Bobby Sands (1954-81)


Life
[Gl. Roibeard Gearóid Ó Seachnasaigh]; b. 9 March, in Abbots cross, Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim; son of Rosaleen [var. Rosemary] and John, with sisters Marcella and Bernadette and br. John (b.1962); forced to raised in predominantly Protestant neighbourhood; moved to Rathcoole, Newtownabbey, 1960; became apprentice coach-builder, but driven out of the trade by loyalist violence; family moved to Twinbrook estate, W. Belfast, 1972; joined IRA 1972; arrested for possession of four hand-guns and sentenced to 5 years in prison, April 1973; m. Geraldine Noade, with whom a son (Robert) Gerald;
 
served his sentence in Long Kesh [HMS Maze Prison]; rearrested for bombing of Balmoral Furniture Company (Dunmurry), Oct. 1976, but acquitted for lack of evidence; rearrested for possession of fire-arms used in the car-chase following the bombing, Sept. 1977, and sentenced to 14 years; learned Irish in Long Kesh; publ. poetry and prose in An Phoblacht; appt. Commanding Officer of the IRA in Long Kesh, 1980; demanded treatment as political prisoners in resumption of previous Special Category Status; participated in “blanket protest”, 1976, and afterwards “dirty protest”, 1978; official refused by the British Government, 1981; embarked on first hunger strike, Christmas 1980;
 
commenced fatal hunger-strike, 1 March 1981; co-ordinated phased participation of 9 other strikers; elected to Fermanagh-S. Tyrone seat, 9 April 1981, with a majority of almost 1,500 against Harry West; elected MP for Fermanagh-Tyrone with vote of 30,000 against Harry West, Unionist, 9 April, 1981; d. 5 May 1981, after 66 days, his death sparking riots, and expressly condemned in Parliament by Mrs Thatcher as victim of his own policy; received papal instructions to cease hunger strike, conveyed by Fr. Magee acting as a mediator in concert with the British Secretary of State; sought terms consistent with the policy of the strikers, and was refused;
 
his funeral was attended by estimated crowd of 100,000 - an event marked by their respectful silence; the hunger strike ended in 3 Oct. 1981, following the death of a total of 10 strikers; posthum. published prison diary and poems, Skylark, Sing Your Lonely Song (1982), intro. Ulick O’Connor; the street in Tehran on which the British Embassy is located was renamed Bobby Sands St., while Green Square in Tripoli (Jamahiraya/Libya) was for some time renamed Bobby Sands Square in his memory; he was succceeded in Parliament by his election agent Owen Carron; Steve McQueen filmed the drama of Bobby Sands’ hungerstrike as Hunger (2008), with a script by Enda Walsh and Michael Fassbender in the lead rôle; his ballad “Back Home in Derry”, written in Long Kesh and featuring an penal exile in Australia, was sung recorded by Christy Moore. DIB
 

Funeral of  "Bobby" Sands
Funeral of Bobby Sands leaves his mother’s home in Twinbrook
7 May 1981.
[ See BBC report by Kate Adie - online; available 30.03.2014.]

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Works
The Diary of Bobby Sands, with a foreword by Danny Morrison (1981) [and trans.]; Skylark, Sing Your Lonely Song, intro. Ulick O’Connor (Cork: Mercier 1982); One Day in My Life, foreword by Seán MacBride (Cork: Mercier 1983; 2001); Bobby Sands: Writings from Prison, with a foreword by Gerry Adams (Cork: Mercier Press 1998).

Prison Diary: ‘Tomorrow is the eleventh day and there is a long way to go. Someone should write a poem of the tribulations of a hunger-striker. I would like to, but how could I finish it’. (Quoted in Carmen Berenguer, Bobby Sands Desfallece en muro, p.119; quoted by Bárbara Fernández Melleda in The Irish Times, 5 May 2016.)

Translations, The Diary of Bobby Sands (1981), trans. as Bobby Sands, Tagebuchaufzeichnungen der ersten 17 tage seines Hungerstreiks, Vorw. Danny Morisson; Nachw. anti-H Block Armagh Komitee (1981); also One Day in My Life (1983), trans. as Ein Tag in meinim Leben, mit einem,Vorw. des Friedensboblepreisträgers Sean MacBride (Hamburg Ver. am Galgenberg 1985), 110pp.

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Criticism
  • David Beresford, Ten Dead Men: The Story of the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike (London: Grafton 1981).
  • John M. Feehan, Bobby Sands and the Tragedy of Northern Ireland (Mercier Press 1983).
  • Tom Collins, The Irish Hunger Strike (White Island Books 1986).
  • Padraig O’Malley, Biting at the Grave: The Irish Hunger Strikers and the Politics of Despair (Beacon Press 1990).
  • Denis O’Hearn, Bobby Sands: Nothing but an Unfinished Song (London: Pluto Press 2008), xiv, 438pp., ill. [16pp. photos].
See also Carmen Berenguer, Bobby Sands desfallece en el muro (Santiago de Chile: Carmen Berenguer 1985) [a tribute poem].

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Notes
The Cruiser: John M. Feehan, Bobby Sands and the Tragedy of Northern Ireland (Mercier Press 1983), received hostile review from Conor Cruise O’Brien in New York Review of Books.

Michael Fassbender: Fassbender discusses his initial contact with Steve McQueen leading to the production of Hunger (2008) in “Dangerous Methods”, a THR interview on YouTube - online; accessed 04.01.2012.

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