Pat Sheehan

As at August 2015, he is a Political Member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board.

On 7 December 2010, he succeeded Gerry Adams as MLA for Belfast West, Adams having resigned in order to contest the 2011 Irish general election. Sheehan retained the seat for Sinn Féin at the 2011 Assembly election.

On 3 October 2006, Sheehan marked the 25th anniversary of the end of the hunger strike by reading the prisoners' statement that ended the protest outside the gates of the now closed Maze Prison.

Pat Sheehan is the widower of Sinn Féin activist Siobhán O'Hanlon who died from cancer in 2006. He has a son. Pat is also a keen cricket fan.

He was released in 1987, but was convicted again in 1989 for more bombing offences and sentenced to 24 years. He was released under the terms of the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

Sheehan was the 17th republican inmate at the Maze Prison to join the 1981 hunger strikes, which was aimed at gaining political status for Provisional IRA and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners. He began fasting on 10 August - after nine prisoners had already starved themselves to death - and ended when the hunger strike was officially called off on 3 October. He survived 55 days without food.

Sheehan was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 1978 he was convicted of causing an explosion and sentenced to 15 years.

Pat Sheehan (born 1958) is an Irish Sinn Féin politician, and former Provisional Irish Republican Army hunger striker at the Maze Prison.