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
History of Sinn Féin History of Sinn Féin Sinn Féin (""We Ourselves"", often mistranslated as "Ourselves Alone") is the name of an Irish political party founded in 1905 by Arthur Griffith. It subsequently became a focus for various forms of Irish nationalism, especially Irish republicanism. Its splits during the Irish Civil War in 1922 and again at the beginning of the Troubles in 1969 had dramatic effects on politics in Ireland. Sinn Féin today is a republican, left-wing and secular party. The ideas that led to Sinn Féin were first propounded by the "United Irishman" newspaper and its editor, Arthur Griffith. An article by