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
Phil Mac Giolla Bhain Phil Mac Giolla Bhain Philip Joseph Gerard "Phil" Mac Giolla Bhain is a Scottish-born Irish author, playwright and freelance journalist. After training to be a social worker, and working in Glasgow, Mac Giolla Bhain moved to Donegal in 1996. From 1999 to 2006 he was a staff journalist with "An Phoblacht" a newspaper published by the IRA supporting political party Sinn Féin, writing under the pen name Mick Derrig, a reference to Mac Giolla Bhain's maternal grand-uncle. Mac Giolla Bhain came to prominence by charting events leading to the financial collapse of the Glasgow football club Rangers. In April 2010