Bobby Sands captured the imagination of the world when, despite predictions, he was elected a Member of Parliament to the British House of Commons while still on hunger-strike in the Northern Ireland concentration camp of Long Kesh. When he later died after sixty-six gruelling days of hunger he commanded more television, radio and newspaper coverage than the papal visits or royal weddings. What was the secret of this young man who set himself against the might of an empire and who became a microcosm of the whole Northern question and a moral catalyst for the Southern Irish conscience? In calm restrained language John M. Feehan records the life of Bobby Sands with whom he had little sympathy in the beginning - though this was to change. At the same time, he gives us an illumination and crystal-clear account of the terrifying statelet of Northern Ireland today and of the fierce guerilla warfare that is rapidly turning Northern Ireland into Britain's Vietnam.

Pre-University Paper from the year 2009 in the subject English - Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, language: English, abstract: Bobby Sands was a member of the paramilitary Irish Republican Army who was arrested for the possession of firearms in 1977 and died on hunger strike four years later because Margaret Thatcher refused to force-feed him. As his death in Maze Prison caused massive reactions all over the world, Sands was regarded as one of the most significant members of the IRA. A very popular citation that can be found everywhere on the Internet when you look for Bobby Sands is: "They have nothing in their whole imperial arsenal that can break the spirit of one Irishman who doesn't want to be broken! " Although there is no clear evidence that this sentence was said by the IRA-Member Bobby Sands or if this quote is just a legend attached to the famous hunger striker after his death, it sums up his attitude towards Great Britain and Margaret Thatcher in a short and provocative way. History has shown that the answer to the question who is a heroic fighter for freedom and who is a terrorist depends on the point of view of the person judging the actions of another person - the Taliban were heroes for the USA when they fought the Soviet Union and even Saddam Hussein was seen as the hero of the Iran-Iraq War. The same thing can be said about the Irish Republican Army and their members because many Irish see or saw them as heroes fighting for the freedom of their home country whereas the English saw them as terrorists attacking the integrity of the United Kingdom. On the following pages I will try to outline who Bobby Sands was, what ideas he fought and died for and if he can be seen as an "Irish Martyr" today. I will start with the historical background to show where the English-Irish conflict has its roots and what role the IRA and especially Bobby Sands played in that tragedy. To do that I will examine the life of Bobby Sands to see what made a young Irishman j

Bobby Sands was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze. He was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected to the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block candidate. His death was followed by a new surge of Provisional IRA recruitment and activity. International media coverage brought attention to the hunger strikers, and the republican movement in general, attracting both praise and criticism. This graphic novel brings Bobby Sands' story to life in a whole new way.

"In an eloquent and haunting book, O'Malley makes the fanaticism of [the hunger strikers] and their supporters, the obdurate and morally discredited tactics of the British Government and the hopeless combat of the Protestant and Roman Catholic factions in the Northern Ireland struggle explicable, and exposes the politics behind it."--The New York Times Book Review

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SOON TO BE AN FX LIMITED SERIES STREAMING ON HULU • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. One of The New York Times’s 20 Best Books of the 21st Century "Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a novel—Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." —New York Times Book Review "Reads like a novel ... Keefe is ... a master of narrative nonfiction. . .An incredible story."—Rolling Stone A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, NPR, and more! Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes. Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.