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BOBBY SANDS MP!
On 9 April, 1981, the people of Fermanagh and South Tyrone went to the polls in a by-election to fill the seat held by the late Frank Maguire, an Independent MP, who died just five days after Bobby Sands began his hunger strike. The following article which appears in...
Art inspired by 1981 Hunger Strike
A new exhibition of four hundred original drawings by the Franco-Irish artist, David Ryan, opened in the Centre Cultural Irlandais in Paris and continues until 30 June—part of which and can be viewed online here. Though the exhibition is entitled ‘This is not a...
Patsy & Raymond join the Hunger Strike
Today (22 March, 1981) Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara join Bobby Sands (1 March) and Francis Hughes (8 March) on the hunger strike. Here is a copy of the comm sent out to the H-Block Information Centre: From Tony [Armstrong, from Pomeroy, County Tyrone], H5, to...
Francis Hughes begins his hunger strike
On this day (15 March, 1981), forty years ago, Bellaghy IRA Volunteer Francis Hughes joins Bobby Sands on hunger strike in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. His biography, published in An Phoblacht/Republican News in 1981, can be read here. Many tributes have been paid to...
Guthanna ’81 | Voices of ’81
A series of interviews with eye-witnesses from the time of the 1981 hunger strike are being recorded and will appear on social media over the next few months. You can go to this link to hear the first few recordings with Brendan 'Bik' McFarlane, Síle Darragh and Colm...
Programme of Events
A programme of events to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike can be downloaded from the link below. On this day, 1st March, 1981, Bobby Sands began his hunger strike, to be joined by more comrades in the months to follow. It was an...
Death of Alice McElwee
The Bobby Sands Trust extends sympathy to the family and large family circle of Mrs Alice McElwee following her death in Bellaghy just short of her ninety-sixth birthday. Alice was the mother of IRA Volunteer Thomas McElwee who died on 8 August, 1981, after sixty-two...
1980 Remembered
Raymond McCartney and Mary Doyle were two of many republican prisoners who went on hunger strike in the autumn of 1980 demanding the return of political status which the British Government had arbitrarily withdrawn. In this video they outline events from forty years...
Death of Eugene McCabe
The death has occurred of writer, playwright, and pacifist Eugene McCabe (90). Eugene’s trilogy of plays on the differing traditions in the conflict was titled Victims and was filmed by RTÉ. About it he said: “The overall theme is, of course, the futility of violence....
39th Anniversaries Marked
Today is the 39th anniversary of the death of Micky Devine, the tenth and last man to die on the 1981 hunger strike. Below are a number of links to events held throughout this year (mostly online as a result of the Corona Virus pandemic) to commemorate the hunger...
