Photos

LAND OF SACRIFICE

The Sinn Féin Community Centre on the Catholic Falls Road area of Belfast – a smiling young man looks out at us – Bobby Sands, MP.

This long haired guy, looking more like a member of a rock band, has come to symbolise the lengths of sacrifice the people of Northern Ireland’s Catholic community have been prepared to countenance for Irish unity.

The mural is now one of many that have become a must on the tourist route around Belfast – you can even hire a special taxi or take an official tour bus. It's better though to meet and talk with people. This is a part of the story behind the mural:

In 1972, the worst year of the Troubles Bobby Sands joined the Provisional Irish Republican Army, but later that year he was interned and remained in custody without trial until 1976. He was eventually convicted of possession of firearms in September 1977 and sentenced to 14 years.

Sands became a writer and was published in the Irish republican newspaper An Phoblacht. In late 1980 Sands was chosen as Officer Commanding IRA prisoners in Long Kesh.

After the ‘blanket’ and ‘dirty’ protests of the late 70’s and a first hunger strike in 1980 the Second Hunger Strike started with Sands refusing food on 1 March 1981.

“We wish to be treated 'not as ordinary prisoners' for we are not criminals. We admit no crime unless, that is, the love of one's people and country is a crime.”

Sands decided that other prisoners should join the strike (for political prisoner status) at staggered intervals in order to maximise publicity - dying one after the other over several months.

In his words “My heart is very sore because I know that I have broken my poor mother's heart, and my home is struck with unbearable anxiety. "

Shortly after the beginning of the strike, the independent republican MP for Fermanagh & South Tyrone died and precipitated a by-election. Sands won the seat on April 9, 1981.

Three weeks later, Sands died from starvation in the prison hospital. I clearly remember the news on that day and thinking –‘all hell is going to let loose now”. His death prompted days of riots in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. Sands was a an MP for just 25 days. Up to 90,000 people lined the route of his funeral.

9 other IRA and INLA (Irish National Liberation Army) men also died after Bobby Sands. Many people joined the IRA after this. The electoral successes during the strike prompted the republican movement to move more towards politics.

Here we are nearly 25 years later and the colours of the mural depicting Bobby Sand’s sacrifice are as bright as ever. Martyr, terrorist, political prisoner, soldier? It is for history to judge. What is certain is that this man and the others had a strength of conviction and a will to die for what they considered to be in the cause of freeing an occupied land.

with some help from Wikipedia