» Special Correspondent
MAY 5th 1981 was one of the most defining days in Irish history. It was the day that Bobby Sands, the 27-year-old Member of Parliament for Fermanagh/South Tyrone, died on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh as part of the republican prisoners’ campaign for the restoration of political status.
Bobby was the first of ten hunger strikers to give their lives in 1981 in the centuries-old struggle against Britain’s attempted criminalisation of the struggle for freedom in its first and nearest colony.
He was elected on April 9th 1981 in the by-election to fill the seat held by the late Independent MP, Frank Maguire, who had died just five days after Bobby had begun his hunger strike on March 1st.