Price and her sister
Dolours participated in the Belfast to Derry civil rights march in January 1969 and were attacked in the
Burntollet Bridge incident. The Price sisters, along with Kelly and Feeney, immediately went on
hunger strike in a campaign to be repatriated to a prison in Northern Ireland. IRA prisoners in Ireland at the time had
Special Category Status (similar to
political status), which was not granted to IRA prisoners in England, and the IRA volunteers did not see themselves as criminals but insisted to be treated like
prisoners of war. The hunger strike lasted over 200 days, with the hunger strikers being
force-fed by prison authorities for 167 of them. In an interview with
Suzanne Breen, Price described being force-fed:Four male prison officers tie you into the chair so tightly with sheets you can't struggle. You clench your teeth to try to keep your mouth closed but they push a metal spring device around your jaw to prise it open. They force a wooden clamp with a hole in the middle into your mouth. Then, they insert a big rubber tube down that. They hold your head back. You can't move. They throw whatever they like into the food mixer – orange juice, soup, or cartons of cream if they want to beef up the calories. They take jugs of this gruel from the food mixer and pour it into a funnel attached to the tube. The force-feeding takes 15 minutes but it feels like forever. You're in control of nothing. You're terrified the food will go down the wrong way and you won't be able to let them know because you can't speak or move. You're frightened you'll choke to death.
Political activity after prison Marian Price was freed in 1980 on a Royal prerogative of mercy when her anorexia nervosa, resulting from being force-fed during the hunger strike, was deemed to put her life at risk. Price was refused a
visa to enter the United States on 15 December 1999. She had been due to speak at an
Irish Freedom Committee fundraising event in New York. In 2000 Price gave the funeral oration for Joseph O'Connor, a member of the
Real IRA. As of 2003 she was a member of the
32 County Sovereignty Movement and worked for a
prisoners' welfare organisation. Interviewed in
The Guardian in 2003 she expressed no regrets for her past actions and her continued support for armed struggle. In 2011 she was charged with providing property for the purposes of terrorism. following her 2011 imprisonment On 15 May 2011, she was charged with encouraging support for an illegal organisation. This related to her involvement in a statement given at an
Easter Rising rally in
Derry in 2011. On the same day the
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland,
Owen Paterson, revoked her release from prison on licence. Paterson said the decision was made because the threat posed by Price had "significantly increased". Price was the only female inmate at
HM Prison Maghaberry near
Lisburn from May 2011 until she was moved to the hospital wing of
HM Prison Hydebank Wood in February 2012. In May 2012, at a rally in her support, Price's husband, Gerry McGlinchey, stated that his wife was near breaking point. The charges against Price and three men from Derry in relation to the Easter Rising rally were later dismissed at Derry Magistrates' Court in May 2012. On 7 June 2012, a protest close to
Times Square in
Manhattan, New York, called for Price to be released from what her family describes as
internment. On 30 May 2013, Price was released from prison after a decision by the Parole Commissioners. ==In popular culture==