‘A sad day for republicans’: Sinn Féin activist Rita O’Hare dies aged 80

The death has occurred of Rita O’Hare, a former IRA member and for years one of the most senior and influential members of Sinn Féin.

Party president Mary Lou McDonald paid tribute on Saturday describing Ms O’Hare as “genuine patriot” and a “powerhouse within Sinn Féin and the Irish republican struggle”.

For many years Ms O’Hare ran the Sinn Féin office in Washington, where she had access to senior representatives in the US administration. With former party leader Gerry Adams she had met the likes of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Ms O’Hare, who was 80 and died at her home in Dublin on Friday night, was also a central figure in the “on the runs” controversy. This was an effective amnesty permitted by Tony Blair’s Labour government whereby more than 200 republicans received letters from the Northern Ireland Office saying they were not wanted for prosecution by the British authorities.

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The commitment not to prosecute was necessary, the British government argued, to cement Sinn Féin further into the peace process and to help persuade it to endorse the PSNI, which it finally did in 2007.

‘Dedicated’

Associates and republicans who knew Ms O’Hare described her as a very active member of the IRA in the early 1970s.

“She was a very straight-talking woman and completely dedicated to the cause,” said one.

In 1972, Ms O’Hare was arrested for the attempted murder of British army warrant officer Frazer Paton in Belfast in October 1971. After she was released on bail she fled to the Republic.

While she served in many senior roles in Sinn Féin she was unable to return to her native Belfast because of the outstanding arrest warrant against her. While the “on the runs” legislation assisted scores of former IRA members to return North without fear of prosecution, Ms O’Hare never availed of the system.

A House of Commons committee said that Ms O’Hare “in effect, was the person responsible for the start of the whole process” but that she “was neither given a letter nor was able to be processed through the administrative scheme”.

While living in the Republic, she continued her IRA activities. She served a three-year sentence in Limerick Prison on explosives charges in the late 1970s. An attempt to have her extradited to the North on the attempted murder charge was blocked by High Court on Dublin in 1978 on the grounds that it met the political offence exception.

She later rose through the ranks of Sinn Féin and served as editor of An Phoblacht, director of publicity, general secretary and as the party’s representative to the US.

While hugely admired within republican circles, she remained something of a hate figure for unionists. As recently as last year in the House of Commons, DUP MP Ian Paisley sought and failed in an amendment that, he said, was designed to ensure the likes of Ms O’Hare were put “through due process and get the sort of justice that Warrant Officer Fraser Patton is entitled to”.

Mr Paisley also referred to Ms O’Hare’s “glowing career”, saying; “It has been so glowing that if we look her up on Facebook or elsewhere on the internet, we can see her standing with no less a figure than President Biden in one of her most recent posts”.

Arrest warrant

Born Rita McCulloch, she was the daughter of a Catholic nationalist mother, Maureen, and a socialist Protestant father, Billy. She was unable to attend their funerals in Belfast because of the arrest warrant.

She was married to the late former Belfast IRA member and for many years Dublin-based journalist, Gerry O’Hare. They had three children, two girls and a boy. After that marriage dissolved she later married Brendan Brownly, a republican who also was a Belfast native but living in Dublin.

Ms McDonald said she was “deeply saddened” at the death of Ms O’Hare.

“Sinn Féin has lost a talented and valued comrade and we have all lost a very special and very dear friend,” she said.

“Rita O’Hare has been an influential republican activist for decades and an important figure in the Irish peace process,” she said on Saturday.

“An integral part of the Sinn Féin leadership at important stages of the party’s development and during era-defining stages of the peace process, Rita worked with great drive, energy and ability for the unity of Ireland, for a more just society, and for the cause of peace and reconciliation.”

“It is a sad day for Republicans throughout the length and breadth of Ireland and for Rita’s many friends beyond these shores, particularly in the United States. But above all, this is a devastating loss for Rita’s husband Brendan, her children Terry, Frances, Rory and Ciaran, her grandchildren, great grandchildren, her brother Alan and members of the wider family.”