‘On the Blanket’ set for launch this Saturday in Joe’s Bar

A SPECIAL event will take place in Strabane this weekend, when former IRA volunteer, Eoghan ‘Gino’ Mac Cormaic launches his new book.

Entitled, ‘On the Blanket,’ the new publication is a first hand account of the blanket protest in the H-Blocks and Armagh Prison which culminated in the Hunger Strikes and the deaths of ten prisoners in 1981. Derry man, Eoghan, was one of 450 protestors ‘on the blanket.’

‘On the Blanket – an A-Z of Prison Resistance’ has been described as “a compelling eye-witness account of imprisonment, rich in humour and pathos, and “a remarkable testimony to commitment and endurance in the cause of freedom.”

Using letters of the alphabet as his chapters, Eoghan tells the prison story through objects, events and emotions. It tells of brutality, hunger and cold but it also tells of solidarity, morale-raising sing-songs and resistance.

In all, Eoghan ‘Gino’ Mac Cormaic served 17 years in jail, including five years on the H-Block blanket protest, during which many of his comrades died in the eventual Hunger Strike.

This new book is the second published by the Derry man following ‘Pluid’, an award-winning account of the protests published in Irish in 2021.

Saturday’s book launch will take place in Joe’s Bar from 7pm. Copies of both books will be available to buy on the night.