Remembering Bobby Sands

 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.

 

  

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.