Francis Hughes
Francis Hughes (
28 February,
1956 â€"
12 May,
1981) was an
Official IRA, and later,
Provisional IRA paramilitary who participated in dozens of attacks on
British Army and
Royal Ulster Constabulary targets. He died during the
1981 Irish Hunger Strike in
Maze prison.
He grew up as one of ten siblings in a republican family in staunchly republican
Bellaghy, southern
County Derry, and his father had been a member of the "Old IRA", long removed from IRA activity, and dedicated to farming. He was a determined and committed
PIRA Volunteer who organised a series of attacks before his capture. He became a wanted man after his fingerprints were found on a bomb used to attack the home of a policeman in
County Tyrone.
He was eventually captured on
17 March 1978 near
Maghera in
County Derry after a gun battle with the
SAS. A member of the SAS, David Jones, was killed in the gun battle, and another SAS member was seriously wounded. Hughes was wounded in the leg. He managed to crawl away but was pursued and he surrendered.
In February 1980 following his capture, he was sentenced to a total of 83 years in prison he was tried for, and found guilty of, the murder of one soldier (for which he received a life sentence) and wounding of another (for which he received 14 years) in the incident which led to his capture, as well as a a series of gun and bomb attacks over a six-year period. Security sources described him as
"an absolute fanatic" and
"a ruthless killer". Fellow republicans described him as
"fearless and active". Following his death, it emerged in court during the extradition proceedings against
Dominic McGlinchey that Hughes' fingerprints had been found on a car used during the killing of a 77 year old Protestant woman, Hester McMullan, in
Toomebridge in 1977
[ D McKittrick, Lost Lives, Mainstream Publishing, 2004. ISBN 184018504 .]He took part in the short-lived mass hunger strike in 1980, and was the second prisoner to go on the
1981 Irish Hunger Strike in the H-Blocks at
HM Prison Maze. His hunger strike started on
15 March 1981, two weeks after
Bobby Sands became the first hunger striker. He was the second striker to die, at 5:43pm
BST on
12 May, after 59 days without food. His death led to an upsurge in rioting in nationalist areas of
Northern Ireland.
His cousin,
Thomas McElwee, was the ninth hunger striker to die. One of his brothers,
Oliver, is a
Sinn Féin councillor.
*
Second IRA protester dies in jail —
BBC News "On This Day" report*
Chronology of the Conflict - 1978 —
from the University of Ulster's CAIN research project*
Chronology of the Conflict - 1981 —
from the University of Ulster's CAIN research project*
Hunger strike poster of Francis Hughes*
Francis Hughes bio in IRIS
