The hunger strike undertaken by Bobby Sands and nine other Irish Republican prisoners in 1981 was the culmination of five years of prisoner protest to gain political status and recognition from the British government and signaled the entry of Sinn Féin into Northern Irish politics.
The Maze Prison hunger strike of 1981 was the continuation of the Irish Republican Army
The modern conflict in Northern Ireland, also known as “the troubles,” began in the late 1960’s. Northern Irish Catholics were often discriminated against by the ruling Protestant Unionists in terms of housing, education, job placement, and voting rights. From 1968 to the summer of 1969, Catholics led civil right marches and rallies across Northern Ireland to protest the poor housing conditions and lack of equal representation in Northern Ireland’s parliament at Stormont. Though initially peaceful, the marches and rallies quickly turned brutal. The mainly Unionist police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary
To deal with the thousands of new prisoners, the British government constructed a new “escape-proof” prison near Lisburn by 1976. Named Maze Prison,
A woman walks by a Belfast mural commemorating Irish Republican Army hunger striker Bobby Sands, who became a symbol for the Republican struggle against British rule.
By 1978, Republican prisoners escalated their campaign to regain political status by the “dirty protest.” Some 350 prisoners refused to bathe or shave and began smearing their fecal waste and urine on the cell walls and doors. Outside the H-blocks, the IRA and other Nationalist paramilitaries targeted prison guards for assassination. Eighteen guards and officials were killed by 1980.
Sinn Féin, led by Gerry Adams, helped organize anti-H-block committees composed of prisoners’ families by 1978. These groups joined Sinn Féin’s call for the granting of political status but also hoped to draw international attention to the mistreatment of prisoners and allegations of torture rife throughout the prison. However, these protests had little effect on British policy. With the election of Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979, Thatcher declared that there would be no changes to British policy in Northern Ireland and that there would be no negotiations with so-called criminals.
The first signal that a hunger strike would be the next step came from the chief IRA public relations officer at the Maze, Bobby Sands, in late 1979. Born in Belfast in 1954, Sands joined the IRA in 1972 and was first arrested in 1973 for possession of firearms, for which he served a three-year sentence. On his release, Sands worked in his Belfast neighborhood as an IRA operative, organizing the printing and publication of a Republican newspaper. He was arrested with three others in 1976 for the attempted bombing of a Belfast furniture factory and was sentenced to fourteen years at Maze Prison. Sands took part in the ongoing blanket and dirty protests at Maze but realized the difficulties in continuing the protests without British concessions. In smuggled communications to Sinn Féin leaders and anti-H-block organizers, Sands stated that he believed a hunger strike might finally force the Thatcher government to negotiate political status. On October 27, 1980, seven IRA detainees began refusing food.
Thatcher repeated that there would be no change of status regardless of the prisoners’ actions. However, in early December, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Humphrey Atkins, after negotiations with Catholic archbishop Tomás Ó Fiaich, announced that there would be some concessions made to the prisoners. The 1980 hunger strike lasted fifty-three days until one striker entered a critical medical state. On December 18, 1980, with hope of some concessions, the strike was called off. In January, 1981, Sands met with the prison’s governor, Stanley Hilditch, but the supposed concessions were not made; there would be no changes until the Republican prisoners first conformed to all prison rules and regulations. The Republican prisoners rioted for four days and then resumed their dirty protest. Sands wrote to IRA and Sinn Féin leaders in January that another hunger strike, led by him, would begin soon, and that there would be no halting until all demands were met and enforced.
Sands selected nine other strikers to join him in roughly two-week increments after March 1, 1981. He symbolically chose the fifth anniversary of the revocation of special status to begin his sixty-six-day strike. He had emphasized in previous letters that public support for the campaign was critical and that the basis for the hunger strike should be a campaign for human rights and a challenge to British policy. As the number of strikers gradually increased to ten, the international media focused exclusively on the strikers and repeated claims of British mishandling of both prisoners and policy in Northern Ireland.
Four days into the hunger strike, the sudden death of the member of Parliament for Fermanagh/South Tyrone left an open seat for Parliament. Gerry Adams and the anti-H-block committee suggested that Sands should run for the seat even though incarcerated. The campaign would bring even more attention to the issues at hand and possibly draw the British government into negotiations. This was the first time Sinn Féin had openly organized a political campaign. To soften the connections among Sands, Sinn Féin, and the IRA, Sands ran as the “anti-H-block candidate.” As Sands’s condition worsened over the month, he was moved to the Maze hospital. In the elections of April 9, 1981, Sands became a parliamentary representative for Northern Ireland. The Thatcher government and Secretary of State Atkins, however, remained firm: no negotiations with criminals, even if they are elected members of Parliament.
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The impact of the 1981 hunger strikes on British policy in Northern Ireland was minimal, but the deaths of Sands and nine other Republican prisoners fueled greater distrust, if not hatred, toward the British government within Northern Ireland’s Nationalist community. Every May 5, parades mark the death of Sands and the others. He became a symbol, some say a martyr, for the Republican struggle against British rule. To those in the Unionist-Protestant community, Sands and the others were criminals who took their own lives.
The prisoner protests of the 1970’s and 1980’s represented the political stalemate between the Republican militants and the British government. However, in the end, it was Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin who won the long-term advantages. The 1981 election campaign for Sands as well as Sinn Féin connections to grassroots committees throughout the province paid off at the ballot box through the 1980’s and during the peace negotiations of the 1990’s.
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Bell, J. Bowyer. The Irish Troubles: A Generation of Violence, 1967-1992. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. Massive, detailed narrative of the political turmoil and violence in the province. -
Sands, Bobby. Bobby Sands: Writings from Prison. Dublin: Mercier Press, 1998. Broad selection of Sands’s prose, poetry, and political correspondence from Maze Prison. -
Wichert, Sabine. Northern Ireland Since 1945. New York: Longman, 1999. Basic primer for contemporary Northern Irish politics, economics, and society. A solid analysis of the socioeconomic factors that sparked the troubles.
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