Bobby Sands (1954-1981), a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze on 5 May 1981. He was the first of ten hunger strikers to be murdered by Thatcher's government in its battle to crush the Irish republican movement through the use of the infamous H-Block prisons. On the occassion of the 36th anniversary since his death we remember who Sands was and what he stood for.
Bobby Sands MP / Source: bobbysandstrust.com.
Bobby
Sands, Roibeard Gearóid Ó Seachnasaigh, was born in 1954 in
Rathcoole, a predominantly loyalist district of north Belfast. His
twenty-seventh birthday fell on the ninth day of his sixty-six-day
hunger strike. His sisters Marcella, one year younger, and
Bernadette, were born in April 1955 and November 1958, respectively.
All three lived their early years at Abbots Cross in the Newtownabbey
area of north Belfast.
