Francis Hughes was an Official IRA, and later, Provisional IRA guerrilla who participated in dozens of attacks on British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary targets. He grew up in Bellaghy, County Derry. THE SECOND republican to join the H-Block hunger-strike for political status - a fortnight after Bobby Sands - was twenty-five-year-old Francis Hughes, from Bellaghy in South Derry: a determined, committed and totally fearless IRA Volunteer who organised a spectacularly successful series of military operations before his capture, and was once described by the RUC as their 'most wanted man' in the North. He would often phone up the police and tell them where he was, if they wanted to come and get him, but they declined as they knew they would be walking into an ambush. He once walked through a British army patrol who had surrounded a house he was staying in. Rifle in hand, he brushed past the officer at the door, saying "Nothing in here, sir." As it was nearly dark, the poor light meant the soldiers were unable to distinguish Hughes' paramilitary fatigues from their own uniforms, or to notice his face did not belong to their patrol. He was for a time the most wanted man in Northern Ireland. He was eventually captured after he was seriously injured in a gun battle with the SAS where an SAS man was killed. He was convicted for the murders of the soldier and sentenced to life imprisonment. The term Official IRA relates to one of the two elements of the Irish Republican Army - the other being the Provisional IRA - that emerged from the ideological split in the Irish Republican movement in 1969-70. ... The Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) is a paramilitary group which aimed, through the use of violence, to achieve three goals: (i) British withdrawal from Ireland, (ii) the political unification of Ireland through the merger of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland , and (iii) the creation of an all... Distinguish from the type of ape called a gorilla. ... The British Army is the land armed forces branch of the British Armed Forces. ... The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. ... Bellaghy is a village in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. ... For other places with similar names, see Londonderry (disambiguation) and Derry (disambiguation). ... Dieu et mon droit (Royal motto) (French for God and my right)3 Northern Irelands location within the UK Official languages English, Irish, Ulster Scots Capital and largest city Belfast First Minister Office suspended Area  - Total Ranked 4th 13,843 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 4th 1,685... For other Special Air Services, see Australian Special Air Service Regiment and Special Air Service of New Zealand. ...

He took part in the short-lived mass hunger strike in 1980, and was the second prisoner to die in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike in the H-Blocks at HM Prison Maze. His cousin, Thomas McElwee, was the ninth hunger striker to die. A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest or to achieve a goal such as a policy change. ... A mural in Derrys Bogside, commemorating Irish hunger strikers. ... Her Majestys Prison Service is the British Executive Agency reporting to the Home Office tasked with managing most of the prisons within England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own Prison Services). ... HM Prison Maze (known colloqually as The H Blocks, Long Kesh or The Maze) is a disused prison sited at the former RAF station at Long Kesh (it is still called Long Kesh by many Irish Republicans) near Lisburn, nine miles outside Belfast, in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. ... Thomas McElwee (30 November 1957 - 8 August 1981) was an Irish republican hunger striker and member of the Provisional IRA. He was sent to prison in September 1977 and was invloved in the blanket protest. ...