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 "Sinn Féin Gardiner St". Those supportive of Mac Stiofáin's "Provisional Army Council" came to be known popularly as the Provisional IRA and Provisional Sinn Féin, or "Sinn Féin Kevin St". That party contested elections as "Sinn Féin". The Official IRA were known informally as the "stickies", given the tradition to affix Easter lilies with sticky gum, rather than pins. According to Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, it was Mac Stíofáin, as chief of staff of the Provisionals, who invented the name "P. Ó Néill". P. O'Neill is the name appended to IRA declarations to show that the statement is genuine. Nicknamed 'Mac