[citation needed] On 1 March 1976, the British government revoked Special Category Status for prisoners convicted from this date under anti-terrorism legislation.
In response, the IRA instigated a wave of bombings and shootings across Northern Ireland; younger members such as Farrell were asked to participate.
[18][19] On the 18th of December, the 'Armagh Three' heard, on a smuggled radio, that the men's fast at Long Kesh had come to an end; despite their elation, they decided to maintain their strike until the news had been confirmed by a republican source.
The IRA sent her with Sean Savage and Daniel McCann to the British overseas territory of Gibraltar to plant a car bomb in a heavily populated town area.
[23] Farrell, Savage and McCann were confronted by plainclothes soldiers from the Special Air Service Regiment whilst they were engaged in a reconnaissance in Gibraltar pending the delivery of the car bomb.
Keys to a hire car found in Farrell's handbag led the Spanish Police, who had closely worked with the British security services in Operation Flavius, to the discovery across the border in Spain of five packages totalling 84 kg of Semtex explosive in a car which the IRA team had intended to subsequently drive into Gibraltar for the attack.
'[26] Stephen Bullock, a lawyer by profession, who was 150 metres from the shooting, and another independent witness saw Dan McCann falling backwards with his hands at shoulder height.
[26] The researcher for Thames Television which made the programme Death on the Rock believed Ms Proetta's evidence as it matched another account they had received.
[28] The report by Amnesty International stated that the inquest had failed to answer 'the fundamental issue... whether the fatal shootings were caused by what happened in the street, or whether the authorities planned in advance for the three to be shot dead.
[31] In sum, having regard to the decision not to prevent the suspects from travelling into Gibraltar, to the failure of the authorities to make sufficient allowances for the possibility that their intelligence assessments might, in some respects at least, be erroneous and to the automatic recourse to lethal force when the soldiers opened fire, the Court is not persuaded that the killing of the three terrorists constituted the use of force which was no more than absolutely necessary in defence of persons from unlawful violence within the meaning of Article 2(2)(a) of the Convention[23]In the Judgement the court said that the actions of the authorities lacked 'the degree of caution in the use of firearms to be expected from law enforcement personnel in a democratic society.
That evening an IRA sniper, Kevin McCracken, was shot dead in Norglen Crescent, Turf Lodge, Belfast while preparing to attack British soldiers.
At the funeral of IRA member Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh on 19 March – one of the three men killed three days earlier by Michael Stone – two British Army corporals, Derek Wood and David Howes, drove into the funeral cortège, apparently by accident but mourners evidently feared an attack similar to Stone's was taking place.
[22] Scenes relayed on television showed the two corporals being cornered by black taxis and dragged from their car before being taken away to be beaten, stripped, and then executed.
[43] On 10 September 1990, the IRA attempted to kill Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Terry at his Staffordshire home.
Terry had been a prime target since his days as Governor of Gibraltar, where he signed the documents allowing the SAS to pursue IRA members.
[44] A few months before she was killed, Farrell had been interviewed for the documentary Mother Ireland, directed by Anne Crilly, which was subsequently deemed untransmittable due to the 1988 broadcasting restrictions.
[45][46] In 2008 Sinn Féin asked to hold an International Women's Day event in the Long Gallery at Stormont commemorating Farrell.
What emerges is a portrait of a soft-spoken, attractive woman determined to end what she perceived as the injustices surrounding her everyday life....