Bobby Sands Mural

Wall painting commemorating Bobby Sands, an IRA leader who died in prison in 1981 as a result of a hunger strike.

• Bobby Sands, a trained coachbuilder, became a member of the IRA in 1972 after traumatic experiences with Protestant violent criminals. He was sentenced to five years in prison after his arrest at a home where four handguns were seized. As a political prisoner, he could wear his civilian clothes and did not have to work. He was released in 1976.
In 1977, Bobby Sands was again convicted of illegal weapons possession: After a shootout with the police, Sands, Joe McDonnell, Seamus Finucane and Sean Lavery were caught in a getaway car that also contained a revolver. After eleven months in custody, the men were sentenced to 14 years in prison in September 1977. Since 1976, there have been repeated protests by captured IRA members who wanted to have them classified as political prisoners. The British government abolished this status and forced prisoners to wear prison uniforms and work. Since they refused to wear prison uniforms, they spent their time naked in the cell covered only in blankets, which led to the Blanket Protest. Sands wrote the book “A Day in My Life” during the blanket protest in Long Kesh. He did this with a pen that he hid in his body. Bobby Sands died in the prison hospital on May 5, 1981 after 66 days as a result of his hunger strike. After him, nine more hunger strikers died before the action was officially called off by the IRA on October 3, 1981, also under pressure from relatives of the strikers. Immediately after Sands' death, there were violent clashes between demonstrators, police and the British military. His funeral procession in Belfast was attended by around 100,000 people, almost a fifth of Northern Ireland's Catholic population at the time. On October 6, 1981, the British government allowed prisoners to wear civilian clothes again. Most of the other demands were subsequently met, although the IRA prisoners were never officially recognized as political prisoners.

Robert Gerard Sands (Irish: Roibeárd Gearóid Ó Seachnasaigh; [2] 9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981) was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died on hunger strike while imprisoned in HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland. Sands was involved in planning the 1976 bombing of the Balmoral Furniture Company in Dunmurry, which was followed by a gun battle with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Sands was arrested during an escape attempt and sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment for possession of weapons.He was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the abolition of Special Category Status. During Sands' strike he was elected to the British Parliament as a candidate of the Anti-H-Block movement. [3] [4] His death and that of nine other hunger strikers was followed by a wave of IRA recruitment and activity. International media coverage drew attention to the hunger strikers and the republican movement in general, drawing both praise and criticism. (Source: Wikipedia)