Joe O'Connell (Irish republican) security wing of Portlaoise Prison, Ireland, 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 Belfast Agreement. Joe O'Connell (Irish republican) Martin Joseph O'Connell (born 1951), better known as Joe, is an Irish republican and a former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). He is most noted for having been a member of the Balcombe Street gang. O'Connell was born in Kilkee, in rural County Clare, 'a stronghold of Gaelic-speaking inhabitants
Seán Mac Stíofáin Seán Mac Stíofáin Seán Mac Stíofáin (17 February 1928 – 18 May 2001), born John Stephenson, was an English-born chief of staff of the Provisional IRA, a position he held between 1969 and 1972. Although he used the Gaelicised version of name in later life, Mac Stíofáin was born John Edward Drayton Stephenson in Leytonstone, London, in 1928. An only child, his father was an English solicitor's clerk and his mother an Ulster Protestant from east Belfast. He stated his mother had left an impression on him at the age of seven with her instruction: I'm Irish, therefore you're Irish…