Northern Ireland

Bobby Sands's death 40 years ago was the 'watershed of the Troubles'

Bobby Sands died on hunger strike on May 5 1981
Bobby Sands died on hunger strike on May 5 1981 Bobby Sands died on hunger strike on May 5 1981

Bobby Sands's death 40 years ago today was the "watershed of the Troubles", a leading historian has said.

Sands, a convicted IRA member, died at 1.17am on May 5 1981 after 66 days on hunger strike in the Maze prison.

He was the first of 10 IRA and INLA prisoners to die on the strike - the second of its kind and the culmination of a five-year protest by republican prisoners.

Just a month earlier, Sands had won the Fermanagh and South Tyrone Westminster by-election as an 'Anti H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner' following the death of sitting MP, independent republican Frank Maguire.

Leading historian and Irish News columnist Brian Feeney said Sands's election as an MP and subsequent death were hugely significant.

"Looking back it was clearly the watershed of the Troubles," he said.

"Before this people didn't know how much support republicans had.

"After Sands's death, and the vote that he got, and the fact that 100,000 people turned up to his funeral, that demonstrated to republicans, to unionists, to the British government, that there was a huge republican constituency which couldn't be dismissed."

Mr Feeney said Sands's death paved the way for Sinn Féin to take part in elections - what Sinn Féin's Danny Morrison later called the party's 'armalite and ballot box' strategy.

"It changed everything.... From that point on Sinn Féin took part in every election there was," he said.

"His death enabled them to move into politics... It also (marked) the start of the long, slow decline of the SDLP."

Mr Feeney said the strength of Sands's vote and the fact that he was a convicted IRA man made his death on hunger strike so significant.

"His death is inextricably linked with the fact that he was elected MP for Fermanagh/ South Tyrone," he said.

"(IRA man) Frank Stagg died on hunger strike (in prison in England) in the 1970s. It didn't make any difference. Other people died in the hunger strike in the Republic in the 1940s. It didn't matter."

Mr Feeney, who was an SDLP councillor in 1981, said Sands's death saw a re-drawing of battle lines between unionists and nationalists.

"Unionists started to equate Sinn Féin, republicanism, Catholicism, IRA - they're all the same because 30,000 people voted for him," he said.

He added: "The polarisation was intense in the immediate aftermath (of Sands's death) and as more and more men died".

"Thousands of plastic bullets were fired in Belfast alone during the summer of 1981. Unionists upped the ante in every way to insist that no concessions be given.

"Everybody on the republican side was saying there have to be concessions to these men.

"When Sinn Féin came on to councils unionists wouldn't speak to them, they sprayed air freshener, blew trumpets, walked out."

Mr Feeney said Sands's death was reported across the world and saw the French and other governments put pressure on the British to make concessions to prisoners.

"People do pay a lot more attention to someone who dies because they believe in political objectives," he said.

Sinn Féin's commemorations to mark Sands's death will be held online today due to the pandemic.

“Sinn Féin will hold a number of online events to remember Bobby Sands on his anniversary and at the time of his death, 1.17am," a spokesman said.

“Bobby’s friend and blanket man Séanna Walsh will lay a wreath at his grave in the republican plot in Milltown Cemetery while a special online tribute will take place from the H-Block memorial in Derry.

“The events can be viewed on Facebook and YouTube.”