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- For the baseball player see Paddy Quinn (baseball).
Patrick Quinn (Irish: Óglach Pádraic Ó Cuinn) (born, 1962, Belleeks, County Armagh, Northern Ireland) was a Volunteer with the 1st Battalion, South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
Early life
Quinn was born into a republican family and was the eldest child in a family of four boys and four girls born to Paddy and Catherine Quinn in Camlough, County Armagh. At the age of nine, Quinn's father died, as the new head of the family his mother realied heavily on Paddy for both emotional support and to help work their 32 acre farm in County Armagh.
Quinn's mother introduced him to Irish republicanism and told tales of when his uncle was shot by the Black and Tans during the Irish War of Independence. The Quinn family were unable to maintain the farm after their father's death and moved to Newry, County Down in 1979.
Active service
On 25 June 1976, Quinn along with his brother Seamus, Danny McGuinness and Raymond McCreesh planned to ambush a British Army patrol at the Mountain House Inn on the Newry-Newtownhamilton Road. They hijacked a "getaway" car from a farm in Sturgan but were observed moving into their ambush position. They prematurely opened fire on soldiers when they began moving in to investigate and the IRA member in the car drove off. The others tried to hide in a farmhouse but were surrounded. After they failed to shoot their way out the local Catholic parish priest facilitated their surrender.
On 2 March 1977, Quinn and Raymond McCreesh were convicted and sentenced to fourteen years in prison for attempted murder, possession of a rifle and ammunition and a further five year for IRA membership.
Imprisonment
Quinn was sent to Long Kesh prison where he refused to wear a prision uniform, demanded political status and joined the blanket protest.
1981 Hunger Strike
Quinn joined the hunger strike on 15 June 1981. When he was close to death after 47 days, he was the first hunger striker whose family intervened. They helped to get him medical help to save his life.
References
- Irish Hunger Strikes Chapter 41
- Remembering 1981: Two more join the Hunger Strike
- Raymond McCreesh
- McCreesh Biography from IRIS, Vol. 1, No. 2, November 1981
- Two Lives and Two Deaths for Ireland
- Guardian
- 1981 Hunger Strike Survivors
- The legacy of the hunger strikes
- MESSAGES FROM A HUNGER STRIKE
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