Bernadette Sands McKevitt

Bernadette Sands McKevitt (born in November 1958[1]) is a founding member of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement.[2][3]

Early life

She lived in the mainly loyalist Rathcoole area of Newtownabbey before her family were forced out of their home, when they moved to republican West Belfast.[4] She is the younger sister of Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) hunger striker Bobby Sands.[5]

Personal life

Her husband was Michael McKevitt, the Quartermaster General of the Provisional IRA and later a founding member of an anti-Good Friday Agreement splinter group commonly known as the Real Irish Republican Army.[5] The couple had three children together and lived in Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland.[6]

Following the Omagh bombing, Sands McKevitt received hostile messages while running her t-shirt printing business in Dundalk, which traumatised her and led to her calling a local priest.[7] The locals forced her and her husband out of the business, though both of them strongly denied having anything to do with the attack in Omagh (in June 2009, McKevitt was one of four men found by a civil court to be liable for the bombing in a case taken by relatives of the victims[8]). In March 2001, McKevitt and her husband were arrested by the Gardaí in Dundalk in a paramilitary investigation,[9] but were not charged. In 2003, McKevitt was sentenced to twenty years in prison in the Republic of Ireland, under the Offences Against the State Act,[10] being released early in 2016.[11] He died in January 2021 after a long battle with cancer.[12]

References
  1. O'Hearn, Denis (2006). Bobby Sands: Nothing but an Unfinished Song. Pluto Books. p. 3. ISBN 0-7453-2572-6.
  2. "The bombers have blown a hole in more than the BBC". The Guardian. 5 March 2001.
  3. "Links with terror group rejected". BBC. 17 August 1997.
  4. "Father of Maze hunger striker Bobby Sands dies at the age of 91". Belfast Newsletter. Retrieved 25 September 2014.
  5. "Bobby Sands film fuels argument over Sinn Fein 'sell-out'". Belfast Telegraph. 22 May 2008.
  6. Village.IE.Interview with Bernadette Sands 1 February 1998, retrieved 1 October 2008
  7. "People of Dundalk turn their backs on the McKevitts". The Irish Times.
  8. "Four found liable for Omagh bomb". RTÉ News. 9 June 2009. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  9. Cowan, Rosie; correspondent, Ireland (30 March 2001). "Michael and Bernadette Sands McKevitt arrested" – via www.theguardian.com.
  10. "McKevitt sentenced to 20 years". The Guardian. Press Association. 7 August 2003. Retrieved 30 December 2019.
  11. Conor Lally (28 March 2016). "Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt released from prison". Irish Times. Retrieved 30 March 2016.
  12. "Former Real IRA leader Michael McKevitt dies following illness". Belfast Telegraph. 2 January 2021. Retrieved 5 January 2021.


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