Tony O’Hara and the 1981 General Election in Dublin West

When the government of the Twenty Six County state collapsed in May 1981, the National H-Block/ Armagh Committee decided to seize the opportunity it presented. The resulting general election would provide a much needed platform to highlight the realities faced by republican prisoners on a daily basis in Long Kesh and Armagh prison.

The election would give the voting public an opportunity to actively support the on- going republican hunger strike and the prisoner’s ‘Five Demands’. It would attract the attention of the national and international media, shinning a light on the plight of the protesting republican prisoners.

Nine candidates, eight of them current republican prisoners, were selected to contest constituencies across the state on an abstentionist basis. The Anti- H- Block/ Armagh candidates were, Kieran Doherty, IRA, (Cavan/Monaghan), Tom McAllister, INLA, (Clare), Mairéad Farrell, IRA, (Cork North Central,) Seán McKenna, IRA, (Kerry North), Martin Hurson, IRA, (Longford/ Westmeath), Paddy Agnew, IRA, (Louth), Joe McDonnell, IRA, (Sligo/ Leitrim), Kevin Lynch, INLA, (Waterford) and Tony O’Hara, INLA, (Dublin West).

During the 1981 election large parts of the current Dublin South Central constituency, including Ballyfermot, were part of Dublin West.

Tony O’Hara, the candidate in Dublin West, was at this time an INLA Blanket man in Long Kesh. O’Hara was born in 1954 in Bishop Street, Derry City, where his family lived over their small pub. The O’Hara’s were a republican family. Tony’s Grandfather had been involved in the IRA since the early 1920’s. 

Tony became politically active in 1968 when, at just 12 years of age, he joined the Derry Housing Action Committee.  Tony also became involved in the Civil Rights marches which were spreading across the Six Counties. His brother, Seán Seamus, who was also a member of the Derry Housing Action Committee, was interned in Long Kesh in 1971.

Later that year, the British Army shot Tony’s fourteen year old younger brother, Na Fianna Éireann member, Patsy. He was seriously injured in the leg.

Tony joined the Irish Republican Socialist Movement and actively confronted British Imperialism. In 1976 when aged just 20, he was arrested in relation to an armed raid and sentenced to five years in the H-Blocks. Tony was convicted by a juryless Diplock court, on the sole evidence of a witness statement. His election manifesto for the 1981 election stated he was innocent and had been framed by the RUC.

Once in the H-Blocks, Tony refused to wear a prison uniform and joined the Blanket protest, refusing to allow himself or the republican struggle be criminalised.

In 1980, Tony was joined on the protest by his younger brother Patsy. Patsy, who had been a member of the Ard Chomhairle of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP), would soon become Officer Commanding of the INLA prisoners and would volunteer to take part in the second republican hunger Strike in 1981. Patsy O’Hara would give his life, bravely fighting the British policy of criminalisation, on May 21, 1981 after 61 days on hunger strike.

This was the context of the general election in 1981.

With Tony O’Hara imprisoned the election campaign was run by republicans on the ground. The campaign, as with those of the other Anti- H block/ Armagh candidates, was built around gaining support for the hunger strikers and for the prisoner’s ‘Five Demands’.

The Five Demands were:

1. The right not to wear a prison uniform;

2. The right not to do prison work;

3. The right of free association with other prisoners, and to organise educational and recreational pursuits;

4. The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week;

5. Full restoration of remission lost through the protest.

The campaign was very well received in the working class communities in Dublin West, with republicans, socialists, trade unionists and other progressives coming from all over to support the election of O’Hara. There were some differences in the campaign on the ground, centring on a petty reluctance by some members of the Provisional Movement to work with members of the IRSP.

Other candidates in the Dublin West constituency included, Mary Robinson (Labour Party), Jim Mitchell (Fine Gael), Brian Lenihan Snr. and Liam Lawlor (Fianna Fáil), Tomas Mac Giolla and Michael Finnegan (Sinn Féin- The Workers Party) and John Montgomery (Communist Party of Ireland).

The election took place in June 1981.

O’Hara polled an impressive 3,034 votes, wiping the floor with the Labour Party and the ‘Stickies’. Much of that support came from working class voters in Ballyfermot. O’Hara also gained transfers, particularly from Mac Giolla, leaving many to wonder what could have been if the ‘Stickies’ had given O’Hara a free run and if petty differences in the local campaign had been put to one side.

Elsewhere the election continued to be successful for republicans. The nine Anti- H Block/ Armagh candidates between them, received just short of 43,000 votes across the state. Kieran Doherty (Cavan/ Monaghan) and Paddy Agnew (Louth) were elected, while Joe Mc Donnell (Sligo/ Leitrim) and Martin Hurson (Lonford/ Westmeath) came very close to taking seats.

Tony O’Hara was released a couple of months later and continued to be an active member of the Irish Republican Socialist Movement.

The people of Ballyfermot stood behind the republican prisoners when it mattered, proudly entering a new chapter into the long tradition of Dublin South Central’s Fighting Story.