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
Belfast West (Dáil constituency) Belfast West (Dáil constituency) Belfast West, was a former potential Dáil Éireann parliamentary constituency located in Northern Ireland despite being outside the Dáil's jurisdiction. It was a Dáil constituency from 1921 to 1922. The constituency was entitled to return four Teachtaí Dála (known in English as Deputies) in 1921 to serve in the Irish Republic's Second Dáil. None of the four took their seat in the Dáil. The First Dáil, passed a motion at its last meeting on 10 May 1921, the first three parts of which make explicit the republican view. Sinn Féin used the elections in 1921 to