Pamela Kane – Mná an IRA

Pamela Kane grew up in a republican family in north Dublin. She recalls the formative impact of seeing how the nationalist population was treated when on childhood family holidays in her father’s homeland of Tyrone. She became actively involved in the republican movement during the 1980s hunger strikes in Northern Ireland. At this time, Sinn Féin members were banned from the airwaves because of  state censorship under Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act. To protest this, Kane and others scaled RTÉ’s TV mast in a daring publicity stunt. She was arrested but released on probation.

In 1990 she was arrested during a botched bank robbery in County Wexford, along with five others and was sentenced to ten years, part of which was served in the high-security Limerick Prison. She was released in 1995.

This documentary series explores the involvement of women in active service with the IRA in modern times. It tells their personal stories and what impact their actions had on the conflict in the North of Ireland and on politics in the Republic.The series is part of The Loopline Collection Volume 2. To watch more of the collection click here.