Fergus O'Hare

Who is Fergus O'Hare?

Fergus O'Hare was involved in the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland as a member of People's Democracy in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Later he became a founding member and executive member of the Northern Resistance Movement, which continued to campaign for civil rights in Northern Ireland.

With the introduction of internment without trial in 1971, O'Hare helped set up and became chairperson of the Political Hostages Release Committee: a group which organised a mass campaign against internment throughout the early 1970s. When internment was phased out in the mid-1970s, and with the decision of the British Government to end special category status for prisoners, O'Hare became involved with the campaign to "defend political status" for the prisoners. He became a member of the Relative's Action Committee and of the National H-Block Armagh Committee which helped organise the struggle in support of the hunger strikers in the early 1980s.

In 1981 he was elected as member of Belfast City Council, defeating Gerry Fitt who was a Westminster MP as well as a Belfast councillor.

The election of O'Hare, and of other candidates who stood in support of the H-Block prisoners during this period, occurred within the context of an ongoing debate within the H-Block movement and within Sinn Féin with regard to the use of elections as a tactic for building support for the prisoners' campaign, and for the campaign for social and democratic rights in Ireland. Sinn Féin at this time had a policy of boycotting elections. On the National H Block Armagh Committee, O'Hare and others such as Bernadette Devlin McAliskey argued that participation in elections should be used as a tactic in the campaign. During this debate, McAliskey, supported by People's Democracy and others, stood as a candidate in support of the prisoners, in the election for the European Parliament in 1979, winning more than 30,000 votes. When Frank Maguire, a Westminster MP, died in 1981, People's Democracy and Bernadette Devlin McAliskey argued that a candidate should stand in the by-election to demonstrate the high level of support that existed for the prisoners. The outcome of this debate was that hunger-striker Bobby Sands was put forward as a candidate and elected to the Westminster parliament. After Sands' death, his election agent Owen Carron of Sinn Féin won the seat.