21.12.04
Guardian Century
**Reprint of an article published one day after the death of Bobby Sands
How the IRA manufactured a new martyr
Sands' motives are examined
John Cunningham
Wednesday May 6, 1981
Death through self-starvation is a potent political symbol in Ireland, and Bobby Sands is the latest in a line of Republicans to die this way. But more than any previous political figure, his protest combined a bizarre mixture of heroism, idealism, criminality and black comedy.
Sands, who was 27, began his fast in the Maze Prison knowing that failure to persuade the British Government to grant prisoners their five demands - amounting to their being classified as political detainees - would mean, in the logic of his own protest, that he had to starve to death. This he achieved yesterday. It was a largely unspent life, moulded by and following the course of the turbulence in Northern Ireland from 1968. Whilst he was a teenager intimidation forced his family to move in 1972 from Rathcoole, in north Belfast, which was becoming predominantly Loyalist, to Twinbrook in the west, a staunchly Republican area. He was an apprentice coachbuilder.
At 18 he joined the IRA. He was convicted on armed robbery charges, went on the blanket protest, and died a Westminster MP. He was elected in April by a majority of 1,400 votes for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, a constituency in which he had never set foot as a candidate. The decision to nominate Sands as a British parliamentary candidate was one of the most bizarre tactics in the IRA's campaign to focus world attention on the man whom Ulster Loyalists angrily dismissed as a convicted criminal. But the activities of the two groups of protesters - the three men who refused food along with Sands, and the group who fasted from October 27 last year - not only grabbed the headlines. Their protest itself has fixed the direction of a phase of the Republican struggle in Ireland, even though the IRA leadership was at first opposed to hunger strikes.
"The hunger strikes went ahead against the express wishes of the movement," says Danny Morrison, editor of Republican News. "But once they started, we were 1,000 per cent behind them."
Sands's real value to the IRA began once he was in prison. Outside, he was a willing but rather unsuccessful participant in raids and bomb attacks. He was sent to prison first in 1973 for five years for robbery, and attempted robbery. He was at liberty for only six months, until September 1977, when he was imprisoned for 14 years on two charges of possessing a gun.
True, he joined the Provisionals when he was 18, and said of his decision: "I had seen too many homes wrecked, fathers and sons arrested, friends murdered. Too many shootings and blood, most of it our own people." But it was prison which really radicalised him.
During his first term in Long Kesh he was a "special category" prisoner, enjoying the privileges for which he later went on strike. This was because a three year component of his sentence was for being a member of a banned organisation, the IRA.
But by the time he had returned to the Maze, in 1977, after a second set of charges, special category status had been abolished (for crimes committed after March 1976). So he became an H-Block protester. The blanket became the uniform of dissent, instead of Prison clothes, and Sands took part also in the Dirty Protest, which was terminated only in March this year.
The H-Block protest itself was for some time regarded as a distraction from the main thrust of the struggle by the leadership of the IRA. Danny Morrison, a close friend of Sands, says, "The H-Block business was a millstone round the neck of the Republican movement for four years."
The foulness of the cells, whose walls had been smeared with excrement, and the physical conditions, in which prisoners were naked, can never be appreciated fully by outsiders. It was pressure of H-Block prisoners which compelled the Republican leadership to endorse the hunger strikes, against its better judgment. The hunger protests themselves were a desperate act by the men on the blanket.
Danny Morrison sees it as "no accident" that the hunger strike started after four years at the Maze because the IRA was looking for a solution.
If the Dirty Protest and the hunger strikes had not happened, the movement would have been concentrating on local issues of discrimination in Northern Ireland, building up public anger and trying to put international pressure on the British Government to end partition.
However, with the H-Block as the issue making the running in the campaign, Bobby Sands began to move from his position of an unimportant blanket prisoner, first to be public relations officer for the Maze prisoners, then, last year, to be "officer commanding" of IRA prisoners.
Danny Morrison explains: "He was always politically mature, and in the Maze he was a surrogate father for young blanket men. He succeeded Brendan Hughes as O.C. when Hughes went on hunger strike."
It was Sands' willingness to adhere to instructions from the Provisional leadership which first led to his enhanced status in their ranks. Later, when the hunger strikes got under way, it was his inflexible resolve which became the dominating trait.
Sands was largely responsible for negotiations which terminated the first hunger strike. However, this was not clearly construed as a victory for the Provisionals.
It was Sands's own dissatisfaction with the outcome of these talks which led him to start a fast himself. In this he, as a participant, would be in the best position to judge if the British Government was unequivocally acceding to his demands. The outcome of that protest became clear yesterday.
Bobby Sands' testament has been available almost from the beginning of his fast. Twelve of the articles he wrote on scraps of lavatory paper and smuggled out of the Maze over the last three years have been published in a booklet by Sinn Fein in Dublin.
"There have been many attempts to break my will but each one has made me more determined. I know my place is here with my comrades," he wrote in September 1978.
But the physical and mental deprivation was searing his personality. "I think of the only break in the monotony, the 40 minutes I spend at Mass each Sunday - 'turn the other cheek', 'love thy neighbour' - and I wonder, because I know that bitterness has grown inside me. A hatred so intense that it frightens me."
**Reprint of an article published one day after the death of Bobby Sands
How the IRA manufactured a new martyr
Sands' motives are examined
John Cunningham
Wednesday May 6, 1981
Death through self-starvation is a potent political symbol in Ireland, and Bobby Sands is the latest in a line of Republicans to die this way. But more than any previous political figure, his protest combined a bizarre mixture of heroism, idealism, criminality and black comedy.
Sands, who was 27, began his fast in the Maze Prison knowing that failure to persuade the British Government to grant prisoners their five demands - amounting to their being classified as political detainees - would mean, in the logic of his own protest, that he had to starve to death. This he achieved yesterday. It was a largely unspent life, moulded by and following the course of the turbulence in Northern Ireland from 1968. Whilst he was a teenager intimidation forced his family to move in 1972 from Rathcoole, in north Belfast, which was becoming predominantly Loyalist, to Twinbrook in the west, a staunchly Republican area. He was an apprentice coachbuilder.
At 18 he joined the IRA. He was convicted on armed robbery charges, went on the blanket protest, and died a Westminster MP. He was elected in April by a majority of 1,400 votes for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, a constituency in which he had never set foot as a candidate. The decision to nominate Sands as a British parliamentary candidate was one of the most bizarre tactics in the IRA's campaign to focus world attention on the man whom Ulster Loyalists angrily dismissed as a convicted criminal. But the activities of the two groups of protesters - the three men who refused food along with Sands, and the group who fasted from October 27 last year - not only grabbed the headlines. Their protest itself has fixed the direction of a phase of the Republican struggle in Ireland, even though the IRA leadership was at first opposed to hunger strikes.
"The hunger strikes went ahead against the express wishes of the movement," says Danny Morrison, editor of Republican News. "But once they started, we were 1,000 per cent behind them."
Sands's real value to the IRA began once he was in prison. Outside, he was a willing but rather unsuccessful participant in raids and bomb attacks. He was sent to prison first in 1973 for five years for robbery, and attempted robbery. He was at liberty for only six months, until September 1977, when he was imprisoned for 14 years on two charges of possessing a gun.
True, he joined the Provisionals when he was 18, and said of his decision: "I had seen too many homes wrecked, fathers and sons arrested, friends murdered. Too many shootings and blood, most of it our own people." But it was prison which really radicalised him.
During his first term in Long Kesh he was a "special category" prisoner, enjoying the privileges for which he later went on strike. This was because a three year component of his sentence was for being a member of a banned organisation, the IRA.
But by the time he had returned to the Maze, in 1977, after a second set of charges, special category status had been abolished (for crimes committed after March 1976). So he became an H-Block protester. The blanket became the uniform of dissent, instead of Prison clothes, and Sands took part also in the Dirty Protest, which was terminated only in March this year.
The H-Block protest itself was for some time regarded as a distraction from the main thrust of the struggle by the leadership of the IRA. Danny Morrison, a close friend of Sands, says, "The H-Block business was a millstone round the neck of the Republican movement for four years."
The foulness of the cells, whose walls had been smeared with excrement, and the physical conditions, in which prisoners were naked, can never be appreciated fully by outsiders. It was pressure of H-Block prisoners which compelled the Republican leadership to endorse the hunger strikes, against its better judgment. The hunger protests themselves were a desperate act by the men on the blanket.
Danny Morrison sees it as "no accident" that the hunger strike started after four years at the Maze because the IRA was looking for a solution.
If the Dirty Protest and the hunger strikes had not happened, the movement would have been concentrating on local issues of discrimination in Northern Ireland, building up public anger and trying to put international pressure on the British Government to end partition.
However, with the H-Block as the issue making the running in the campaign, Bobby Sands began to move from his position of an unimportant blanket prisoner, first to be public relations officer for the Maze prisoners, then, last year, to be "officer commanding" of IRA prisoners.
Danny Morrison explains: "He was always politically mature, and in the Maze he was a surrogate father for young blanket men. He succeeded Brendan Hughes as O.C. when Hughes went on hunger strike."
It was Sands' willingness to adhere to instructions from the Provisional leadership which first led to his enhanced status in their ranks. Later, when the hunger strikes got under way, it was his inflexible resolve which became the dominating trait.
Sands was largely responsible for negotiations which terminated the first hunger strike. However, this was not clearly construed as a victory for the Provisionals.
It was Sands's own dissatisfaction with the outcome of these talks which led him to start a fast himself. In this he, as a participant, would be in the best position to judge if the British Government was unequivocally acceding to his demands. The outcome of that protest became clear yesterday.
Bobby Sands' testament has been available almost from the beginning of his fast. Twelve of the articles he wrote on scraps of lavatory paper and smuggled out of the Maze over the last three years have been published in a booklet by Sinn Fein in Dublin.
"There have been many attempts to break my will but each one has made me more determined. I know my place is here with my comrades," he wrote in September 1978.
But the physical and mental deprivation was searing his personality. "I think of the only break in the monotony, the 40 minutes I spend at Mass each Sunday - 'turn the other cheek', 'love thy neighbour' - and I wonder, because I know that bitterness has grown inside me. A hatred so intense that it frightens me."
