The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
FORMER hunger striker Laurence McKeown will hold the Clare launch of his new book at the West County Hotel at 7.30pm on Thursday, June 30. The book, Time Shadows: A Prison Memoir details McKeown’s time in the Maze Prison from his arrival in 1976 to the aftermath of the 1981 hunger strike in which Bobby Sands and nine other republican prisoners died. In all the author spent 1,621 days on the blanket protest, in which IRA prisoners refused to wear uniforms, 1,079 days on the no wash protest and finally 70 days on hunger strike. His life was spared when his family intervened to authorise medical attention when he was in a coma on the point of death. He has gone on to be a successful poet, playwright and author, and co-wrote the 2001 film about the Hunger Strike, H3, directed by Les Blair. In 1998 he was awarded a Doctorate in Sociology by Queens University Belfast, having completed a …
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