The RTE review of Brendan Byrne’s film about Bobby Sands’ hunger strike, 66 Days, is quite considered and sensitive and has given the documentary five stars, which is astonishing given the history of the station with regard to coverage of northern affairs. These are the opening comments:
“There are moments of terrible sadness in 66 Days, Brendan J Byrne’s profoundly moving account of Bobby Sands’ hunger strike in the so-called H Blocks of Long Kesh prison. The film alternates between an uneasy sense of futility and the spiritual triumph granted in part by by hindsight, the triumph that appears to trump the relentless despair. 66 Days incorporates the stories of Sands’ nine comrades who also died in 1981, after hunger strikes which had lasted 217 days. Seven of the dead were members of the Provisional IRA and three were Irish National liberation Army (INLA) activists.”
The rest of the review can be read here.
