Frank Stagg (Irish republican)

In order to prevent the body from being disinterred and reburied by republicans, the first grave had been covered with concrete. Local Gardaí kept an armed guard by the grave for six months. However, unknown to them, the plot beside this grave was available for purchase. Frank's brother George purchased the plot and placed a headstone over it, with it declaring that the "pro-British Irish government" had stolen Frank's body. 22 months later in November 1977, a group of republicans dug down into the plot that George had purchased, then dug sideways and recovered Frank's coffin from the adjacent plot under cover of darkness, before reburying it in the republican plot beside the body of Michael Gaughan under a third and final headstone. The Republicans held their own version of a funeral ceremony before disappearing back into the night. This is sometimes referred to as the third and final funeral of Frank Stagg.

The British government refused to meet any of these demands. Stagg died on 12 February 1976 after 62 days on hunger strike.

In 1975 he was transferred to Wakefield Prison, where it was demanded that he again do prison work. He refused and was placed in solitary confinement. On 14 December 1975, Stagg embarked on a hunger strike in Wakefield, along with a number of other republican prisoners, after being refused repatriation to Ireland during the IRA/British truce.

Stagg was initially sent to the top security Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight. In March 1974, having been moved to Parkhurst Prison, he and fellow Mayo man Michael Gaughan joined a hunger strike begun by the sisters Marion Price and Dolours Price, Hugh Feeney and Gerry Kelly.

In April 1973, Stagg was arrested with six others alleged to comprise an IRA unit planning bombing attacks in Coventry. He was tried at Birmingham Crown Court. The jury found three of the seven not guilty; the remaining four were all found guilty of criminal damage and conspiracy to commit arson. Stagg and English-born priest, Father Patrick Fell, were found to be the unit’s commanding officers; Stagg was given a ten-year sentence and Fell twelve years. Thomas Gerald Rush was given seven years and Anthony Roland Lynch, who was also found guilty of possessing articles with intent to destroy property, namely nitric acid, balloons, wax and sodium chlorate, was given ten years.

In 1972, he joined the Luton cumann of Sinn Féin and soon after became a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Frank Stagg (Irish: Proinsias Stagg; 4 October 1941 – 12 February 1976) was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) hunger striker from County Mayo, Ireland who died in 1976 in Wakefield Prison, West Yorkshire, England after 62 days on hunger strike. Stagg was one of 22 Irish republicans to die on hunger strike in the twentieth century.

Stagg was the seventh child in a family of thirteen children. He was born in Hollymount, County Mayo, in 1941. His father, Henry, and his uncle had both fought in the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War. His brother, Emmet Stagg became a Labour Party politician and a Teachta Dála (TD) for Kildare North. Stagg was educated to primary level at Newbrook Primary School and at CBS Ballinrobe to secondary level. After finishing his schooling, he worked as an assistant gamekeeper with his uncle before emigrating to England in search of work. Once in England, he gained employment as a bus conductor in North London and later became a bus driver. Whilst in England he met and married fellow Mayo native, Bridie Armstrong from Carnacon in 1970.