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
John Kelly (Sinn Féin politician) John Kelly (Sinn Féin politician) John Kelly (5 April 1936 – 6 September 2007) was an Irish republican politician in Northern Ireland. He joined the Irish Republican Army in the 1950s, and was a founder member and a leader of the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the early 1970s. John Kelly was born in Belfast, County Antrim, in 1936. Later in life he moved to Maghera, County Londonderry, where he lived until his death in 2007. He and his wife had a daughter. He was a dedicated member of local Gaelic Athletic Association club Watty Graham's Glen and a keen