Dolours Price

Dolours Price (16 December 1950 – 23 January 2013) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer.

Price became involved in Irish republicanism in the late 1960s and she and her sister Marian participated in the Belfast to Derry civil rights march in January 1969 and were attacked in the Burntollet Bridge incident.

Price grew up in an Irish republican family and joined the IRA in 1971.

In 1971, together with Marian, she joined the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

In 1972 she joined an elite group within the IRA called "The Unknowns" commanded by Pat McClure.

The Unknowns were tasked with various secretive activities and transported several accused traitors across the border into the Republic of Ireland where they were "disappeared".

She personally stated that she had driven Joe Lynskey across the border to face trial.

In addition she stated that she, Pat McClure, and a third Unknown were tasked with killing Jean McConville, with the third Unknown actually shooting her.

Price admitted taking part in the Murder of Jean McConville, as part of an IRA action in 1972.

She was sent to jail for her role in the 1973 Old Bailey bombing, but released in 1981.

She led the car bombing attacks in London on 8 March 1973, which injured over 200 people and is believed to have contributed to the death of one person who suffered a fatal heart attack.

The two sisters were arrested, along with Gerry Kelly, Hugh Feeney, and six others on the day of the bombing as they were boarding a flight to Ireland.

They were tried and convicted at the Great Hall in Winchester Castle on 14 November 1973.

Although originally sentenced to life imprisonment, which was to run concurrently for each criminal charge, their sentence was eventually reduced to 20 years.

Price served seven years for her part in the bombing.

She immediately went on a hunger strike demanding to be moved to a prison in Northern Ireland.

The hunger strike lasted for 208 days because the hunger strikers were force-fed by prison authorities to keep them alive.

On the back of the hunger-striking campaign, her father contested West Belfast at the UK General Election of February 1974, receiving 5,662 votes (11.9%).

The Price sisters, Gerry Kelly, and Hugh Feeney were moved to Northern Ireland prisons in 1975 as a result of an IRA truce.

In 1980 Price received the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, and was freed on humanitarian grounds in 1981, suffering from anorexia nervosa brought on by her experience of fasting and force-feeding.

Price's health improved after her release but she struggled with disordered eating throughout the remainder of her life.

The Price sisters remained active politically.

After her release in 1980, she married Irish actor Stephen Rea, with whom she had two sons, Danny and Oscar.

She married actor Stephen Rea in 1983.

In her later life, Price was a vocal opponent of the Irish peace process, Sinn Fein, and Gerry Adams.

Dolours and her sister, Marian, also an IRA member, were the daughters of Albert Price, a prominent Irish republican and former IRA member from Belfast.

Their aunt, Bridie Dolan, was blinded and lost both hands in an accident handling IRA explosives.

In the late 1990s, Price and her sister claimed that they had been threatened by their former colleagues in the IRA and Sinn Féin for publicly opposing the Good Friday Agreement (i.e. the cessation of the IRA's military campaign).

In 2001, Price was arrested in Dublin and charged with possession of stolen prescription pads and forged prescriptions.

She pleaded guilty and was fined £200 and ordered to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

In her later life she struggled with depression, PTSD, and alcohol and drug addiction.

They divorced in 2003.

Price was a contributor to The Blanket, an online journal, edited by former Provisional IRA member Anthony McIntyre, until it ceased publication in 2008.

In February 2010, it was reported by The Irish News that Price had offered help to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains in locating graves of three men, Joe Lynskey, Seamus Wright, and Kevin McKee.

In 2010, Price claimed Gerry Adams had been her officer commanding when she was active in the IRA.

Adams, who has always denied being a member of the IRA, denied her allegation.

The bodies of Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee were recovered from a singular grave in County Meath in August 2015.

It is unclear if Price played a role in their recovery.

The remains of Joe Lynskey have not been recovered.

She was the subject of the 2018 feature-length documentary I, Dolours in which she gave an extensive filmed interview.