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Remember Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Patsy O’Hara,Raymond McCreesh, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson,
Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Tom McElwee and Michael Devine ...
... who died in the 1981 hunger strike against the criminalization politics of the British government.
On this site you find articles about the hunger strike of Irish Republican prisoners in 1980 and 1981.
There are testimonies of former hunger strikers, accounts of eyewitnesses and reports which deal with its
political aspects, the meaning for today, for development then and today in Ireland, for international
solidarity, current conflicts and for the efforts of solving them. We will update this site throughout 2011
to share the thoughts and the insight of the commemoration events.
Martin died on 13th July in 1981 after 40 days on Hunger Strike Aged 24.
He was the 6nd of 10 prisoners to die on Hunger Strike campaigning for recognition as political prisoners.
See Martin’s full story at
Bobby Sands Trust - Martin Hurson The Troops Out Movement is based in England and campaigns for British Withdrawal from Ireland
read more >>
Anniversary of the Death of Bobby Sands 5.5.2012
On May 5th, 1981 Bobby Sands died in Long Kesh after 66 days of hungerstrike for political
status. He was the first of ten Irish Republican prisoners whose lifes were taken during this
prison struggle. Shortly before his death he was elected member of the British Parliament in
Fermanagh/South Tyrone.
See also the Bobby Sands Memorial lecture of 2006:
read more >>
Remember Mickey Devine 20.8.2011 |
Today since 1pm across Belfast at white line vigils republicans will be remembering with pride Micky Devine.
He was the last of 10 prisoners to die on Hunger Strike campaigning for recognition as political prisoners.
REMEMBER FRANCIS HUGHES 12.5.2011 | Troops Out Movement
Francis died on 12th May in 1981 after 59 days on Hunger Strike Aged 25.
He was the 2nd of 10 prisoners to die on Hunger Strike campaigning for recognition as political prisoners.
Analysis: Thirty years on, Bobby Sands's stature has only grown 5.5.2011 | Danny Morrison (for the Guardian)
On this day in 1981, a poet, revolutionary and people's MP died. Those
hunger strikes energised Irish republicanism
I last saw Bobby Sands alive in December 1980. He had long greasy hair
and a matted beard as a result of the no-wash prisoners' protest. He had
spent a third of his 27 years behind bars. At the end of the visit I was
banned from the prison. I next saw him in his coffin, after his death
exactly 30 years ago, before 100,000 people gathered for his funeral in
Belfast. By then he'd spearheaded the hunger strike campaign for
political status for IRA prisoners – and in the process gained massive
international recognition after being elected an MP.
read more >>
30. Anniversaries of the Hunger Strikes of 1981: Launch of the Hungerstrike Exhibition 1.3.2011 | Linenhall Library, Belfast
Belfast, North of Ireland, 1. March 2011: Martin McGuiness, Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister
in the Regional Government launched the exhibition. Ten
Irish Republican hunger strikers died in this protest against an inhuman prison regime and for political
status. Bobby Sands startet the hunger strikes on March 1st, 2011. The exhibition will be shown throughout
Ireland.
30. Anniversary of the hunger strike of 1981 .....
The ten Irish Republican political prisoners Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Patsy O’Hara,
Raymond McCreesh, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty,
Tom McElwee and Michael Devine died in the 1981 hungerstrike against the criminalization politics of the
British government.
read more >>
30ú Comóradh - 1980 hunger strike
West Belfast Sinn Féin, 15 October, 2010
The 30th anniversary of the start of the 1980 hunger strike by republican prisoners in Long Kesh
and Armagh women's jail who were protesting for political status is to be marked by republicans in
Belfast on Wednesday October 27.
In west Belfast, white-line pickets will be held at the top of the Whiterock, the Andersontown Leisure
Centre and Poleglass roundabout at 5.30pm.
read more >>
Annual Bobby Sands lecture in Belfast:
Ubuntu 5.5.2006 | Robert McBride (ANC)
Veteran ANC member, Robert McBride, made a special trip to Belfast to give the annual Bobby Sands
lecture on Friday, May 5. Born in Durban in 1963, Robert McBride became famous in South Africa
during apartheid as being a leading member of the ANC military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, and spent
time on Death Row, before the fall of the regime. He took part in the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission and is now Chief of Police in Johannesburg. Hundreds gathered to listen to the speech and
gave Robert McBride a standing ovation.
Robert McBride: "It’s very difficult to write a speech about such a momentous moment in the
history of a people. There’s a quotation in Zulu of a saying we have in South Africa which we use
to guide our lives: 'Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu'
read more >>
Former Hunger Striker Laurence McKeown's story 4.5.2006 | Ella O'Dwyer, An Phoblacht Around this time, young Protestants with whom Laurence grew up were joining the Ulster Defence Regiment. "At about 15 or 16, myself and my mates would be stopped by these same recruits who in, the reality of rural Antrim, were neighbours. read more >>
And 25 years later ... 5.5.2006 | Andersonstown News Is it really 25 years since the dread news arrived that Bobby Sands had died? Is it really 25 years since that awful cycle of death and dying that ended up in the death of 10 young men inside Long Kesh and the streets outside the camp in turmoil. read more >>
Remember them with pride, work for their ideals 4.5.2006 | An Phoblacht "The death of Bobby Sands reverberated around the 32 Counties and throughout the world. The brutal reality of British rule in the Six Counties was starkly exposed. Nationalists across the North reacted in sadness and in fury. While the political establishment in Dublin sat in shameful silence, thousands of ordinary people in the 26 Counties stopped work, young people walked out of schools, many businesses closed, tens of thousands took to the streets. Dublin city centre came to a standstill." read more >>
THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF FREEDOM 4.5.2006 | An Phoblacht Bobby Sands 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. A second son, John, now nineteen, was born to their parents John and Rosaleen, now both aged 57, in June 1962. read more >>
Video
"National Hunger Strike Rally"
1981 hunger strikers
31. anniversary
Dungiven, County Derry
5. August 2012. For a bigger display frame see our multimedia section: read more >>>>
Video "Unbowed Unbroken"
Duration: 1 hr 22 min
Produced: Autumn 2006
Language: Englisch Irish Republican eyewitnesses give their accounts of one of the most remarkable prison protests in history read more >>