Dolours and Marian Price

dolours marian priceDolours Price (1951-2013) and Marian Price (1954- ) were prominent Irish Republicans, linked with both the Provisional IRA and Real IRA. The Price sisters were born in Belfast to a staunch Republican family. Their father Albert Price was a member of the IRA, while one of the Prices’ aunts had her hands blown off preparing hand grenades for a Republican operation. In the early 1970s both women became involved in Republican women’s groups and then the Provisional IRA. In March 1973 the Price sisters and other IRA members detonated car bombs at four locations in London, including the Old Bailey and a British Army recruiting centre. They were arrested while returning to Ireland. Both were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. While behind bars the Prices went on a hunger strike, demanding repatriation to Northern Ireland; they survived after being forcefully fed by prison guards.

The Prices were released from prison on humanitarian grounds in 1980 (Marian, pictured above, left) and 1981 (Dolours, right). Both returned to private life but retained their radical Republican views. After the signing of the Good Friday Agreement both women became vocal critics of Sinn Fein and the Provisional IRA. Marian Price condemned the agreement as a “fraudulent” peace, while Dolours Price claimed that Gerry Adams had been her commander in the Provisional IRA. Later aligned with the Real IRA, Marian Price was arrested and imprisoned again in 2011 in connection with the Massereene Barracks shootings that killed two British soldiers. She was paroled in May 2013. Dolours Price died at her home in January 2013, aged 62.

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