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
Proinsias Mac Cana Proinsias Mac Cana Proinsias Mac Cana (6 July 1926 – 21 May 2004) was an academic and Celtic scholar. He held professorships at the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies and University College Dublin. Proinsias Mac Cana was born in Belfast on 6 July 1936 to George McCann and his wife Mary Catherine, "née" Mallon; his Catholic parents were supporters of Irish nationalism. He attended Queen's University Belfast, graduating with a degree in Celtic languages in 1948. After a year at the Sorbonne, he completed a Master of Arts degree at Queen's, where he was appointed an assistant lecturer in 1951.