10 Irish republican prisoners including 27-year-old Bobby Sands starved to death in 1981 at the HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland while on a hunger strike to protest the revoking of their status as political prisoners

Pro-British groups carried out violent attacks in cities across Northern Ireland in the first week of April, threatening the hard earned peace in the region

In the recent elections in Ireland, left-wing Sinn Fein registered a thumping victory, with 37 of their 42 running candidates elected with a vote share of almost 25%.

The government faced sharp criticism over its plans to commemorate the police forces that were involved in the repression of the independence struggle which critics alleged would be a celebration of the infamous ‘Black and Tans’