Marking the 30th anniversary, Friends of Sinn Féin recently hosted a discussion of the 1980/1981 hunger strikes, at Rosie O'Grady's Manhattan Club in New York City.
The event was chaired by Rita O'Hare, Sinn Féin representative to the U.S. and the speakers were author and historian, Tim Pat Coogan, Sinn Féin MLA and former hunger striker Gerry Kelly, and Pat Sheehan, former hunger striker and Sinn Fein MLA who was recently elected as the representative for West Belfast in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The talk was attended by over 200 people who heard Pat Sheehan reflect on his 55 days of fasting during the 1981 Hunger Strike. His message to the crowd was that a United Ireland can and will be achieved through the political process and that Sinn Féin was the only party with a plan to accomplish this goal.
