24/08/2026
A 11-line poem written by Liam O'Flaherty for an IRA Hunger Striker has been recently rediscovered and published by Spencer J. Weinreich, Assistant Professor of History at University of California, Los Angeles
The poem was written around this time 80 years ago in the aftermath of IRA Chief of Staff Seán McCaughey's death on hunger and thirst strike in Portlaoise Gaol during May 1946. McCaughey was a metal worker and Irish language speaker from Aughnacloy in County Tyrone. He had been held in isolation in Portlaoise 24 hours a day, clad only in blankets, for about 5 years before his hunger strike. At the inquest in to his death, the prison doctor, Dr. Duane, had said that if he had a dog at home he would not have treated him in the manner that McCaughey was treated by prison authorities.
A poem by Liam O’Flaherty on the hunger strike of Sean McCaughey was found and recently published by the historian Spencer J. Weinreich in the magazine Éire Ireland of the Irish-American Cultural Institute. Here, Eoghan Mac Cormaic, himself a writer on Irish political prisoners, looks at the stor...
