SINN FEIN led tributes to Irish revolutionary Bobby Sands today on the 40th anniversary of his death after 66 days on hunger strike in Long Kesh prison.
“Forty years on and Bobby’s legacy inspires freedom loving people everywhere,” Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald said.
The party’s deputy leader Michelle O’Neill said: “We remember the courage and sacrifice of the hunger strikers with pride.”
Ceremonies were held online in memory of the Irish Republican Army volunteer who was the first of 10 men to die as a result of the 1981 hunger strike.
They were protesting in support of five demands, all of which were eventually won as the strike ended in October 1981: the right not to wear a prison uniform; the right not to do prison work; the right of free association with other prisoners; the right to organise their own educational and recreational facilities; the right to one visit, one letter and one parcel per week.
Hace 40 años, Bobby Sands moría de hambre en una prisión en Belfast - La Razón
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A 40 años de la muerte de Bobby Sands en Irlanda del Norte: Cómo fue la huelga que marcó el gobierno de Margaret Thatcher
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» 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.
Mark Rumley / Special to the Medford Transcript
Our country today, indeed our world, is filled with deafening shouts. Shouts from those who do not seek any more than what others have but stand in refusal to accept less.
Their voices say “my life is sacred, do not take it”; “that empty seat at the table is mine, it’s time that I take my rightful place”. Their voices say “do more than hear me…listen to me… join with me…let us find freedom.”
Invoking the memory and spirit of those whose lives were stolen, the voices shout “Say her name…say his name” as a call for human dignity, human sanctity and freedom.