- Dolours Price
-
Dolours Price (born 1951) is a former volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). She is also a politicial activist and critic of Gerry Adams and the current leadership of Sinn Féin.
Contents
Early life
Dolours Price and her sister, Marian Price, are the children of Albert Price, a prominent Irish Republican and former IRA member, from Belfast.[1]
Life and activism
Price became involved in Irish republicanism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She participated in a car bombing of the Old Bailey on 8 March 1973. The explosion injured over 200 people and likely caused one person's death of heart failure.
The two sisters were arrested, along with Gerry Kelly, Hugh Feeney and six others, on the day of the bombing,[2] as they were boarding a flight to Ireland. They were tried and convicted at the Great Hall on Winchester Castle on 14 November after a six-hour discussion by a jury. Although originally sentenced to life imprisonment, which was to run concurrently for each criminal charge, their sentence was eventually reduced to 20 years.
Dolours Price served seven years of her sentence for her part in the IRA car bombing during which time she immediately went on a hunger strike in a campaign to be repatriated to a prison in Northern Ireland.[3] The hunger strike lasted over 200 days, because the hunger strikers were force-fed by prison authorities. The force-feeding ended after the death of another hunger striker, Michael Gaughan, in June 1974. As part of the campaign, her father, Albert Price, contested West Belfast at the British General Election of February 1974 receiving 5,662 votes (11.9%)[4] The Price sisters, Hugh Feeney, and Gerry Kelly were repatriated to Northern Irish prisons in 1975. This was a benefit of negotiations that occurred during a British-IRA truce.[5]
In 1980 Price received the Royal Prerogative of Mercy and was freed on humanitarian grounds suffering from anorexia nervosa in 1981.[6] After her release, she married Stephen Rea,[7] who was hired to speak the words of Gerry Adams when Sinn Féin was under a broadcasting ban.[8]
Dolours Price, along with her sister Marian, remains active politically. In the late 1990s, Price and her sister claimed that they had been threatened by their former comrades in Sinn Féin for speaking out against the Good Friday Agreement.[9] Price also regularly contributed to the on-line journal The Blanket, which was edited by Anthony McIntyre and his wife, Carrie Twomey until it ceased publication in 2008.
In 2001, Price was arrested in Dublin and charged with possession of stolen prescription pads and forged prescriptions. She pleaded guilty and was fined £200 and ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.[10] She and Rea were divorced in 2003. They have two sons together.[11]
In February 2010, it was reported by The Irish News that Price had offered help to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains in locating graves of three men, Joe Lynskey, Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee,[12] who were allegedly killed by the IRA and whose bodies have not been found.[13] At the same time, Price claimed that Gerry Adams had been her "Officer Commanding" when she was in the IRA. Adams, who has never admitted to being a member of that group, denied her charge.[14] Price also admitted to driving the kidnapped Jean McConville, accused by the IRA of being an informer, to the place where she was killed in 1972. She claimed that the killing was ordered by Adams, who denied that Price's story was true.[15]
Oral historians at Boston College interviewed both Dolours Price and Brendan Hughes between 2001 and 2006.[16] The two former IRA members spoke on condition that the tapes not be released in their lifetimes. In May, 2011, British police subpoenaed the material, possibly as part of an investigation into the disappearance of a number of people in Northern Ireland during the 1970s.[17] In June of 2011, the college filed a motion to quash the subpoena. A spokesman for the college stated that "our position is that the premature release of the tapes could threaten the safety of the participants, the enterprise of oral history, and the ongoing peace and reconciliation process in Northern Ireland."[16] In July 2011, U.S. federal prosecutors asked a judge to require the college to release the tapes in order to comply with treaty obligations with the United Kingdom.[18]
References
- ^ "Convicted Irish Sisters Ask Return of Vermeer Painting". New York Times: 32. 11 March 1974.
- ^ Shuster, Alvin (13 March 1973). "Britain Charges 10 in London Bombings". New York Times. pp. 3.
- ^ "Britain Refuses I.R.A. Sisters' Bid: Move to Ulster Jail Ruled Out for Hunger Strikers". New York Times: 11. 2 June 1974.
- ^ West Belfast election results
- ^ IRA Truce: 9 February 1975 to 23 January 1976 - Summary of Main Events CAIN Web Service
- ^ Burns, John (15 March 1998). "Miracle recoveries of the IRA inmates". The Sunday Times. pp. Eire News 5.
- ^ McLeod, Pauline (29 October 1992). "Crying Shame: Hotel's snub to actor leaves Pauline Mcleod high and dry - Snooty Savoy Keeps Out Rising Star". Daily Mirror. pp. 6.
- ^ Wolf, Matt (17 September 1994). "Actors lose jobs as ban on IRA voices is lifted". Austin American-Statesman. pp. A3.
- ^ McAleer, Phelim (21 March 1999). "Price sisters harassed for anti-peace talk". The Sunday Times. pp. Eire News 8.
- ^ Tallant, Nicola (30 March 2001). "Her name is Dolours, the IRA bomber who married a Hollywood star. Now she has become an alcoholic". Daily Mirror. pp. 8-9.
- ^ "Stephen Rea breaks up with bomber". The Sunday Independent. 13 July 2003.
- ^ "Trio Vanished Forever". Sunday Life. 21 February 2010.
- ^ "Price offers to help locate 'disappeared'". The Irish Times. 19th February, 2010. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0219/1224264799917.html. Retrieved 2010-02-20.
- ^ "Adams was my O.C. in the IRA - Sinn Fein leader denies bomber's accusations over 3 Disappeared". The Daily Mirror: 15. 19 February 2010.
- ^ "Arrest Adams Now". Sunday Life. 21 February 2010.
- ^ a b Zezima, Katie (10 June 2011). "College Fights Subpoena Of Interviews Tied to I.R.A.". New York Times. pp. 12.
- ^ McMahon, Cathal (14 May 2011). "Adams Secret Tapes Probe - Oral 'history' claim". The Daily Mirror. pp. 32.
- ^ Leonard, Tom (8 July 2011). "U.S. court bid for tapes linking Adams to IRA murder squads". The Daily Mail.
Further reading
- Clutterbuck, Richard. Kidnap and Ransom. Boston: Faber & Faber, 1978.
External links
Categories:- 1951 births
- Living people
- People from Belfast
- Provisional Irish Republican Army members
- Republicans imprisoned during the Northern Ireland conflict
- Recipients of British royal pardons
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