Rita O'Hare is 32 years old and has three children between the ages of 8 and 12. She has lived in Dun Laoghaire in the South of Ireland for three years. Before this she lived in Andersonstown in Belfast-until she was shot by British soldiers.
She had bullet wounds in her head, shoulder and stomach which were so serious that despite a long stay in hospital ferred from the Musgrave Military Hospital to Armagh Prison accused of attempting to murder a British soldier. This is why the went to live in the South.
RITA O'HARE But from the moment of her arrival the 26 County police were out to get her. On two separate occasions the Gardai (Southern police) failed to get her extradited to the North. Even the High Court threw out the police plea on the grounds that the charges against her were clearly political.
But Rita is now in Limerick prison along with Rose Dugdale, serving a three year sentence. She was sentenced on an explosives charge, having been accused of trying to smuggle explosives to prisoners. This charge was upheld despite the fact that all the warders who were with her all the time had thoroughly searched her and found nothing. Furthermore. she was not arrested until six hours after she had сиса пон.
• CONDITIONS • The conditions under which both Rita and Rose are held in this 26 County jail are even worse than those which the Price sisters endured in England. Their close friends are not allowed to see them, and their relatives have to speak through holes the size of a penny in the sheet of glass which separates them. Rita's children are not allowed to hug their mother, and when they once tried to get through the visiting box to do so they were assaulted and thrown crying from the prison.
women are allowed no parcels at all and the censor holds up Rita's letters for days. He dues not pass Rose Dugdale's on at all.
Since she went inside Rose Dugdale has seen only her parents, who travelled from England fo see her. In protest over the withholding of her baby's presents and her letters Rose has been on hunger strike since 25 April. Rita is supporting her pecause orner own concluons ana oecaus although she would like to appeal, she has not so far been allowed to see a SOICITO Why is the 26 County Labour/Fine Gael coalition Government hounding these women! Because the desparate economic are soMa Cuss wHer DeseLs Britain has an even more drastic impact on Southern Ireland. Faced with the big stick of British capital on the one hand and a class on the other, the coalition is driven further into the arms of British imperia•HANDMAIDEN • The British ruling class has its own problems and needs an end to the situatior in the north of Ireland. The Southern Irish bourgeois Government is nothing more than a handmaiden to diseased British capitalism. Britain pays the piper and тететоге cals me ture. is needed in the South to hamper the struggle in the North, then the Government of the South is expected to co-operate. The problems of Southern Irish capitalism ROSE DUGDALE B are so immense that it is only too ready to do so.
The Dublin Committee for the Defence of Women Political Prisoners has appealed tor support trom orgamsamons in butam as well as Ireland. Militants of the women's movement, of trade unions and of students unions are urged to take this matter up and send messages and reso ¡lutions of support, condemning the jailing of Rita O'Hare by the Special Criminal Court (the court with no jury), she and Rose Dugdale are kept, and demanding the release of Rita immediately, to:
Committee for the Defence of Women Political Prisoners, c/o 51 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. Dave Fox
red weekly 22 may 1975 * BECAUSE British troops are only in Ireland to protect British imperialist inireland m