DEMPSEY John (40th Anniversary) Time goes by as years roll on, but in our memories fresh we will keep of that July morning in 1981. In a lonely prison cell an Irish Volunteer Joe McDonnell died on hunger strike and later that same morning our young nephew Fíann John Dempsey was shot dead in a Belfast Street. "For what died the sons of Roísín?" Frank and Johnsey Dempsey and families.