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Máire Drumm's Grave

A mural in Belfast showing Máire Drumm at Bodenstown

Máire Drumm's Memorial in Killean

Máire Drumm (22 November 1919-28 October 1976) was the vice president of Sinn Féin and a commander in Cumann na mBan. She was killed by loyalists while recovering in Belfast's Mater Hospital.

Born in Newry, County Down to a staunchly republican family. Drumm's mother had been active in the War of Independence and the Civil War. Drumm grew up in the village of Killean, County Armagh, where she played camogie (the female form of hurling). She was active in the republican movement after meeting her husband, a republican prisoner and became involved in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s and worked to rehouse Catholics forced from their homes by loyalist intimidation.

She was jailed twice for 'seditious speeches'. After she was released from Armagh Prison, raids on her house by the security forces escalated, her health began to fail and she was admitted to the Mater Hospital, Belfast.

On 28 October 1976, Maíre Drumm was assassinated by Loyalist paramilitaries, in her hospital bed. ^[1]

Quotes

Drumm's speeches and quotations can be found on murals across Northern Ireland. These include:

• "The only people worthy of freedom are those who are prepared to go out and fight for it every day, and die if necessary."

• "We must take no steps backward, our steps must be onward, for if we don't, the martyrs that died for you, for me, for this country will haunt us forever."

References

External links

• Tribute Press release issued by Ruairi O Bradaigh on the death of Máire Drumm.
• Mural Directory CAIN Web Service (Conflict Archive on the Internet) - Mural Directory
• Ed Moloney (2007-03-28). "A secret History of the IRA". W. W. Norton & Company. http://books.google.com/books?id=5PNAtCeYpgYC&pg=PA204&lpg=PA204&dq=maire+drumm&source=web&ots=5lA1g4WTXe&sig=iX0RbQ3eCufhcnFnyTrlBxL7t_0#PPA204,M1. Retrieved 2002.  
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