Patrick Quinn (born 1952) was a

volunteer Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

with the 1st Battalion, South Armagh Brigade of the

Provisional Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reu ...

(IRA) who took part in the

1981 Irish hunger strike The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special C ...

Paramilitary activity

On 2 March 1977, Quinn and

Raymond McCreesh Raymond McCreesh ( ga, Réamonn Mac Raois, 25 February 1957 – 21 May 1981) was an Irish volunteer in the South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In 1976, he and two other IRA volunteers were captured while attemp ...

were convicted and sentenced to fourteen years in prison for attempted murder, possession of a rifle and ammunition and a further five years for IRA membership. He was interned at

HMP Maze Her Majesty's Prison Maze (previously Long Kesh Detention Centre, and known colloquially as The Maze or H-Blocks) was a prison in Northern Ireland that was used to house alleged paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles from August 1971 to Sept ...

, a high-security prison known for housing a significant concentration of IRA and other Irish nationalist prisoners. Quinn would later go on to describe some of the conditions which were experienced by political detainees during the late 1970s, where the only time prisoners would leave their cells would be to attend Sunday Mass. Quinn was at 'the Maze' during the Dirty Protest, designed to protest the 'special category status' faced by paramilitaries at that time. On the 1st of March, 1981,

Bobby Sands Robert Gerard Sands ( ga, Roibeárd Gearóid Ó Seachnasaigh; 9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981) was a member (and leader in the Maze prison) of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison M ...

would announce a new protest to the conditions in HMP Maze, which came in the form of

hunger strikes A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most ...

. Inspired, Quinn joined the hunger strike on 15 June 1981. Fellow members of the hunger strike recounted how his psychological state deteriorated over time, described as "terrible hallucinations". When he was close to death after 47 days (having slipped into a coma because of reported kidney issues) his mother signed a medical waiver which allowed him to be admitted to a hospital and, ultimately, doctors were able to save his life. He was the first hunger striker whose family intervened, and the second whose hunger strike ended overall. The behaviour of Quinn's mother provided a legal and moral precedent for the families of other strikers. The parents of Pat McGeown would also prevent their son's death through medical intervention once in a coma, ultimately spelling the end of 1981 Hunger Strikes. In recent years, there has been some speculation around the circumstances in which the waivers were signed. When addressing

Grand Rapids Community College Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC) is a public community college in Grand Rapids, Michigan. History Grand Rapids Junior College was established on September 21, 1914, after University of Michigan faculty passed a resolution encouraging the ...

, fellow IRA activist Desmond Murphy confirmed that it was the Irish Catholic Church placing pressure on the mother, going on to describe the end of Quinn's hunger strike as 'involuntary'.

Later years

Paddy Quinn and his mother would both go on to describe what happened in interviews for a BBC documentary on the Hunger Strikes in 1993. In 2006, a retrospective on the 1981 Hunger Strikes by the Guardian
/ref> indicated that Quinn considered the Hunger Strikes to be a success, in large part because it introduced

Sinn Féin Sinn Féin ( , ; en, " eOurselves") is an Irish republican and democratic socialist political party active throughout both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The original Sinn Féin organisation was founded in 1905 by Arthur G ...

to the prospects of electoral politics. He also confirmed the long-term effects of his strike – permanent damage to his eyesight and the need for a kidney transplant left him unemployed, living in a farmhouse in County Down with his family.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quinn, Paddy 1962 births Irish republicans Irish republicans imprisoned on charges of terrorism Living people Irish people convicted of attempted murder People from Camlough Provisional Irish Republican Army members Irish hunger strikers