Michael Devine

My friend and comrade, Jackie Fitzpatrick, worked at a factory outside Belfast during the Hunger Strike in the H Blocks of Long Kesh in !981.
The last Hunger Striker to die, Michael Devine from Derry City, wrote a letter which was read out at the gates of the factory where Jackie worked.
Following Michael Devine's death Jackie penned this very moving song which he sang for me one evening at a club in Belfast.
This is a new version of that song which I originally recorded 30 years ago.

ray collins

"Saoirse go Deo"

Michael James Devine was born on 26th May 1954 in Springtown, just outside Derry city. He grew up in the Creggan area of Derry, where he was raised by his sister Margaret and her husband after both parents died unexpectedly when he was age 11.
Mickey was witness to the civil rights marches of the late 1960s in Derry in which civilians were often brutally attacked and the trauma of Bloody Sunday.
In fact, Mickey himself was hospitalised twice because of police brutality.
In the early 70s, Mickey joined the Labour Party and the Young Socialists.
Then in 1975, Mickey helped form the INLA.

In 1976 he was arrested, and sentenced in 1977 to 12 years after an arms raid in County Donegal; he immediately joined the blanket protest.
While on hunger strike an appeal to Irish workers he drafted was smuggled out of Long Kesh and it was this letter to Irish workers that was read at factory gates throughout Ireland.

Mickey was 60 days on hunger strike; he was the third INLA Volunteer to join the hunger strike and died at 7:50am on 20th August 1981.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Michael Devine
• Derry City
• Creggan
• Bogside
• IRSP
• INLA
• Hunger Strike
• Hunger Striker
• 1981
• H Blocks
• Long Kesh

[SraidMacSuibhne]

Very moving song and a great video comrade. I shed a few tears listening now on Mickey's 30th anniversary. Saorise Go Deo!

[juanitaxoxo]

R.I.P mickey devine,will be going to his commemoration on sunday in derry