Bring Them Home

The song Bring Them Home was used in the widely supported and successful campaign aiming at the transfer of two IRA prisoners, Marion and Dolours Price, or the Price Sisters, from Durham Prison near London to Northern Ireland.

A year after the dissolution of the Stormont government in March 1972, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (pIRA) expanded its operational area. Until then Irish Republican violence was primarily aimed at representatives of the British interference in Northern Ireland, such as the police force and the military, but after the reintroduction of Direct Rule the campaign was taken to Britain. This policy surfaced for the first time in March 1973, when a team of 11 members, commanded by 22 years old Dolours Price, and four bombs set out for London.
Once the bombs were planted near New Scotland Yard, the British Forces Broadcasting Office, the Old Bailey and the Ministry of Agriculture the Provisional Irish Republican Army (pIRA) issued two warnings as a result of which two bombs could be defused and ten team members were arrested. The Price Sisters were arrested on Heathrow Airport.
It is said that Marion whilst arrested looked at her watch at 3pm and smiled towards her guards. At 3pm on 8 March 1973 the remaining bombs near the Old Bailey and the Ministry of Agriculture detonated, leaving one fatality and over 200 people injured.

Marion and Dolours Price were sentenced for life and transferred to the maximum secured Durham Prison where they launched a campaign to spent their sentence in a Northern Irish prison. To enforce their arguments they refused food for 213 days, from which they were forced-fed 166 days, until 8 June 1974, a few days after Michael Gaughan had died owing to the effects of being force-fed.
The campaign of these daughters of Ireland was broadly based in Ireland and in March 1975 the Price Sisters were transferred to Armagh Prison.
Probably at least partially due to the hunger strike and forced feeding Marion suffered from anorexia nervosa and she was released on medical grounds in April 1980. A year later Dolours was discharged on the same grounds.

Dolours married the actor Stephen Rea and more or less disappeared from public life.
Marion initially also resumed a private life until she stepped forward as fearsome opponent of Sinn Féin's peace strategy and the Good Friday Agreement in the 1990's. She turned away from Sinn Féin and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (pIRA) and became prominent member of the 32-County Sovereignty Movement (32CSM), a political organisation allegedly closely related to the Real Irish Republican Army (rIRA), and spokesperson of the Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (IRPWA).

A visitor brought Éire Óg's version of Bring Them Home, in which the line Irishmen will set them free is altered in The IRA will set them free, to our attention.

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Bring Them Home

Hear it ring on the air
It's the voice of my country so fair
Can't you feel can't you see
Irishmen will set them free

In the jail that held Mc Sweeney
In the prison where he died
Lies two daughters of old Ireland
And they fill my heart with pride
For I know that England wishes
That we'd let them die alone
But the voice of dear old Ireland
Cries for us to bring them home

Hear it ring on the air
It's the voice of my country so fair
Can't you feel can't you see
Irishmen will set them free

Twas the love of dear old Ireland
Brought them to a prison hell
But the ghosts of Pearse and Connolly
Filled their lonely prison cell
Clarke and Plunkett stand beside them
McDonagh, McDermott and Wolfe Tone
And all the voices of old Ireland
Cry for us to bring them home

Hear it ring on the air
It's the voice of my country so fair
Can't you feel can't you see
Irishmen will set them free

So I pray you men of Ireland
Don't betray our daughters true
Proudly stand beside our heroes
Lest they die for me and you
Though the tyrant would deny us
We can break their hearts of stone
And all of Ireland will be singing
When we bring our daughters home

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