Mairéad Farrell facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Mairéad Farrell
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Mairéad Farrell
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| Born | 3 March 1957 Belfast, Northern Ireland
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| Died | 6 March 1988 (aged 31) |
| Cause of death | Internal haemorrhaging caused by multiple bullet wounds |
| Resting place | Milltown Cemetery, Belfast, Northern Ireland |
| Nationality | Irish |
| Other names | Máiréad Ní Fhearghail / Ní Fhearail |
| Relatives | Mairéad Farrell (niece) |
Mairéad Farrell (Irish: Máiréad Ní Fhearghail or Mairéad Ní Fhearail) (3 March 1957 – 6 March 1988) was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). She was shot and killed by the British Army in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988.
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Early life
Farrell was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland to a middle-class family with no link to militant Irish republicanism other than a grandfather who had been interned during the Irish War for Independence. She grew up in West Belfast and was educated at Rathmore Convent School, Belfast. At the age of 14 she was recruited into the Provisional IRA by Bobby Storey. After leaving school at the age of 18, she was hired as a clerical worker for an insurance broker's office.
First term of IRA activity, 1975–1976
On 1 March 1976, the British government revoked Special Category Status for prisoners convicted from this date under anti-terrorism legislation. In response, the IRA instigated a wave of bombings and shootings across Northern Ireland; younger members such as Farrell were asked to participate. On 5 April 1976, along with Kieran Doherty and Sean McDermott, she attempted to plant a bomb at the Conway Hotel in Dunmurry, as that hotel had often been used by British soldiers on temporary duty to Northern Ireland. She was arrested by Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers within an hour of planting the bomb. Her boyfriend, Sean McDermott, was shot dead by an RUC reservist at a nearby housing estate. McDermott and two other members of the IRA active service unit had broken into a home, not realising it was the private residence of a policeman. The RUC officer shot McDermott dead; Doherty and another man escaped.
At her trial, she refused to recognise the court as it was an institution of the British state. She was sentenced to fourteen years in prison for explosives offences, firearms offences, and belonging to an illegal organisation.
Imprisonment, 1976–1986
At Armagh prison, Farrell was the official Officer Commanding of the female IRA prisoners.
When she arrived in Armagh, Farrell refused to wear a prison uniform in protest at the designation of republican prisoners as criminals. She was the first woman to do so, and the second person after Kieran Nugent, a prisoner in the H-Blocks of HMP Maze. Farrell instigated a dirty protest in February 1980. This meant that prisoners refused to slop-out. After 13 months, Farrell, along with Mary Doyle and Mairead Nugent, began a hunger strike in Armagh prison to coincide with the one already taking place in Long Kesh. It ended on 19 December, a day after the men's strike. The dirty protest ended in March 1981 as the prisoners' rights campaign was focused on the hunger strike being undertaken by Bobby Sands, leader of IRA prisoners in the H-Blocks. She was one of the H-Block/Armagh prisoners to stand for election in the Republic of Ireland in the 1981 General Election, standing in Cork North-Central and polling 2,751 votes (6.05%).
Second phase of IRA activity and subsequent death
Upon her release from prison in October 1986, Farrell enrolled at Queen's University, Belfast for a course in Political Science and Economics. However, she dropped out of university to re-engage in IRA activity. The IRA sent her with Sean Savage and Daniel McCann to the British overseas territory of Gibraltar to plant a car bomb in a heavily populated town area. The target was the band and guard of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment during a weekly ceremonial changing of the guard in front of Governors' residence, on 8 March 1988. According to interrogated IRA members, Gibraltar had been selected as a target because it was a British possession that was in dispute, and that it was an area with lighter security measures than at that time had become endemic at British military installations elsewhere due to the IRA's campaign.
The British Government's domestic intelligence service MI5 had become aware of their plan, and a detachment from the British Army was specifically deployed to Gibraltar to intercept the IRA team and prevent the attack. Farrell, Savage and McCann were confronted by plainclothes soldiers from the Special Air Service Regiment whilst they were engaged in a reconnaissance in Gibraltar pending the delivery of the car bomb. Farrell was shot four times, her two accomplices were also killed in an operation code-named Operation Flavius by the British Government. Some witnesses to the shooting stated that Farrell and McCann had been shot while attempting to surrender, and while lying wounded on the ground. The three IRA members were all found afterwards to be unarmed. Keys to a hire car found in Farrell's handbag led the Spanish Police, who had closely worked with the British security services in Operation Flavius, to the discovery across the border in Spain of five packages totalling 84 kg of Semtex explosive in a car which the IRA team had intended to subsequently drive into Gibraltar for the attack. These packages had four separate detonators attached. Around this was packed 200 rounds of ammunition as shrapnel. There were two timers, marked 10 hrs 45 mins and 11 hrs 15 mins respectively, but they were not primed or connected.
Gibraltar inquest
At the inquest into the deaths held in Gibraltar the jury returned a verdict of lawful killing by a 9–2 majority. The coroner, in summing up the evidence to the jury, told them to avoid an open verdict. The 9–2 verdict is the smallest majority allowed. Paddy McGrory, lawyer for Amnesty International, believed that it had been a "perverse verdict," and that it had gone against the weight of the evidence.
European Court of Human Rights
The relatives of McCann, Savage and Farrell were dissatisfied with the response to their case in the British legal system, so they took their case to the European Court of Human Rights in 1995. The court found that the three had been unlawfully killed. By a 10–9 majority it ruled that the human rights of the 'Gibraltar Three' had been infringed in breach of Article 2 – right to life, of the European Convention on Human Rights and criticised the authorities for lack of appropriate care in the control and organisation of the arrest operation.
In the Judgement the court said that the actions of the authorities lacked 'the degree of caution in the use of firearms to be expected from law enforcement personnel in a democratic society.' Some newspapers reported the decision as a finding that the three had been unlawfully killed.
The ECHR also ruled that the three had been engaged in an act of terrorism, and consequently dismissed unanimously the applicants' claims for damages, for costs and expenses incurred in the Gibraltar Inquest and the remainder of the claims for just satisfaction.
The Court is not empowered to overrule national decisions or annul national laws.
Related events
In the aftermath of the shooting on Gibraltar, violence escalated in the Belfast area and resulted in at least six further deaths.
A few months before she was killed, Farrell had been interviewed for the documentary Mother Ireland, directed by Anne Crilly, which was subsequently deemed untransmittable due to the 1988 broadcasting restrictions. Channel 4 eventually screened the documentary on 11 April 1991, with Farrell's voice having been de-dubbed to comply with the restrictions.
In 2008 Sinn Féin asked to hold an International Women's Day event in the Long Gallery at Stormont commemorating Farrell. The Assembly Commission, which runs the Stormont estate, ruled that it could not go ahead.
See also
- Death on the Rock; a documentary about the shootings
