ABOUT THE BOBBY SANDS TRUST

The Bobby Sands Trust was formed after the 1981 hunger strike when ten republican prisoners died, to assert the political status denied them by the British government and its repressive prison regime.

Twenty-seven-year old Bobby Sands, after enduring years of solitary confinement and beatings, led that hunger strike, during which he was elected as MP for the constituency of Fermanagh and South Tyrone. He died after 66 days on hunger strike on May 5th, 1981.

During his imprisonment Bobby wrote poetry, short stories, a poignant account of what the prisoners suffered (One Day in My Life), and kept a diary for the first seventeen days of his hunger strike.

The Trust is made up of comrades of Bobby and his republican contemporaries. The civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane, an advisor to the Trust, was assassinated in 1989 by loyalist paramilitaries who were under the control of British Intelligence through their agent Brian Nelson. The legal firm Madden & Finucane continues to act for the Trust whose original members were Gerry Adams, Danny Morrison, Tom Hartley, Tom Cahill [deceased], Marie Moore (deceased) and Danny Devenny. For a time Bobby’s two sisters, Marcella and Bernadette, were members of the Trust. Current members are Gerry Adams MP, Danny Morrison, Tom Hartley, Jim Gibney, Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane, Sile Darragh, Carál Ní Chuilín MLA, and Peter Madden.

The Trust holds the copyright on all Bobby’s poetry and prose and was established to publish, promote and keep in print the extraordinary writings of this young Irish man, who from prison isolation became an international figure in 1981, and who to this day continues to inspire Irish republicans in their pursuit of freedom from British rule.

For further information contact – info@bobbysandstrust.com
or write to – The Secretary, Bobby Sands Trust, 51-53 Falls Road, Belfast, BT12 4PD, Ireland