[citation needed] The election of O'Hare, and of other candidates who stood in support of the H-Block prisoners during this period, occurred within the context of an ongoing debate within the H-Block movement and within Sinn Féin with regard to the use of elections as a tactic for building support for the prisoners' campaign, and for the campaign for social and democratic rights in Ireland.
On the National H Block Armagh Committee, O'Hare and others such as Bernadette Devlin McAliskey argued that participation in elections should be used as a tactic in the campaign.
When Frank Maguire, a Westminster MP, died in 1981, People's Democracy and Bernadette Devlin McAliskey argued that a candidate should stand in the by-election to demonstrate the high level of support that existed for the prisoners.
[citation needed] Ironically, those who led the argument that elections should be used to further the republican project in Ireland were subsequently sidelined electorally by a resurgent Sinn Féin, so that in the Assembly elections in 1982, O'Hare and the other People's Democracy candidates fared badly,[7] their vote largely going to Sinn Féin candidates for Belfast West Belfast North.
[citation needed] Later, he was involved with the establishment of Raidió Fáilte: the first legal Irish language radio station in Northern Ireland, of which he became manager in 2006.