Sinn Féin to commemorate hunger striker Michael Gaughan in Ballina

SINN Féin are to commemorate IRA hunger striker Michael Gaughan in his native Ballina later today (Saturday, September 14)

Cummans from all over the country are to descend on the town for a march that will begin in Ardnaree at 3pm and finish in his burial place in Leigue Cemetery. 

Mayo Sinn Féin TDs Rose Conway Walsh and MLA Gerry Kelly - who was on hunger strike at the same time as Michael Gaughan - will give an oration at his graveside. Well-known Ballina musician, Eamonn Walsh, will play a lament during the ceremony. 

Later that evening, Deputy Conway-Walsh will chair a panel involving MLA Kelly and former IRA member Danny Morrison in Ballina Arts Centre at 7 pm.

Michael Gaughan grew up on Healy Terrace, in Ballina before becoming an IRA volunteer in a London-based Active Service Unit. After his arrest for a bank robbery, he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in 1971.

He was later transferred to Parkhurst Prison on March 31, 1974, where he joined fellow Mayo man Frank Stagg and others in a hunger strike campaign to obtain political status and to be transferred to a jail in Ireland.

He died on Monday, June 3 1974, aged 24 years old after a hunger strike that lasted 64 days, during which he was repeatedly force-fed.

An estimated 50,000 people attended his funeral in Ballina before he was laid to rest at a republican plot in Leigue Cemetery.

A similar commemoration in honour of Michael Gaughan organised by the National Graves Association took place earlier this year on June 1.