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Robert Gerard Sands, commonly known as Bobby Sands (9 March, 1954 – 5 May, 1981) and also as Volunteer Bobby Sands due to his IRA membership, was an Irish republican who died on hunger strike in the prison officially called HM Prison Maze but formerly known as Long Kesh (a name still used by Irish Republicans). Sands was the leader of the hunger strike and had been elected as a Member of Parliament during his fast.

Family and early life

Bobby Sands was born in Abbots Cross, Newtownabbey and brought up in Rathcoole, Newtownabbey. His family moved several times due to intimidation by loyalists, although it was not always clear the Sands were Roman Catholics as their last name derived from his paternal grandfather who was a Protestant. On leaving school, he became an apprentice coach-builder, until he was forced out at gunpoint by loyalists. In June 1972, at the age of 18, with his family, he moved to the Twinbrook housing estate.

IRA activity

In 1972, the year of the Troubles with the highest death toll, he joined the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Later that year, Sands was arrested and convicted of taking part in several IRA robberies.

On his release in 1976, he returned to his family in Twinbrook in west Belfast. Sands returned to IRA active service. In October 1976 he was involved in the bombing of the Balmoral Furniture Company in Dunmurry. After the bombing, Sands and at least 5 others in the bomb team, were involved in a gun battle with the police. Abandoning two of their wounded friends, Seamus Martin and Gabriel Corbett , Sands with Joe McDonnell, Seamus Finucane and Sean Lavery, tried to escape in a car, but were caught. Sands had one of the revolvers used in the shooting in his possession.

His trial (in September 1977) saw him accused of organising a bombing which had happened nearby, but these and other serious charges against him were dismissed for lack of evidence. He was convicted of possession of firearms of a revolver from which bullets had been fired at the police after the bombing and sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment.

Prisoner

He served his prison term at HM Prison Maze, also known by Irish republicans as Long Kesh. After internment a series of buildings known from their floor plans as 'H-Blocks' were built to make the prison suitable for the large number of inmates belonging to paramilitary organisations; each block contained members of the same organisation.

In prison, Sands became a writer both of journalism and poetry which was published in the Irish republican newspaper An Phoblacht. In late 1980 Sands was chosen as Officer Commanding IRA prisoners in Long Kesh.

Sands was reported to have become increasingly zealous in his Catholic faith before his death. According to the writer and politician Conor Cruise O'Brien (who was a strong supporter of Irish unionism), Sands received, while on hunger strike, an icon of the Virgin Mary from a "priest in Kerry who had encouraged him to take arms for his oppressed people" (in Northern Ireland) *.

Political status protests

Republican prisoners had organised a series of protests seeking to regain their previous status of political prisoners and not be subject to ordinary prison regulations. This was seen as trying to reduce 800 years of Irish struggle to crime. This started with the "blanket protest" in 1976, when the prisoners refused to wear uniform and were allowed only blankets instead. The "dirty protest" of 1978 saw prisoners living in squalor by smearing excrement on the walls. There had been an earlier hunger strike in Autumn 1980, which had ended when the British government appeared to concede the prisoners' demands. When that strike was over, the government had reverted to its previous hardline stance.

Hunger strike

The Second Hunger Strike started with Sands refusing food on 1 March, 1981. Sands decided that other prisoners should join the strike at staggered intervals in order to maximise publicity with prisoners steadily deteriorating and dying successively over several months.

The hunger strike centred around "Five Demands":

  1. The right not to wear a prison uniform;
  2. The right not to do prison work;
  3. The right of free association with other prisoners;
  4. The right to organise their own educational and recreational facilities;
  5. The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week.

The significance of the hunger strike was wider, however, and was aimed at embarrassing the government and forcing it into concessions.

Election

Shortly after the beginning of the strike, Frank Maguire, the Independent Republican MP for Fermanagh & South Tyrone died of a heart attack suddenly and precipitated a by-election.

The sudden vacancy in a seat with a small Roman Catholic majority was a valuable opportunity for Sands' supporters to unite the nationalist community behind their campaign. Pressure not to split the vote led other nationalist parties, notably the Social Democratic and Labour Party, to withdraw and Sands was nominated on an "Anti H-Block /Armagh Political Prisoner" ticket. After a highly polarised campaign, Sands narrowly won the seat on 9 April, 1981, with 30,492 votes to 29,046 for the Ulster Unionist Party candidate Harry West, incidentally also becoming the youngest MP at the time.

Following Sands' success the Government rushed through Parliament the Representation of the People Act 1981 which prevents convicted prisoners serving jail terms of more than one year in either the UK or the Republic of Ireland, or unlawfully at large when they should be serving such a sentence, from being nominated as candidates in elections.

Death

Three weeks later, Bobby Sands MP died from starvation in the prison hospital after 66 days of hunger-striking. He was 27 years old. The announcement of his death prompted several days of riots in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. Over 100,000 * people lined the route of his funeral. Sands was a Member of the Westminster Parliament for twenty-five days, though he never took his seat or oath.

He was survived by his parents, siblings, and a young son (Gerard) from his marriage to Geraldine.

Political impact

Nine other IRA and INLA men who were involved in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike also died after Bobby Sands. Most Irish Republicans and IRA sympathisers regard Bobby Sands and the other nine men as being martyrs who stood firm against the intransigence of the British Government, and many Irish nationalists who abhorred the IRA were outraged at the British government's stance. On the other hand, Unionists saw him as a pawn in a wider political movement which was trying to force concessions for republicans.

The media coverage that surrounded the death of Bobby Sands resulted in a new surge of IRA activity and an immediate escalation in the Troubles, with the group obtaining many more members and increasing its fundraising capability. On both sides of the Republican/ Unionist divide there was a hardening of attitudes and move towards the extremes. The various electoral successes during the strike prompted the republican movement to begin the slow movement towards a political solution, which indirectly paved the way for the Good Friday Agreement and the electoral success of Sinn Féin many years later.

Reactions

Great Britain
  • At Old Firm football matches in Glasgow, Scotland, Rangers F.C. some fans have been known to sing songs mocking Bobby Sands to taunt fans of Celtic F.C, such as Could you go a chicken supper Bobby Sands?. Some fans of Old Firm clubs empathise with the different sides in the Northern Ireland conflict and the extremist elements in the opposing groups of supporters are occasionally associated with terrorist groups: Rangers fans who are more sympathetic to the Unionist community see Sands as an anti-hero and a Republican terrorist; Celtic fans may be more likely to support the Republican community and thus view him as a hero and martyr.http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20030223/ai_n12580707
  • Bobby Sands was played by John Lynch in the 1996 film Some Mother's Son.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117690/
  • Richey Edwards of the Welsh rock group, the Manic Street Preachers, was an admirer of Bobby Sands. In 2006, Manics' bassist Nicky Wire wrote a song about Sands entitled "Bobby Untitled".http://www.foreverdelayed.org.uk/
  • The graffiti "Bobby Sands - Slimmer of the year" appeared.http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/review.cfm?id=284492003
  • In 2006, The Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) published an article commemorating the life of Bobby Sands and the impact of the Irish republican Hunger Strikes, 20 years on. Bobby Sands, Irish liberation hero.

Europe

  • In Milan, 5,000 students burned the Union Jack and shouted "Freedom for Ulster" during a march.
  • In Ghent students invaded the British Consulate.
  • In Paris, thousands of Marxists marched behind huge portraits of Sands, to chants of 'The IRA will conquer.'
  • The town of Le Mans has named a street after Sands, as has the St Denis département of Paris.
  • In Oslo, demonstrators threw a balloon filled with tomato sauce at Elizabeth II, the Queen of the United Kingdom.
  • In the Soviet Union, Pravda described it as 'another tragic page in the grim chronicle of oppression, discrimination, terror and violence' in Ireland.
  • In Nantes in Brittany there is a Rue de Bobby Sands

USA and Cuba

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Bobby Sands".

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