A POLITICAL activist and a member of the IRA, the dramatist Brian Campbell wrote several of the most powerful plays to come out of the Northern Ireland conflicts.

His first play, Des, about the radical West Belfast priest Des Wilson, received critical acclaim in both Ireland and the UK in 2000. With Laurence McKeown he went on to write The Laughter of our Children (2001), a drama about the 1981 hunger strike, and A Cold House (2003), which focused on the difficulties involved in the Northern Ireland peace process.

Born in 1960 in Coleraine, Campbell moved to Newry in 1968. Having graduated with a degree in engineering from Liverpool University in 1981, he returned to Newry where he joined the IRA. He was arrested in 1986 and charged with possession of explosives and sentenced to 15 years in jail.

In Long Kesh Prison he took up writing, studied for a second degree in social sciences and was the founding editor of An Glor Gafa (The Captive Voice), a magazine of prisoners’ writings that developed a huge following throughout Ireland. It was in prison that he met Laurence McKeown. After his release in 1992 Campbell edited the Republican newspaper, An Phoblacht, and he also joined Sinn Fein in Newry.

Des, directed by Pam Brighton for the Dubbeljoint Company in Belfast, heralded a new talent in Irish drama and Campbell was championed by leading critics and fellow playwrights such as Patrick Galvin.

His first collaboration with McKeown in 2000 was Nor Meekly Serve My Time: The H-Block Struggle 1976-1981, a book that contained the accounts of 26 prisoners involved in the blanket protest and hunger strikes.

Campbell’s and McKeown’s later two plays toured Ireland and were seen in London at the Hackney Empire. Together they also wrote H3, a film about the 1981 hunger strike, which was screened in Ireland in 2001 but has yet to be shown in the UK.

“For Brian there was no distinction between art and politics,” said McKeown. “Each was the other and his application of both was seamless. For him, art existed in the real world. It was all around him. He didn’t have to invent it or distort reality to create it. ‘What is more dramatic than the lives of people in struggle?’ he would say.”

Campbell and McKeown also created a ten-part radio soap opera, Up the Road (2003), which was produced by Dubbeljoint for broadcast on Feile FM. Campbell also wrote Tiger Leaping Gorge for BBC Radio 4.

In March this year Dubbeljoint premiered Campbell’s Voyage of No Return, a play focusing on Irish and African cultures set against a background of racism and slave rebellion.

As a piece of striking political theatre, Voyage continued Campbell’s practice of using theatre to explore the bonds and divisions experienced by the communities in Northern Ireland.

“Drama can help people see the world they live in,” said Campbell. “But it can only be the truth of how the writer sees the world. Whether it brings people together or divides them I don’t know, but drama can challenge people and in any post-conflict situation there should be space for people to tell their stories.”

He had been working on a new play for Dubbeljoint when he died of a heart attack. He is survived by his wife, Gráinne, and their son and daughter.

Brian Campbell, playwright and activist, was born on January 4, 1960. He died on October 8, 2005, aged 45.