Robert Gerard "Bobby "
Sands (Roibeard Gearóid Ó Seachnasaigh ) died at 1.17am on 5th of May 1981 after being on hunger strike for 66 days in the Long
Kesh Maze Prison in Northern Ireland in protest against British
treatment of political prisoners. He was 27, emaciated weighing a mere 95
pounds his fillings having fallen out, his organs shut down and the
whites of his eyes turned orange from toxins released.
Over the next few months, 9 other republican prisoners followed him, the
culmination of a 5 year struggle in the prisons of Northern Ireland
demanding jail reforms and the return of special category status
allowing them to be treated as prisoners of war , allowing them the
privileges of POW's as specified in the Geneva Convention. Using hunger strikes as a practice of political and social resistance
has its first records in 5th century India. The records tell us that
people who felt wronged for some reason sat without eating in front of
the household of the accusing person. This action had a lot of cultural
symbolism, with the accusers’ honor being tarnished for leaving a person
without eating in front of their homes. Hunger strikes, as a means of action often have since been used as a last resort in the
fight against a particular injustice.
Bobby Sands had been bought to the republican struggle through personal
experience after being intimidated out of his job as an apprentice car
builder by fellow workers. and after his family were intimidated out of
their home in Rathcoole, a predominantly loyalist area of North
Belfast, growing up under the cloud of nationalist and toyalist
divisions, Catholics like Bobby were reduced to second class citizens
while the Protestant majority were granted privileges in jobs, education
and services.
In 1971 the British introduced internment - allowing its forces to
arrest anyone they saw fit and hold them indefinitely without charge. In
1972 at the age of eighteen the year he joined the IRA he was picked up by the police beaten
up and tortured after some handguns were found in a house he was staying
in and was sentenced to 5 years in Long Kesh, he was rearrested in 1976
and in a juryless trial was sentenced to 14 years for possession of a
gun found in a car he shared with 5 other people
Developing his political ideas he was to become a leader and
inspiration to the prisoners. During this time Bobby read widely and taught himself Irish which he was later to teach the other blanket men in the H-Blocks. He pushed hard for prison reforms
confronting the authorities, and for his outspoken ways was often given
solitary confinement sentences He was also a prolific writer, who wrote
numerous poems.
On 27 October 1980, republican prisoners in the H Blocks of Long Kesh
began a hunger strike. Many prisoners volunteered to be part of the
strike, but a total of seven were selected to match the number of men
who signed the Easter 1916 Proclamation of the Republic. On 1 December three prisoners in Armagh Women’s Prison joined the
strike, including Mairéad Farrell , Mairéad Nugent and Mary Doyle.
‘I
am (even after all the torture) amazed at British logic. Never in eight
centuries have they succeeded in breaking the spirit of one man who
refused to be broken. They have not dispirited, conquered, nor
demoralised my people, nor will they ever.’ Bobby Sands wrote at the time.
In
January 1981, it became clear that the British Government had reigned
on an agreement that had been made/. Prison authorities began to supply the prisoners with
officially issued civilian clothing, whereas the prisoners demanded the
right to wear their own clothing.
In the aftermath of this Bobby Sands, then leader of the Irish
Republican Army (IRA) in the Maze Prison, refused food on 1 March
1981 and so began a new hunger strike. The choice of the date was significant because it marked the fifth anniversary of
the ending of special category status (1 March 1976). The main
aim of the new strike was to achieve the reintroduction of 'political'
status for Republican prisoners. Special category, or 'political',
status would be achieved if five demands were met: the right
of prisoners to wear their civilian clothes at all times; the
right to free association within a block of cells; the right not
to do prison work; the right to educational and recreational facilities;
and the restoration of lost remission of sentence. It later became
clear that the IRA leadership outside the prison was not in favour
of a new hunger strike following the outcome of the 1980 strike.
The main impetus for a new protest came from the prisoners themselves.
The strike was to last until 3 October 1981 and was to see 10
Republican prisoners starve themselves to death in support of
their demands.
The tactic of the hunger strike has a special place in Republican history and has proved very emotive for Nationalists in Ireland throughout the 20th century. The impact that could be achieved on world opinion was clear in 1920 when Terence MacSwiney, then Lord Mayor of Cork, died in Brixton Prison, London, on day 74 of his hunger strike. A passage from a speech he had made at his inauguration as Lord Mayor was to be recalled during the 1981 hunger strike: "It is not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most who will conquer".
In the weeks and days before Sands died, there were two major attempts to unconditionally end the hunger strike. The first was an intervention by the European Commission on Human Rights. This was supported by the Dublin Government and the SDLP as a way to alleviate nationalist pressure on them to take Britain to task by supporting the prisoners' demands. The second was the visit to Sands from the Pope's Private Magee, Both interventions ended in failure following re-affirmation to their relatives by Sands and some of the other hunger strikers, like Raymond McCreesh and Francis Hughes that they would not settle for less than their five demands. Margaret Thatcher the ""Iron Lady" British Prime Minister at the time decided that
no concessions be made to the prisoners, and with cold and calculated
cruelty she and her government allowed them to die, but on March 30th, 1981 he was nominated as candidate for the Fermanagh and South
Tyrone by-election caused by the sudden death of Frank Maguire, an
independent MP who supported the prisoners’ cause. He was subsequently elected to Parliament in a defiant rebuke to the British Government from the
people of Northern Ireland having won 30,492 votes, ten thousand more
than Thatcher in her London Constituency of Finchley and with a majority
twice as large becoming the people's own M.P. I remember Thatcher's ( British PM at the time)
callous refusal to reach any compromise - " crime is crime, it is not political." she
said, which only served to reinvigorate the republican cause at the
time. It is estimated that over 100,000 people attended Bobby's
funeral on March 7th where he was laid to rest in the Republican plot at Millbank Cemetery, Belfast. His death saw an international outpouring of grief and anti British
demonstrations taking place. Protests were held in Paris, Milan,
Ghent , Australia and Greece. In a ripple effect that was felt across
the world.The tactic of the hunger strike has a special place in Republican history and has proved very emotive for Nationalists in Ireland throughout the 20th century. The impact that could be achieved on world opinion was clear in 1920 when Terence MacSwiney, then Lord Mayor of Cork, died in Brixton Prison, London, on day 74 of his hunger strike. A passage from a speech he had made at his inauguration as Lord Mayor was to be recalled during the 1981 hunger strike: "It is not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most who will conquer".
After the death of a further nine more republican prisoners the hunger strike was called of on October 8 after pressure from the strikers families And although Margaret Thatcher claimed victory , her government conceded the
hunger strikers demands and even after the hunger strike protests ended even she, the
main adversary of Sands and his comrades was moved to say years later " It was possible to admire the courage of Sands and the other hunger strikers who died."
Meanwhile,
history has shown disgust with the name of Margaret Thatcher and no
one, other than those officially charged with doing so, attended her
funeral, people danced in the streets and congratulated each other
on being rid of the evil woman. Bobby Sands name though will always be remembered, his sacrifice never forgotten. Today
his smiling face is known the world over and his fight for freedom
remains an inspiration wherever people rise up against injustice, from Palestine to Kurdistan.
In political terms , the 1981 hunger strike marked a sea change in Irish republicanism and
in the history of the Northern Ireland conflict, the scale of the mass
campaign in support of the prisoners helped turn the republican
struggle increasingly towards a political, rather than a purely military
focus , away from violence, decommissioning and towards ceasefire which
would be crucial in laying the ground for the peace process which would
have once seemed inconceivable., marking a turning point in the bitter 30 year conflict over British rule.
The Republican
movement had achieved a huge propaganda victory over the British
government and had obtained a lot of international sympathy.
Active and tacit support for the Irish Republican Army (IRA) increased
in Nationalist areas. Political support for Sinn Féin
(SF) was demonstrated in two by-elections (and the general election
in the Republic of Ireland) and eventually led to the emergence
of SF as a significant political force in Northern Ireland. The
British government's fear that SF would overtake the Social Democratic
and Labour Party (SDLP) as the main representative of the Catholic
population of Northern Ireland was a key reason for the government
signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement (AIA) on 15 November 1985.
Following Bobby Sands death Nelson Mandela led a hunger strike by prisoners on
Robben Island to improve their own conditions..Palestinian and Kurdish prisoners have since increasingly used the same tactics too as an ultimate form of resistance, and it is easy to understand that a
people deprived of its cultural, ethnic and religious existence find
hunger strikes a useful tool. It equally reinforces the need for urgent,
material support amongst those in solidarity with their cause.
to bring attention to their
plight.
Bobby Sands stature keeps growing, and his poetry and songs still resound, let us remember him, let us never forget.He said before he died " our revenge will be the laughter of our children." - a phrase that says all that we need to know about him and looks beyond the bloodshed to true peace.
The Peoples Own M.P - Christy Moore
Here is a link to a previous post on Bobby Sands that includes some of his fine poetry
http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/bobby-sands9354-5581-rhythm-of-time.html
For Bobby Sands
He died in springtime,
When flowers were waking,
But his passion born of love and anger,
Remained undimmed, his will unbroken,
On the side of justice and right,
The most profound human hunger of all,
Through pain and struggle he rode on,
Kept up the fight, let the world be his witness,
Let truth shine it's light, for his cause to be seen,
Strength and courage carried this poets bones,
No fear, only defiance was to be seen in his eyes,
And now today his spirit still lives on,
As the ugliness of injustice continues to roam.
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