Background
Hughes was born in Bellaghy, County Londonderry on 28 February 1956 into a republican family: the youngest of four brothers in a family of ten siblings. Hughes' father Joseph had been a member of the Irish Republican Army in the 1920s and one of his uncles had smuggled arms for the republican movement. This resulted in the Hughes family being targeted when internment was introduced in 1971, and Hughes' brother Oliver was interned for eight months without trial. Hughes left school aged 16 and started work as an apprentice painter and decorator. Hughes was returning from an evening out in Ardboe, County Tyrone when he was stopped at an Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) checkpoint. When the soldiers realised he came from a republican family, he was badly beaten. Hughes' father encouraged him to see a doctor and report the incident to the police but Hughes refused, saying he "would get his own back on the people who did it, and their friends".
Read more about this topic: Francis Hughes
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