New rioting breaks out as 3rd IRA prisoner dies

May 22, 1981

Riots erupted in Northern Ireland after Raymond McCreesh became the third Irish Republican guerrilla to starve himself to death in prison this month. Gangs of youths threw gasoline bombs at army and police vehicles. Some 300 youths besieged a police post, which needed military armored cars to disperse them. McCreesh had fasted for 61 days to back demands, which the British government rejected, for jailed gunmen of the outlawed Irish Republican Army to be classified as po litical prisoners.