Siobhán O'Hanlon
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Siobhán O`Hanlon (1963 - April 11, 2006)[1] (born in North Belfast, Northern Ireland) was a Sinn Féin official who routinely assisted Sinn Féin president and Member of Parliament Gerry Adams.[2]
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[edit] Sinn Féin
O'Hanlon was a member of the first Sinn Féin delegation to meet the British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Downing Street in December 1997. She was heavily involved in Sinn Fein's negotiating team at Stormont in the run up to the Good Friday Agreement.[3]
In October 2001, she arranged and accompanied Adams on a visit to South Africa where they met Nelson Mandela and unveiled a memorial to ten republican hunger strikers who died in Northern Ireland in 1981. The memorial was located at Robben Island Prison where the former African National Congress leader was jailed.[4]
O’Hanlon was also a member of Sinn Féin’s Belfast Executive and participated in the peace process negotiations in Stormont which is the old Northern Irish government building.[5]
[edit] Family
O'Hanlon is survived by her mother, Tess, her five siblings, her husband, Patrick Sheehan and their son, Cormac, of whom she said: "My son Cormac is 4 years old and he's a chauvinist. He remains the greatest delight in my life."[6]
O'Hanlon was born in North Belfast, one of six children of a republican family. Her father, Joe, had been interned and her maternal uncle was the veteran republican Joe Cahill who died in July 2004. Siobhán’s mother, Tess, was seriously injured in one of several loyalist bomb attacks on their home. Her brother Rory was shot by loyalists when he was a teenager.[7]
One of her sisters, Eilis O'Hanlon, a Northern Ireland journalist, remained estranged from Siobhán at the time of her [Siobhán's] death.[8]
The Irish Times (April 15, 2006) stated: "One of her [Siobhán's] sisters, Eilis, has become known as a vociferously anti-republican newspaper columnist. She [Eilis] told a Belfast Telegraph interviewer three years ago that she and Siobhán stayed away from each other."[9]
Danny Morrison wrote: "Years ago I heard a very young Siobhán O’Hanlon talk about her Uncle Joe, clearly proud of her connection, through her mom, to the Cahill clan" [10].
[edit] PIRA background
O'Hanlon was a former Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) member. She was alleged by The Sunday Times to have participated in the attempted bombing of Gibraltar (see Operation Flavius and Death on the Rock [11]). She was alleged to have been one of four PIRA members, but only she survived, as the other three (including Mairéad Farrell) were shot and killed by the Special Air Service (SAS) before the bombing could be carried out.
The Irish Times, (April 15, 2006) stated: "O'Hanlon always denied media allegations she had been the absent, fourth member of an IRA unit killed by the SAS in Gibraltar in March 1988. The Sunday Times named her as the fourth member of the IRA unit. She denied it immediately but the tag stuck, partly because she was unable to take an effective libel case but also because the Gibraltar killings began a spiral of almost unparalleled controversy. The Sunday Times had said she was a blonde and had recently had a baby: neither was true. On the day of the shootings, she was visiting her mother."[12]. It has been speculated that it was, in fact, Evelyn Glenholmes, another PIRA female operative who was the surviving Gibraltar operative, not O'Hanlon. [13].
The Irish Times, (April 15, 2006) stated: "The SAS shootings eventually produced a finding by the European Court of Human Rights that the killings were unnecessary."[14].
However, the Court "also ruled that the three [PIRA operatives killed] had been engaged in an act of terrorism, and consequently dismissed unanimously the applicants’ claims for damages, for costs and expenses incurred in the Gibraltar Inquest and the remainder of the claims for just satisfaction" [15].
[edit] Breast cancer activist
O'Hanlon died from breast cancer at age 43. In October 2002 she was diagnosed with the disease, and for the next three and a half years she battled it every single day. She became a breast cancer activist who organized a conference as a way of bringing community activists and others together to talk about breast cancer and raise awareness, as well as draw attention to the mobile breast cancer screening units.[16]
(Taken from They stood as one, the Story of Revolutionary Women): "Siobhán was devastated in 2002 to discover that she was seriously ill and it broke her heart that she would probably not live long enough to see her son grow up. In spite of all that she faced adversity with fortitude and courage, and even though she suffered in great pain and sickness, Siobhán continued working until very shortly before her death. Siobhán researched breast cancer in great detail and characteristically used her knowledge and experience to help and advise other cancer patients."[17]
O'Hanlon also co-founded the West Belfast Festival called Feile an Phobail and devoted many years to its success, and she performed voluntary work for adults with Down syndrome.[18]
[edit] Tributes
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams can be seen bearing the coffin of prominent Sinn Féin member Siobhán O'Hanlon from St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in West Belfast on Friday, April 14 2006. (View the AP Photo/Peter Morrison), [19], [20]
In Adams' eulogy he stated: "She headed up our office here in West Belfast. When we think back to that time it was a very dangerous and difficult job to work in a Sinn Féin office. State forces in and out of uniform and their surrogates attacked us. All of the offices in this city were hit with bombs, gunfire, and rocket launchers. Comrades and friends were killed or wounded. And every day we picked ourselves up and worked on."[21]
Adams dedicated his commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Uprising to O'Hanlon.[22]
Danny Morrison for the Daily Ireland wrote: "We shall benefit from the work Siobhán did in her life - in the freedom struggle, in the peace process, in the bridges she built, the international fraternities she established and maintained, for the goodwill she engendered towards republicanism - and for the huge political enterprises to which she contributed. For 15 years she was also a stalwart of Feile an Phobail [the West Belfast Festival]."[23], [24]
Paul O’Hare of the Irish Examiner wrote: "[M]ore than 1,000 mourners yesterday attended the funeral of Sinn Féin aide Siobhán O’Hanlon. Party president Gerry Adams and chief negotiator Martin McGuinness carried her coffin, which was draped in a tricolour, following a service in Hannahstown, West Belfast. Ms O’Hanlon co-founded the West Belfast Festival and carried out voluntary work for adults with Down syndrome."[25]
Brendan Anderson wrote: "One of the stalwarts of the Irish peace process, senior Sinn Féin member Siobhán O’Hanlon, has died after losing her long battle against cancer. A niece of Republican icon Joe Cahill, she joined the IRA as a young woman and served a prison sentence for her activities. She was later to throw herself fully into the development of Sinn Féin. Running Gerry Adams’ office for the past 17 years was just one of her tasks. Adams said O’Hanlon was for years the main point of contact between the party and the Irish and British governments.[26]
[edit] See also
- Sinn Féin
- IRA Army Council
- Provisional Irish Republican Army
- History of Northern Ireland
- The Troubles
- Northern Ireland peace process
