Release
After serving 23 years in UK jails the four men were transferred to the high security wing of Portlaoise Prison, 50 miles (80 km) west of Dublin in early 1998. They were presented by Gerry Adams to the 1998 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis as ‘our Nelson Mandelas’, and were released together with Brendan Dowd and Liam Quinn in 1999 as part of the Good Friday Agreement.
Read more about this topic: Balcombe Street Siege
Famous quotes containing the word release:
“The near touch of death may be a release into life; if only it will break the egoistic will, and release that other flow.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)