Word: macstiof
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...policy marked the opening of a second front against the I.R.A. Provisionals in their previous sanctuary in the South, and the I.R.A. fought back with bullets as well as bombs. An eight-man squad of Provisional gunmen boldly attempted to rescue their organization's chief of staff, Sean MacStiofáin, who had been arrested the week before, convicted as a member of an illegal organization and sentenced to six months in prison (TIME, Dec. 4). MacStiofáin promptly went on a hunger and thirst strike to protest his imprisonment, and was taken to Dublin's rambling...
Even though the I.R.A. is banned in the Irish Republic as well as in the North, MacStiofáin has operated out of Dublin with considerable latitude since 1969. He lived quietly in rural Navan, northwest of Dublin, gave periodic television and press interviews and occasionally slipped across the border to harangue I.R.A. units in the field. Theoretically he was a wanted man, but last month he boldly appeared in downtown Dublin at a convention of the Provisional Sinn Fein-the political branch of the I.R.A.-to a standing ovation of 1,000 assembled delegates. "I say with confidence that...
...first 30 years of his life, MacStiofáin was known as John Stephenson, the London-born son of a British father and a Northern Irish mother. After serving in the Royal Air Force at the end of World War II, he joined an I.R.A. unit in Britain and was subsequently imprisoned for six years for his part in an abortive arms raid on an army barracks. When he emerged in 1959, with his name Gaelicized, he moved to Ireland to devote his life to the I.R.A. In 1969, when the organization split apart over how to conduct its campaign...
...week's end, O'Malley had won his first round against the I.R.A. A special court, sitting without a jury, sentenced MacStiofáin to six months in prison on charges of membership in an unlawful organization. But the Irish Government's troubles with him were far from over: MacStiofáin said he would starve himself to death unless released. It did not seem to be an idle threat. In the past half century five I.R.A. men have sought martyrdom by continuing a hunger strike to the agonizing end. MacStiofáin was on the seventh...
...MacStiofáin showed no signs of abandoning his fast. As the sentence was passed he aroused himself and pounded the railing of the dock. "I have taken no liquid and no food since my arrest. I'll see you in hell before I submit," he croaked at the judges. "I shall be dead within six days. Live with that...