Gerry then recounted the last time he saw Kieran Doherty.
“It was on 29 July 1981. I was visiting the hunger strikers along with Owen Carron and Seamus Ruddy of the IRSP. By this time Bobby, Francie, Raymond, Patsy, Martin and Joe were dead.
"Big Doc was unable to leave the prison bed. Bik arranged for us to go and see him. Big Doc was propped up on one elbow on his prison bed. His eyes, unseeing, scanning the cell as he heard us entering. I spoke to him quietly and slowly, somewhat awed by the man’s dignity and resolve. 'You know the score yourself, I’ve a week in me yet,' he told me, adding: 'We haven’t got our five demands and that’s the only way I’m coming off. Too much suffered for too long, too many good men dead. Thatcher can’t break us. Lean ar aghaidh. I’m not a criminal. Tiocfaidh ár lá'."
Kieran Doherty passed away at 7.15 pm on the evening of Sunday 2 August 1981.
“People are not born as heroes," said Gerry Adams. "The H Block hunger strikers and the Armagh women were ordinary people who in extraordinary circumstances brought the struggle to a moral platform which became a battle between them and the entire might of the British state. In the course of their protest the hunger strikers smashed British policy.
"Today, the idealism of the hunger strikers and the other prisoners in the Blocks and Armagh remains an example to freedom loving people everywhere.”
