ARCHIVES
Bobby Sands – 40th Anniversary
Forty years ago, in the early hours of this morning, Bobby Sands died after sixty-six days on hunger striker. During that time he was elected MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone and his became a household name in Ireland and internationally. Radio stations around the...
Owen Carron recalls 1981
Owen Carron who was Bobby Sands’ election agent in the April 1981 by-election in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, and who after Bobby's death held the seat in a second by-election, speaks here about that incredible period, the seven months of the hunger strike....
VOICES OF ’81
Guthanna Voices of ’81 is a series of broadcasts of interviews about the 1981 hunger strike. So far in the series those recalling the historic prison protest period have included Bik McFarlane, Síle Darragh, Colm Scullion, Mary Nelis, Andrea Connolly, Francie Molloy,...
Blanket Man’s Memoir Third Re-Print
There has been huge interest in Jim 'Jaz' McCann's prison memoir, 6000 Days, which has had to be reprinted to cater for the phenomenal demand. McCann served time on the blanket and knew several of the 1981 hunger strikers about whom he writes intimately and...
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...
