Michael Farrell (activist)

Michael Farrell (born 1944) is an Irish civil rights activist, writer and former leader of People's Democracy, from its inception through to the 1969 Burntollet Bridge incident and into the 1970s.

Farrell was educated at Queen's University, Belfast and the University of Strathclyde. He was a Labour Trotskyist, becoming involved in the Northern Ireland civil rights movement in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, and was a founding member of the university-based People’s Democracy, which was established on 9 October 1968, after Royal Ulster Constabulary police had broken up a civil rights march in Derry on 5 October. He stood as their candidate for Bannside in the Northern Ireland general election of 1969 where he finished third behind Terence O'Neill (the Northern Ireland Prime Minister) and Ian Paisley. He was on the executive of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association and was interned without trial for six weeks from 9 August 1971. Imprisoned for breach of the peace in 1973, Farrell and another PD member, Tony Canavan, went on hunger strike in demand of political status. The strike lasted for thirty-four days before they were released.