Martin Galvin serves as National Freedom-for-all-Ireland Chairman and has been a prominent American advocate of Irish national freedom for more than four decades.
In 1979 as H-Block protests in Long Kesh were moving to a crisis, he was named National Publicity Director of Irish Northern Aid, and led nationwide American support for the Blanketmen and then Hunger Strikers, arranging speakers and coordinating demonstrations which were a major contribution to the victory of the Hunger Strikers. He also became the editor of the IRISH PEOPLE weekly newspaper in 1979, the “Voice of Irish Republicanism in America” now online at Indiana University and archived at New York University. He held both positions for 15 years.
He is frequently invited to give major speeches in Ireland, including Bodenstown, Easter Commemorations in Derry, Tyrone, and Donegal, Ballymurphy Martyrs Commemoration and Internment Day rallies Belfast, the Liam Ryan commemoration in Tyrone, Crossbarry Commemoration in Cork, Brendan Hughes lecture and the George McBrearty Commemoration in Derry.
He testified as an expert witness on the MacBride Principles and other Irish issues in Congress and State Legislatures of New York, Illinois, Connecticut, and New Jersey, as well as many city councils.
He became a frequent panelist for Irish Candidates Forums and as a panelist for the Irish American Presidential Forum in 1992, he asked then candidate Clinton the groundbreaking question about granting a visa to Gerry Adams and ending visa censorship against Irish Republicans.
He has been a featured guest on ABC’s “Nightline”, NBC’s “Today”, CNN, PBS as well as Irish, and British television networks. People magazine called Mr. Galvin the foremost advocate for the Irish Republican cause in America. The British government banned him from the six counties in 1984. When Mr. Galvin was called to address a peaceful rally in Belfast, by Gerry Adams, British forces brutally murdered one man – John Downes, and injured scores more.
RTE journalists went on a 48-hour strike to protest government refusal to allow an interview with him, after Mr. Galvin defied the ban to carry a coffin alongside Martin McGuinness in 1985. In 1989 Mr. Galvin walked through Derry publicly with Martin McGuinness, was arrested by British crown forces and flown to England, briefly imprisoned then shipped back on a military plane to the United States. Britain then withdrew the ban.
As an attorney Mr. Galvin fought immigration court battles for, former Irish Republican prisoners now in the United States with their American wives and children, and won the ruling that AOH member and former political prisoner Brian Pearson could not be deported because the IRA was engaged in a legitimate struggle against British rule not terrorism. This verdict helped secure a settlement of the cases against several of the Irish Political Deportees. He has also campaigned for recently deported AOH member Malachy McAllister.
Mr. Galvin was a leader of the GERRY McGEOUGH FAMILY CAMPAIGN, attending Belfast Court proceedings by which the British in February 2011 jailed the Tyrone Republican and former Tyrone County AOH President, for a 1981 incident, in retaliation for his election campaign. In 2015 his selection as Aide to the Grand Marshal Cardinal Dolan of the New York St. Patrick’s Day Parade is credited with forcing the unwanted British PSNI Constabulary to withdraw from the parade.
From 2015,through 2018,Mr. Galvin co-hosted RADIO FREE EIREANN, a weekly Irish political program heard noon Saturdays in New York on station WBAI 99.5fm which was heard across the country and in Ireland through live-streaming on WBAI.ORG.
He is currently Bronx County President, former Bronx Division 5 President and current New York State FFAI Chairman.