Pat McGeown

Pat "Beag" McGeown (3 September 1956 – 1 October 1996) was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.

McGeown was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 3 September 1956, and joined the IRA's youth wing Fianna Éireann in 1970. He was first arrested aged 14, and in 1973 he was again arrested and interned in Long Kesh until 1974. In November 1975 McGeown was arrested and charged with possession of explosives, bombing the Europa Hotel, and IRA membership. At his trial in 1976 he was convicted and received a five-year sentence for IRA membership and two concurrent fifteen-year sentences for the bombing and possession of explosives, and was imprisoned at Long Kesh with Special Category Status.

In March 1978 he attempted to escape along with Brendan McFarlane and Larry Marley. The three had wire cutters and dressed as prison officers, complete with wooden guns. The escape was unsuccessful, and resulted in McGeown receiving an additional six-month sentence and the loss of his Special Category Status.

McGeown was transferred into the Maze Prison's H-Blocks where he joined the blanket protest and dirty protest, attempting to secure the return of Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners. McGeown described the conditions inside the prison during the dirty protest in a 1985 interview:

In late 1980 the protest escalated and seven prisoners took part in a fifty-three-day hunger strike, aimed at restoring political status by securing what were known as the "Five Demands":

The strike ended before any prisoners had died and without political status being secured, and a second hunger strike began on 1 March 1981 led by Bobby Sands, the IRA's former Officer Commanding (OC) in the prison. McGeown joined the strike on 9 July, after Sands and four other prisoners had starved themselves to death. Following the deaths of five other prisoners, McGeown's family authorised medical intervention to save his life after he lapsed into a coma on 20 August, the 42nd day of his hunger strike.

...
Wikipedia