The National Hungerstrike Youth Weekend 2009 is taking place in Tyrone from the 14 – 16 August. The weekend of events is being organised to coincide with the National Hungerstrike March, and will also fall on the actual 100th Anniversary of Na Fianna Éireann, Sunday 16th August.
The main themes of the weekend will be the ‘1981 Hungerstrike’, and ‘A Century of Youth in Struggle’, with public talks, a republican tour, Na Fianna Éireann dinner dance, mural and plaque unveiling, rebel night, and the National Hungerstrike march helping bring people together and educate them on both.
The weekend is expected to be Ógra Shinn Féin’s biggest event of the year, with the republican youth movement and international guests turning out in numbers to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of Na Fianna Éireann on Sunday the 16th August. They will unveil a plaque to the first national republican youth organisation, and then form up in a large Na Fianna contingent in the Hungerstrike march.
Encouraging maximum attendance, Chairperson of the Tyrone Hungerstrike Youth Committee, Kerry McColgan said,
“The weekend will be an excellent opportunity for young republicans and our international comrades to come together in remembering Na Fianna and the Hungerstrikers. The many events throughout the weekend will be spread across Tyrone, and will be open to the public to ensure the maximum number of people are educated on these significant themes.”
“We are very proud of Martin Hurson and all the other Hungerstrikers who paid the ultimate sacrifice for Irish Freedom. We have put together a clár which we hope can honour their bravery and keep their memory alive, and we ask that you join with us in ensuring that the legacy of the Hungerstrikers and Na Fianna continues to burn strong in Irish youth today. Bígí Linn!”
Clár
Friday 14th August
5pm: Delegates arrive and registration in Omagh Sinn Féin Office
6pm: Failte and introduction in Omagh Sinn Féin Office
6.30pm: Dinner
8pm: The Dermot Crowley Memorial Lecture – ‘The 1981 Hunger Strike’ Talk and DVD Showing in Omagh Strule Arts Centre
10.30pm: Irish Night with Poitín in the INF Omagh
Saturday 15th August
8am: Breakfast
9am: Republican Tour of Tyrone
1pm: Lunch in Strabane
2pm: ‘A century of youth in struggle’ public talk and DVD showing in Strabane Library
7.30pm: Na Fianna Éireann 100th Anniversary Celebration Dinner in Quinn’s Corner with music by The Spirit of Freedom
Sunday 16th August
10am: Breakfast
12pm: Unveiling plaque to Na Fianna in Carrickmore
1.00pm: Sunday Lunch
3.30pm: Assemble for National Hunger Strike March in Galbally
The weekend will cost £40/45E which covers Na Fianna Dinner Dance, all meals, accommodation, republican tour, and entrance to rebel night.
The weekend fee will need to be paid no later than Friday 31st July.
If you are interested in attending or would like more information please contact osfnational@yahoo.ie, or 07885569940.
Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 2Tell your member for the British parliament Mid Ulster is the hardest hit UK area in terms of the credit crunch. The British exchequer only shells out that amount per week in the dole for most of the young men currently out of work!
A lot of Ogra members and non aligned nationalists, like me, would not remember the hunger strikes. But the opportunity to met and hear recollections from former POWs to surviving Hunger Strikers; blanket men in the Kesh + Blocks and women in Armagh jail, friends, relations and the support network who marched during them times and turned out en masse to the funerals should not be held exclusively within the pettiness of one party which went on to split and split again and adapt politics so far removed from the republical socialist politics of the then paramiltaries. Three INLA men died in 1981.
Free the POWs... Irishmen are still being interned under the 'British justice' the Shinners want devolved to Stormont. Slogans of that time are as relevant now as they were 30 - 40 years ago..
Victory to the the IRA! "They haven't gone away you know!"
Brits out! TAL
if you think this should be organized in a different way, what's stopping you?
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