History of Sinn Féin trend of power in both Sinn Féin and the IRA shifting north. In particular, Ó'Brádaigh's part in the 1975 IRA ceasefire had damaged his reputation in the eyes of Ulster republicans. The prisoners' protest climaxed with the 1981 hunger strike, during which striker Bobby Sands was elected Member of Parliament for Fermanagh and South Tyrone with the help of the Sinn Féin publicity machine. After his death on hunger strike, his seat was held, with an increased vote, by his election agent, Owen Carron, and two IRA volunteers were also elected to Dáil Éireann. These successes helped convince republicans that
The Troubles in Ballymena Ballymena on 24 May 1974. The pub had stayed open during the Ulster Workers' Council strike. The gunmen arrived at the pub in a convoy with a busload of other loyalists. All 30 men were detained at a police road block. Two were later sentenced to life imprisonment. Yvonne Dunlop, aged 27, a Protestant, was killed as the result of a Provisional IRA firebomb in the shop where she worked on Bridge Street on 9 October 1976. Among those jailed for the attack was IRA member Thomas McElwee, who died in the 1981 Irish hunger strike. Later that same day,