The son of a docker , Doherty was born on 20 January 1955 in New Lodge , Belfast . Doherty left school aged 14 and began work on the docks and as an apprentice plumber , before being arrested in 1972 on his seventeenth birthday under the Special Powers Act . Doherty was interned on the prison ship HMS '' Maidstone '' and Long Kesh Detention Centre , and while interned heard of the events of Bloody Sunday in Derry , where 14 civil rights protesters were shot dead by the British Army . This led to him joining the IRA after he was released in June 1972 . In the mid-1970s Doherty was convicted of possession of explosives and sentenced to six years imprisonment in Long Kesh . He was released in December 1979
Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday (1972)
Joe Doherty