![](http://static.cambridge.org/content/id/urn:cambridge.org:id:book:9781846317194/resource/name/9781846317194i.jpg)
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Everyone Has a Part to Play
- 1 Prison Protests and Broad Fronts (1972–1975)
- 2 Lean Days and Uphill Battles (1976–1977)
- 3 Steps in the Right Direction (1978–1979)
- 4 Building the Campaign (1980)
- 5 Hunger Strike (October–December 1980)
- 6 Bobby Sands MP (January–April 1981)
- 7 Ten Men Dead (May–October 1981)
- 8 A Quiet and Uneventful End (October 1981–October 1982)
- Conclusion: Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Ten Men Dead (May–October 1981)
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Everyone Has a Part to Play
- 1 Prison Protests and Broad Fronts (1972–1975)
- 2 Lean Days and Uphill Battles (1976–1977)
- 3 Steps in the Right Direction (1978–1979)
- 4 Building the Campaign (1980)
- 5 Hunger Strike (October–December 1980)
- 6 Bobby Sands MP (January–April 1981)
- 7 Ten Men Dead (May–October 1981)
- 8 A Quiet and Uneventful End (October 1981–October 1982)
- Conclusion: Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In 1968, we asked for justice and paid for it with Bombay Street and the Bogside. In 1971, we resisted internment and paid for it with Bloody Sunday. Since 1976, we have demanded justice for our political prisoners and Bobby Sands has paid for it with his life.
H-Block/Armagh Committee (Press Statement, 5 May 1981)Days after Bobby Sands' electoral victory in Fermanagh/South Tyrone, Margaret Thatcher gave a television interview for Britain's Independent Television Network (ITN). When asked about the surprise result, Thatcher acknowledged that it ‘show[ed] just how sharp are the divisions between the two communities in Northern Ireland’. ‘Having said that’, added the Prime Minister, ‘I don't think the result of that election fundamentally changes the situation’.
By this time, republican prisoners Francis Hughes, Patsy O'Hara and Raymond McCreesh had already joined the hunger strike. Sands' health was deteriorating and his comrades had been without food for nearly three weeks or more. Though recent events had given the anti-H-Block campaign a ‘tremendous publicity boost’, it was acknowledged that ‘a massive task still … [lay] ahead if the lives of Sands and his three fellow H-Block Hunger Strikers … [were] to be saved, and if their rightful political prisoner status … [was] to be won’.
Within days of the Fermanagh/South Tyrone election, the National H-Block/Armagh Committee published a newssheet announcing ‘the first All-Ireland Rally since the beginning of the hunger strike’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Smashing H-BlockThe Popular Campaign against Criminalization and the Irish Hunger Strikes 1976–1982, pp. 128 - 156Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2011