Bobby Sands: 66 Days


Bobby Sands: 66 Days

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This programme contains some strong language

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This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting

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The conflicts in Northern Ireland seemed to be just going on and on

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in a relentless cycle of violence, and then suddenly, in 1981,

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it took the strangest, darkest, most dramatic twist

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when Bobby Sands and nine of his young comrades,

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insisting they be recognised as political prisoners,

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went on hunger strike.

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This was drama at the absolute rawest edge

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that it could possibly be.

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Because for everybody, it was like there was this clock ticking

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in people's heads. There was a sense this wasn't a game.

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I think it was a very, very difficult process for most people,

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and if Bobby Sands did nothing else,

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he broke through the mental partition.

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I mean, it meant that everybody had to pay attention to it

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and I don't think there's anybody on the islands,

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from whatever perspective, who lived through that time,

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who is not in some way marked by it personally.

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We interrupt our regular programme schedule to bring you

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the following special report from ABC News Washington.

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Here is Ted Koppel.

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Bobby Sands is dead.

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The 27-year-old member of the Irish Republican Army,

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who went on a protest hunger strike 66 days ago, has died.

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Sands, who was serving a 14-year prison term on a weapons possession

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charge, had been demanding special status as a political prisoner.

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A number of other Irish Republican Army members

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also imprisoned by the British

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had joined Sands in his protest, and several of them

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are also well into a hunger strike.

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What he did and what he is known for

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is the most individual thing anybody could possibly do.

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What more personal thing could you do than use your own body

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in the way that he did?

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This is about the most intimate kind of pain,

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and yet, very quickly, that intimacy, that personality,

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that sense of one's self is taken away and is turned into a slogan -

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a brand.

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A perfect icon needs to be

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poised somewhere between knowledge and vast ignorance.

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And what we get with Sands, is we get enough knowledge that we can

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identify with him as a person, but also, you know, he's so young,

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there's so little, really, of his life,

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that you could fill in all those blanks in any way that you want.

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But that's just the way mythology works.

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I'm standing on the threshold of another trembling world.

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May God have mercy on my soul.

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The march through West Belfast was the first major test of

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public support for this second Republican hunger strike, which has

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started against a background far more bitter than the first.

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So far, only one prisoner, Bobby Sands, has refused food.

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Chosen, apparently, because Sands is felt to be a particularly hard man,

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ready to face death alone.

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My heart is very sore because I know I've broken my poor mother's heart,

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and my home is struck with unbearable anxiety.

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But I've considered all the arguments and tried every means

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to avoid what has become the unavoidable.

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It has been forced upon me and my comrades

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by four and a half years of stark inhumanity.

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I am a political prisoner.

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I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war

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that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien,

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oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land.

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The Star of the Sea football club

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was several miles from where I was living in Rathcoole.

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We had no proper football team in Rathcoole

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for the size of the estate,

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which at that time was supposed to be the biggest in Europe.

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But there was no organised football team for the kids.

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To us, it wasn't a Catholic football club, it wasn't a Protestant -

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it was a football club, and they looked after one another.

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We played at Celtic Park in a cup final and we beat them five.

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But when the whistle went, it was like a free-for-all on the pitch.

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And I remember Sandsy with his boot off,

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hitting somebody over the head with his boot, you know?

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The Star of the Sea was something which was genuinely cross community.

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You didn't know it was cross community, you didn't even think it.

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Obviously, it had to come apart. It couldn't have survived in the '70s.

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Just wasn't going to happen.

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Gradually, the Protestant guys sort of drifted away.

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People were being drawn back into their two communities at that stage,

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over those years.

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DISTANT LAUGHTER

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We had great days, so we had.

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The Troubles then really started happening in Rathcoole.

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Catholic families were being driven out of their homes.

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At times, I tried to stick up for families,

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because some of those families were good friends of mine, their sons.

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And then we seen Bobby Sands forced to leave Rathcoole.

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I've received several notes from my family and friends.

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I have only read the one from my mother.

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It was what I needed. She has regained her fighting spirit.

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I am happy now.

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From my earliest years, I recall my mother speaking of

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the troubled times that occurred during her childhood.

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Often she spoke of internment on ships, of gun attacks and death.

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And of early morning raids when one lay listening with pounding heart

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to the heavy clattering of boots on the cobblestoned streets.

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When the television arrived,

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Mother's stories were replaced by what it had to offer.

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I became more confused as the baddies in my mother's tales

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were also the heroes on TV.

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The British Army always fought for the right side

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and the police were always the good guys.

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Then came 1968, and my life began to change.

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Regularly, I noticed the specials attacking and baton-charging

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the crowds of people who all of a sudden began marching on streets.

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I knew that they were our people who were on the receiving end.

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My sympathies and feelings really became aroused

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after watching the scenes at Burntollet.

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That imprinted on my mind like a scar.

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I became angry.

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The whole world exploded,

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and my own little world just crumbled around me.

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There was no-one to save us except the boys,

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as my father called the men who defended our district

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with a handful of old guns.

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People had risen and were fighting back,

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and my mother and her newly found spirit of resistance

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hurled encouragement at the TV, shouting, "Give it to them, boys!"

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At 18 and a half I joined the Provos

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with an M1 carbine and enough hate to topple the world.

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DISTANT SINGING

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# Go home Yeah, soldiers, go home

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# Go home Soldiers, go home. #

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In many ways, Bobby Sands is not what you expect when you anticipate

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an IRA background. He's not someone whose family is steeped in it.

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And I think in some ways,

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that's quite telling and appropriate,

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because many of the people who swelled the ranks of the Provos

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during the 1970s were people who were, really,

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not so much products of family tradition

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as they were products of the escalating violence

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and inter-communal tensions in Northern Ireland.

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When he saw that and saw the combination between the kind of

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violence that was happening on the streets by these kinds of gangs,

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and also the way in which they were more or less

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being sponsored by the state,

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then that kind of combination made it political.

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There were many people who knew him at that time who told me,

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"We all became political, but we didn't really know

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"why we were political."

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Fasting in Ireland was rediscovered in the late 19th century

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by anthropologists who were investigating

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kind of Gaelic history.

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And for those scholars, who were trying to revive Irish nationalism,

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there's an emphasis on the ancient Gaelic laws,

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and it became discovered

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that there was a kind of almost institutionalised fasting

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to rectify an injustice.

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And this became popularised by the play by WB Yeats

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called The King's Threshold.

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Hunger striking has very ancient roots in Irish history.

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It was tradition that if the poet wasn't paid by the rich man,

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he would starve himself outside his gate.

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It struck a chord in Irish history -

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particularly from the Fenians onwards,

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hunger striking or forms of protest in jail began to evolve.

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I'm feeling exceptionally well today.

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It's only the third day, I know, but all the same, I'm feeling great.

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I had a visit this morning with two reporters.

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Couldn't quite get my flow of thoughts together.

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I could have said more in a better fashion.

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Firstly, I did not support the armed struggle,

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I do not agree with the files.

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I felt an imperative to try and get the prisoners,

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their side of the story.

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I saw my role as a journalist

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to afflict the comfortable,

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and comfort the afflicted.

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He spoke fluently about how they felt compelled

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to start this hunger strike

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and he made it pretty clear to me that he was likely to die.

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The situation in our province would not be tolerated for one second

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in any other part of the United Kingdom.

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But our political leaders, they don't know anything about the fear

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that makes Ulster Protestants tick!

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They don't know anything about the real deep convictions

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of the Protestant people.

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There are men in Ulster who will stand to the last man

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in defence of their heritage.

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There are men in Ulster who will die rather than pull down the flag.

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The Protestant reaction

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was bewilderment at the scale of the IRA violence.

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That something that had begun as civil rights disturbances and so on,

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quite quickly, though, became something else.

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It spawned, of course, a reaction on the Loyalist side,

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who wished to terrorise Catholics.

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The IRA would rationalise its actions

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in terms of oppression by the British and so on.

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And yet ordinary Protestants and Unionists were on the front line.

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And one had all kinds of responses to it,

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ranging from a kind of cynical understanding...

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..and yet at the same time a sense of outrage.

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We as a government

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are concerned with the wellbeing of all prisoners.

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We have taken a number of steps to improve the conditions of those held

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in custody. But we are not prepared to give in to blackmail

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in the form of a hunger strike or of any other form of pressure.

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They put a table in my cell

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and are now placing my food on it in front of my eyes.

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I honestly couldn't give a damn if they placed it on my knee.

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It is not damaging me, because I think

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human food can never keep a man alive forever.

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And I console myself with the fact that I'll get a great feed up above.

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If I'm worthy.

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The first time I met him was near the end of 1971.

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There was a family next door that was called the Noade family.

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And the girl called Geraldine was the daughter.

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And Bobby was seeing her.

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Quickly grasped that he was in the 'RA,

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you know, in Fermanagh. And they also had a lot in common.

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Impression I got of Bobby was that he's a bubbly fella.

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We used to slag him he looked like Rod Stewart.

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Used to have big hair.

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So we called him Rod Stewart, you know, he loved it.

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With his big hair, like.

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Then he got caught.

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Geraldine came into my mother's house.

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And said, "Bobby's caught with parts of a gun."

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It was the autumn of '72.

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I was charged, and for the first time I faced jail.

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I had no alternative but to face up to the hardship that lay before me.

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I ended up sentenced in a barbed wire cage

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where I spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war

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with special category status.

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Throughout the history of the state of the North of Ireland,

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the British government have been well aware

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that Irish Republicans believe themselves

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to be political prisoners.

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And in 1972,

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the British government basically conceded political status,

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although they preferred to call it Special Category Status.

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And there was peace in the prisons.

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It gave the prisoners certain privileges.

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They didn't have to work, they wore their own clothes,

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and received regular parcels, visits and letters.

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But there was nothing to say that they should live in POW compounds

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with their military structures intact.

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That came about because there was no alternative.

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At the time, the jails were full.

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So, inside the compounds, you're dealing with an army?

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Yes.

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The huts were locked up at nine o'clock at night.

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They were unlocked at half seven, eight o'clock in the morning.

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But, basically, you had control over your own day.

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So we got our time in by developing our own real sense

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of the type of Ireland that we wished to see.

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It was the first time I met people like Bobby Sands, people like that.

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And during the debates we would start looking at other struggles

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and similarities, and trying to find out

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what it was that would take our own struggle that stage further.

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It was a very revolutionary period.

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We had a vast library,

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all political theories from Stalin to Churchill

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to Mao Tse-tung to Ho Chi Minh.

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"You want a better understanding of what's happening here?

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"There you go, read that."

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A key thing that happened at that point in time was when Gerry Adams

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came into the area known as Cage 11.

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In Cage 11, I mean, there was this new recombination of politics,

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where Adams was saying, "Well, OK, guys, we learned about Marx,

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"we learned about Mao, we've learned about Che.

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"But, you know, what about our own people?"

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And he begins to get them to think about the kinds of things

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that Connolly wrote about, that Liam Mellows wrote about.

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Well, I met Bobby...

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It must have been around 1976 or '77.

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I'd say he was quite modest, but very intense.

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He was deeply troubled and challenged by the sectarian nature

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of our society.

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He went back to reading Jimmy Hope,

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he went back to reading Mary Ann McCracken,

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he went back to reading Wolfe Tone.

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You know, the sense of citizenship,

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of communities needing to be empowered.

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And how could you develop

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in your own neighbourhood or your own community...

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..a Republican ethos?

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I was lonely for a while this evening,

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listening to the crows caw as they returned home.

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Now, as I write,

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the odd curlew mournfully calls as they fly over.

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I like the birds.

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Well, I must leave off,

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for if I write more about the birds,

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my tears will fall and my thoughts return to the days of my youth.

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Those were the days,

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and gone forever now.

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Between 1917 and 1923,

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there were at least 10,000 hunger strikes by Irish Republicans.

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The Irish Republicans were borrowing a tactic that had been pioneered

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by an Englishwoman in 1909.

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She was a suffragette who was fighting for the votes for women.

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And her hunger strike showed just how effective this tactic could be

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when fighting against the Westminster government.

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MacSwiney, of course, being a Lord Mayor,

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and this extraordinary form of protest...

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Even after a world war, it caught the imagination,

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and particularly revolutionary-minded people

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in the world saw this.

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One of their students at the time in London was Ho Chi Minh.

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And he was very impressed by MacSwiney

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and by the Irish struggle generally.

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MacSwiney said, "It is not those who can inflict the most,

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"but those who can suffer the most who will win..."

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..which is a very striking and radical thought.

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The whole tradition of military conflict is,

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you've gotta inflict more suffering on the other guy

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in order to win the war.

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And what MacSwiney had said was, actually, you know, by suffering,

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and by suffering publicly and over a long period of time,

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you are making a statement.

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You're making a statement which was, you will outlast the others.

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No matter what they do to you,

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you'll still be there, or your spirit will still be there

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or the people who will follow you will still be there.

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And in the end, you will win.

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I have poems in my mind, mediocre no doubt...

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Poems of hunger-striking MacSwiney...

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..and everything that this hunger strike has stirred up in my heart

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and in my mind.

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Frank has now joined me on the hunger strike.

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I have the greatest respect, admiration and confidence in Frank,

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and I know that I'm not alone.

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Now and again I'm struck by the natural desire to eat,

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but the desire to see an end to my comrades' plight

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and the liberation of my people is overwhelmingly greater.

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Well, when he came out of jail in 1976, I think it was,

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he came down to the Republican press centre on the Falls Road

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where I was the editor of Republican News.

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He was setting up a tenants association in Twinbrook

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and also wanted to produce a community newspaper.

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I realised that here was somebody who was quite progressive,

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articulate, left wing, and really interested in his community.

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Bobby had been released a number of weeks before me...

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..and he talked about broadening the struggle to involve our community

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much more in the resistance to the British.

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One of the sort of lessons that we brought out of Long Kesh was that

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if you have an Active Service Unit in an area...

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-Come here, mate.

-..if the British manage to take them out,

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that kills the Republican presence.

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Whereas if you can build different levels of Republican resistance,

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from a youth movement to a woman's movement to a community...

0:26:580:27:02

If you build all these structures, well, then,

0:27:020:27:05

if the Active Service Unit does fall,

0:27:050:27:08

it means they're not leaving a vacuum.

0:27:080:27:11

So we understood the theory of revolutionary warfare,

0:27:110:27:14

and that's the way we came at it.

0:27:140:27:16

Many prisoners, they come out of prison and they've been reading Che,

0:27:190:27:22

they've been reading Ho Chi Minh.

0:27:220:27:23

And basically they're saying, "This is what we need to be doing,

0:27:230:27:26

"is being like Ho or Che."

0:27:260:27:28

But Bobby wasn't like that.

0:27:280:27:30

What Bobby began to think was,

0:27:310:27:33

"We have British imperialism all around us.

0:27:330:27:35

"We don't wait until we send the British Army out of Ireland.

0:27:350:27:38

"What we do now is we begin to build the kind of society we want."

0:27:380:27:42

He was married while he was in prison.

0:28:100:28:12

So, the fact of having a wife and having a child

0:28:120:28:16

and having to support all that was very new to Bobby...

0:28:160:28:20

..which meant that he always had the tension of an activist and a father.

0:28:220:28:28

Then Geraldine got pregnant.

0:28:300:28:33

She wanted Bobby to spend more time in the house.

0:28:330:28:35

She wanted Bobby to pay more attention to her.

0:28:350:28:38

You were committed to the armed struggle,

0:28:380:28:41

and committed to your comrades,

0:28:410:28:44

and your personal relationships took second place.

0:28:440:28:47

As happened in hundreds of cases, it just didn't work out for them.

0:28:480:28:52

-NEWS PRESENTER:

-Bombers had attacked a warehouse in Belfast.

0:29:200:29:22

As the police moved in, there was a gun battle.

0:29:220:29:25

Mr Sands was charged with possession of a gun nearby.

0:29:250:29:29

At his trial, although he couldn't be connected with the bombing,

0:29:290:29:31

he was given 14 years.

0:29:310:29:33

-NEWS PRESENTER:

-The government ruled on March the first

0:29:480:29:50

that terrorists convicted of crimes after that date

0:29:500:29:52

would no longer get Special Category Status

0:29:520:29:55

but must wear prison uniform just like ordinary criminals.

0:29:550:29:59

Anybody who was arrested after midnight

0:29:590:30:01

on the first of March 1976 would be a criminal.

0:30:010:30:04

But if you were arrested with a nuclear bomb

0:30:050:30:07

at five to 12, you were political. It was absurd.

0:30:070:30:09

They had special interrogation centres, special courts,

0:30:110:30:15

and they built a special jail, the H-Blocks of Long Kesh.

0:30:150:30:18

-NEWS PRESENTER:

-This is a normal prison, not a prisoner of war camp.

0:30:220:30:25

Here, the prison officers are in control.

0:30:250:30:27

The facilities are excellent.

0:30:280:30:30

Trades and skills are taught to persuade the inmates

0:30:300:30:33

that there is more to life than shooting and bombing.

0:30:330:30:36

So, they didn't conform.

0:30:380:30:40

They went to their compounds, they went to Freedom Association,

0:30:400:30:43

and above all they weren't allowed to wear their own clothes.

0:30:430:30:47

That was the spark that lit the fuse.

0:30:470:30:49

What they didn't calculate,

0:30:490:30:53

and none of us could have, because there was no Republican plan...

0:30:530:30:58

..was Kieran Nugent.

0:30:590:31:03

They said, "Right, take your clothes off and put this uniform on."

0:31:030:31:07

He said that the only way that they would get him to wear the uniform

0:31:070:31:11

was if they nailed it to his back.

0:31:110:31:13

At that, he lifted a blanket,

0:31:140:31:16

wrapped it round himself, and the blanket protest was born.

0:31:160:31:19

The administration took away their clothes, took away their beds,

0:31:230:31:28

took away lockers, took away books, radios,

0:31:280:31:30

toothbrushes,

0:31:300:31:31

blocked up their windows,

0:31:310:31:33

wouldn't give them exercise,

0:31:330:31:34

wouldn't let them have weekly visits.

0:31:340:31:38

You have to remember that the situation in the jails

0:31:410:31:45

was like a pressure cooker. It was boiling up.

0:31:450:31:47

So, the prisoners would tell you,

0:31:470:31:49

the warders began kicking over their commodes.

0:31:490:31:52

Then they, in retaliation,

0:31:530:31:54

began throwing their faeces out the window,

0:31:540:31:57

and the warders apparently began throwing it back in again.

0:31:570:32:00

So there was no place else to put it except on the walls.

0:32:000:32:04

Literally, the most fundamental method of warfare ever

0:32:040:32:07

was carried on in the jails.

0:32:070:32:09

At the start it was indescribably horrible.

0:32:130:32:17

There was the excreta on the walls,

0:32:180:32:21

there was urine being thrown out every night

0:32:210:32:22

and getting washed back in again.

0:32:220:32:24

You were lying on a mattress on the floor which was getting smaller

0:32:240:32:27

because you were pulling bits of the mattress off

0:32:270:32:30

to smear your excretion on the walls.

0:32:300:32:33

But after a month or so, it became just a normal way of living.

0:32:330:32:38

When one spends each day naked and crouching in the corner of a cell

0:32:420:32:46

resembling a pigsty...

0:32:460:32:47

..staring at such eyesores as piles of putrefying rubbish,

0:32:480:32:51

infested with maggots and flies,

0:32:510:32:54

a disease-ridden chamber pot or a blank,

0:32:540:32:57

disgusting scarred wall...

0:32:570:32:58

..it is to the rescue of one's sanity to be able to rise

0:33:000:33:02

and gaze out of the window at the world.

0:33:020:33:04

Today, the screws began blocking up

0:33:080:33:10

all the windows with sheets of steel.

0:33:100:33:12

To me, this represents the further torture of the tortured -

0:33:130:33:17

blocking out the very essence of life, nature.

0:33:170:33:21

Here, my torturers have long ago started,

0:33:230:33:26

and still endeavour, to block up the window on my mind.

0:33:260:33:30

It was very hostile.

0:33:350:33:37

You couldn't ask for a more hostile environment.

0:33:370:33:40

We were working in an open sewer

0:33:430:33:45

with 40 people who wanted to kill us.

0:33:450:33:48

Basically, that's what it is.

0:33:500:33:51

You have 40 people down there who wanted you dead.

0:33:510:33:54

You were reasonably safe in work, but then you were driving home.

0:33:550:33:59

You didn't know what was meeting you there, which happened quite a lot.

0:33:590:34:02

A knock on the door, nine mil in the head.

0:34:020:34:04

-NEWS PRESENTER:

-The Provisional IRA gunned down on his own doorstep

0:34:060:34:09

Albert Miles, the deputy governor of the Maze prison.

0:34:090:34:11

This killing was followed by the murder...

0:34:110:34:14

Between 1979 and 1982, there were 14 prison officers murdered,

0:34:140:34:18

ten of them in one year.

0:34:180:34:20

They were sending letter bombs to our houses.

0:34:210:34:24

They were addressing them to their wives.

0:34:240:34:27

There were putting plastic boxes under the cars.

0:34:270:34:31

They didn't care who was driving the car.

0:34:310:34:33

They didn't care whether you were taking your kids to school.

0:34:330:34:36

They didn't give a toss, so why should I give a toss about them?

0:34:360:34:39

But everybody wanted these people locked up.

0:34:410:34:44

"That's OK," I said. "Lock them up and throw away the key,

0:34:440:34:46

"but somebody has to unlock that door."

0:34:460:34:48

And I am the poor sucker that had to open the door.

0:34:490:34:52

The British government have said they won't concede political status,

0:35:000:35:03

and the prisoners, in their statement today,

0:35:030:35:05

have repeated their intention of fasting to the death

0:35:050:35:07

in order to obtain it.

0:35:070:35:09

If Bobby Sands continues his fast,

0:35:090:35:11

then the crisis in this hunger strike will come around Easter.

0:35:110:35:14

Foremost in my tortured mind is the thought there can never be peace

0:35:180:35:21

in Ireland until the foreign,

0:35:210:35:23

oppressive British presence is removed,

0:35:230:35:25

leaving all the Irish people as a unit

0:35:250:35:27

to control their own affairs

0:35:270:35:28

and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people.

0:35:280:35:31

There is a tradition in republicanism

0:35:340:35:36

of a rising in every generation,

0:35:360:35:38

no matter how hopeless.

0:35:380:35:40

That was very much to the fore in 1916.

0:35:400:35:42

They hadn't a hope of winning, and they knew it. But they did it.

0:35:420:35:44

Fire!

0:36:000:36:02

1916, to Republicans, is a bit like High Mass.

0:36:040:36:08

It was the executions and the creation of martyrs

0:36:080:36:11

that changed, in 1916,

0:36:110:36:12

into a right-angled turning point in Ireland.

0:36:120:36:16

It changed into the willingness to endure.

0:36:160:36:19

Bobby Sands was deeply aware of the fact

0:36:210:36:24

that he wasn't just this isolated individual

0:36:240:36:27

at a particular point in time.

0:36:270:36:28

He very consciously saw himself in a tradition,

0:36:280:36:32

which was the 1916 tradition.

0:36:320:36:34

The only way we can win is emotional and metaphorical,

0:36:350:36:40

and we can win by sacrifice.

0:36:400:36:42

So he knows enough about the culture that he comes from

0:36:440:36:47

to know that this is going to hit certain nerve endings

0:36:470:36:51

within the collective psyche.

0:36:510:36:54

It's going to connect with Irish republicanism

0:36:540:36:56

and its martyr traditions,

0:36:560:36:57

but it's also going to connect with Catholicism.

0:36:570:36:59

It's going to connect with the idea of Christ.

0:36:590:37:01

Protestants would have found incomprehensible...

0:37:070:37:12

..that notion that young men could contemplate

0:37:140:37:16

starving themselves to death

0:37:160:37:19

for what were quite modest political aims.

0:37:190:37:23

But in fact those modest, quantifiable demands...

0:37:230:37:27

..were actually enveloped by...

0:37:280:37:30

..the much bigger demand that Irish republicanism

0:37:310:37:35

requires of its participants.

0:37:350:37:38

It is the declared wish of these people to see humane

0:37:550:37:59

and better conditions in these blocks.

0:37:590:38:01

But the issue at stake is not humanitarian.

0:38:010:38:05

It is purely political, and only a political solution will solve it.

0:38:050:38:08

We wish to be treated not as ordinary prisoners,

0:38:100:38:13

for we are not criminals - we admit no crime unless

0:38:130:38:18

the love of one's people and country is a crime.

0:38:180:38:22

Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.

0:38:350:38:38

Where there is error, may we bring truth.

0:38:380:38:41

Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.

0:38:410:38:44

And where there is despair, may we bring hope.

0:38:440:38:47

Well, quite clearly the election of Margaret Thatcher

0:38:500:38:54

by an extraordinary majority was an enormous achievement.

0:38:540:38:59

And we all knew that British politics

0:38:590:39:03

was not going to be the same again,

0:39:030:39:06

that many things were going to change in the field of industry,

0:39:060:39:10

of industrial relations, and, of course,

0:39:100:39:12

we had the problems of Northern Ireland.

0:39:120:39:17

Her views on Northern Ireland were mainstream Unionist views -

0:39:190:39:24

a sort of general feeling that people who want to be British

0:39:240:39:27

should be, and they should be defended.

0:39:270:39:30

And above all, the thing which excited her deepest emotion

0:39:300:39:33

was support for the Armed Forces and the police,

0:39:330:39:35

and the idea that they were being targeted and killed by enemies

0:39:350:39:40

of Britain was abhorrent to her.

0:39:400:39:42

She understood there were injustices to the nationalist population,

0:39:440:39:49

but she didn't equate Irish republicanism

0:39:490:39:51

with the nationalist population.

0:39:510:39:53

It wasn't, "They're Irish, who cares?"

0:39:530:39:57

It was, "These are terrorists trying to undermine the rule of law."

0:39:570:40:01

And with that, there should be no compromise.

0:40:010:40:04

We knew that particularly, of course,

0:40:070:40:10

because on the eve of the election, Airey Neave,

0:40:100:40:14

who would have been her Secretary of State for Northern Ireland,

0:40:140:40:18

had been murdered by Irish republicans.

0:40:180:40:22

So we knew times were not going to be easy.

0:40:220:40:25

Once we came out of '78, towards the end of '79,

0:40:290:40:32

we realised that the no-wash protest,

0:40:320:40:35

it wasn't enough to break the will of the Brits

0:40:350:40:38

to negotiate for some sort of settlement.

0:40:380:40:41

So in the middle of 1979, the idea of hunger strike was broached.

0:40:410:40:46

We targeted late September as the date.

0:40:470:40:50

We asked for volunteers around the blocks, for people.

0:40:500:40:54

And the names came flooding in.

0:40:540:40:56

Seven convicted IRA terrorists at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland

0:41:010:41:05

began their threatened hunger strike this morning.

0:41:050:41:07

Later, another 142 men joined

0:41:070:41:09

the existing so-called dirty no-wash protest.

0:41:090:41:13

This means that nearly half the prisoners here live in conditions

0:41:130:41:16

of self-imposed filth.

0:41:160:41:19

The decision of seven men to go on hunger strike is seen as

0:41:190:41:22

a last-ditch attempt to gain political status for these men.

0:41:220:41:26

Bobby Sands was livid that he wasn't on it.

0:41:270:41:30

The argument was that you can't put everybody on this.

0:41:300:41:34

And they said, "Bobby Sands, you're taking over as OC.

0:41:340:41:37

"That's it."

0:41:370:41:38

-NEWS PRESENTER:

-A year ago, only the relatives

0:41:400:41:43

and few hundred republican diehards

0:41:430:41:45

could be expected to turn up at an H-Block rally.

0:41:450:41:48

Now, under a constant barrage of propaganda,

0:41:480:41:51

there are several thousands.

0:41:510:41:53

The British knew that they were in a struggle,

0:41:550:41:57

they were in a battle here,

0:41:570:41:58

because in terms of hearts and minds they were losing this campaign.

0:41:580:42:02

At the beginning of the hunger strike, they underestimated

0:42:050:42:08

the determination of Mrs Thatcher.

0:42:080:42:10

Here was a Prime Minister under massive pressure.

0:42:100:42:12

The economy was tanking at the time, there was mass unemployment.

0:42:120:42:17

So the impression was, here was somebody who could be broken.

0:42:170:42:22

But what boxed her in was that she inherited this policy,

0:42:240:42:27

she inherited this policy from the Labour government.

0:42:270:42:31

It was the Labour government who ended Special Category Status.

0:42:310:42:34

And once you inherit that policy, you couldn't back down.

0:42:340:42:38

Morally, the hunger strike was very simple in her mind.

0:42:390:42:43

These people had committed these crimes and they should be punished

0:42:430:42:46

for them, and they should have no special rights.

0:42:460:42:48

And the hunger strike was a way of blackmailing her.

0:42:480:42:52

It was a sort of completely unacceptable form of leverage.

0:42:520:42:55

After 54 days, with one of the strikers close to death,

0:42:590:43:02

the IRA's Commanding Officer in the H blocks, Brendan Hughes,

0:43:020:43:05

took the decision to call off the hunger strike.

0:43:050:43:08

The prisoners believed through intermediaries

0:43:080:43:10

that the British government was about to make concessions.

0:43:100:43:13

But they misread the signals.

0:43:130:43:15

It quickly became apparent that they had no deal.

0:43:190:43:22

The arrangement was that Britain wasn't to call off the hunger strike

0:43:220:43:26

without consulting Bobby Sands,

0:43:260:43:27

because Bobby was the OC of the prisoners.

0:43:270:43:29

He had succeeded Brendan.

0:43:290:43:31

Bobby was one of the boys, you know.

0:43:310:43:33

Which is why, when he was made OC, we were thinking,

0:43:330:43:36

"Bobby's a nice guy and he's talented and all the rest of it..."

0:43:360:43:41

But to me the most fascinating thing is how the person in a moment

0:43:410:43:45

becomes a leader in all intents and purposes

0:43:450:43:48

and says to Brendan, "You fucked up."

0:43:480:43:49

I think in the end they realised that the government was simply

0:43:510:43:55

not going to give them what they had been demanding,

0:43:550:43:58

and that therefore they had the choice

0:43:580:44:00

either of dying or of living.

0:44:000:44:02

As soon as the strike ended,

0:44:060:44:08

one of the problems that Bobby Sands had as Officer Commanding

0:44:080:44:11

was the morale of the prisoners.

0:44:110:44:14

So it was an absolute period of crisis

0:44:140:44:17

in trying to keep the protest going after so many years.

0:44:170:44:22

Then he realised that what happened in the jail was important

0:44:220:44:26

for what was happening on the outside.

0:44:260:44:29

Bobby immediately said, "There's only one thing for it.

0:44:290:44:32

"We're going back on hunger strike."

0:44:320:44:34

The leadership sent in word -

0:44:370:44:40

"Under no circumstances will we sanction a second hunger strike."

0:44:400:44:45

And Bobby fought with them.

0:44:450:44:47

And in the end he said, "Look, you either sack me or back me."

0:44:480:44:54

Some people, I think, referred to it as a kind of a tunnel vision,

0:44:580:45:01

that Bobby at this point became so concentrated on this one thing.

0:45:010:45:08

This is something that we can't even understand unless we see it

0:45:090:45:12

in the context of the whole group.

0:45:120:45:14

They weren't just facing the world alone.

0:45:140:45:18

They were facing the future as a collectivity...

0:45:180:45:20

..and the sole criterion for getting on the second hunger strike was,

0:45:210:45:27

"Would you be willing to die?

0:45:270:45:29

"Because if you don't die, this is going to hurt the rest of us."

0:45:290:45:33

And Bobby said, "That's the reason I'm going on first,

0:45:350:45:38

"is because I will die."

0:45:380:45:40

He has, first of all, a certain sense of guilt.

0:45:550:45:58

People like MacSwiney had a sense of guilt that they hadn't taken part

0:45:580:46:01

in the 1916 rising, for example.

0:46:010:46:03

And therefore, when the opportunity came to do something,

0:46:030:46:06

they felt this extra burden, that they had to take it on themselves.

0:46:060:46:09

And I think Bobby Sands maybe felt

0:46:110:46:13

after the first failed hunger strike,

0:46:130:46:15

and him having been the OC, felt this sense of duty.

0:46:150:46:19

And he comes across...

0:46:210:46:24

What's moving is he comes across as a very young man,

0:46:240:46:26

and with all of the intact idealism that the young can have.

0:46:260:46:31

He sees his own actions as being moral actions,

0:46:320:46:36

as being good and righteous.

0:46:360:46:37

That's why he is challenging, I think,

0:46:370:46:39

particularly for people who don't agree with him,

0:46:390:46:41

don't agree with where he is coming from -

0:46:410:46:43

you still can't deny, from the writings, the sincerity.

0:46:430:46:49

This guy, you get a sense when you read him,

0:46:580:47:00

is absolutely conscious of his place in history.

0:47:000:47:03

But he is not indulging it.

0:47:030:47:05

It's not as if he is driven by a megalomaniacal idea that,

0:47:050:47:09

"I'm going to be this godlike figure."

0:47:090:47:11

You don't get that from his writings.

0:47:110:47:13

What you get from his writings is a very old-fashioned,

0:47:130:47:17

almost Victorian sense of duty.

0:47:170:47:19

I have always taken a lesson from something that was told to me

0:47:230:47:26

by a sound man.

0:47:260:47:28

That is that everyone,

0:47:280:47:31

republican or otherwise,

0:47:310:47:34

has his own particular part to play.

0:47:340:47:36

No part is too great or too small.

0:47:370:47:40

No-one is too old or too young to do something.

0:47:400:47:43

Just a normal day, I open the cell, the prisoner said to me,

0:47:590:48:03

"I'm refusing food."

0:48:030:48:05

"OK, no problem."

0:48:050:48:07

The food was left in the cell.

0:48:070:48:09

It was two scoops of potato, fish, one ladleful of peas,

0:48:100:48:15

two slices of bread with butter, and tea.

0:48:150:48:19

It's like I said to them, "I'm putting the food into you.

0:48:190:48:22

"If you don't want to eat it, that's up to you.

0:48:220:48:25

"We'll put the food in, we'll take the food out.

0:48:250:48:28

"And we'll do that three times a day."

0:48:280:48:30

And that was their choice.

0:48:300:48:32

If they wanted to commit suicide, that was their choice.

0:48:320:48:35

Tonight's tea was pie and beans,

0:48:470:48:50

and although hunger may fuel my imagination,

0:48:500:48:52

I don't exaggerate - the beans were nearly falling off the plate.

0:48:520:48:56

If I say this all the time to the lads, they would worry about me.

0:48:560:48:59

But I'm all right.

0:48:590:49:01

One of the big difficulties

0:49:020:49:04

that the support movement for the prisoners

0:49:040:49:06

on the inside faced was a lack of publicity.

0:49:060:49:10

There was practically no publicity in advance of it starting,

0:49:120:49:17

and practically no publicity while the hunger strike was unfolding

0:49:170:49:21

and Bobby Sands was leading it.

0:49:210:49:23

There had been so much attention given to the first one

0:49:230:49:26

that the view from the leadership outside was it would be difficult

0:49:260:49:30

to attain the same level of mobilisation

0:49:300:49:32

due to the fact that didn't work.

0:49:320:49:34

The first few weeks was pretty flat in terms of protest on the streets.

0:49:360:49:41

The Frank Maguire thing was the catalyst.

0:49:410:49:43

Frank Maguire, who had been the MP for Fermanagh South Tyrone...

0:49:440:49:48

About two weeks into Bobby's hunger strike,

0:49:480:49:51

Frank Maguire collapsed and died of a heart attack.

0:49:510:49:54

I immediately thought to myself, if it was possible,

0:49:540:49:59

and if there was a by-election,

0:49:590:50:01

we should put Bobby Sands's name forward

0:50:010:50:03

to stand in Fermanagh South Tyrone.

0:50:030:50:05

We had major worries about it, of course.

0:50:080:50:10

We would have to get the agreement of Bobby Sands,

0:50:100:50:13

and even if Bobby lost by one vote, Thatcher would have crowed,

0:50:130:50:18

"Even your own people rejected you."

0:50:180:50:19

Within the provisional republican movement

0:50:220:50:24

there had been a deep scepticism about electoral politics,

0:50:240:50:27

because there was a notion that the North was a place in which

0:50:270:50:30

the electoral maths was against you by design,

0:50:300:50:33

so when you put someone up for election to the House of Commons,

0:50:330:50:37

this in itself is a change of approach of a dramatic kind.

0:50:370:50:40

But it was a risk, because it was breaking with the instincts

0:50:400:50:43

of provisional republicanism,

0:50:430:50:45

which had been hostile towards the compromises

0:50:450:50:47

which they saw as being involved in electoral politics.

0:50:470:50:51

At the time I think people saw it

0:50:510:50:53

as a politicisation of the hunger strike itself.

0:50:530:50:58

And some people saw that as a great thing,

0:50:580:51:00

as a way of kind of democratising that struggle.

0:51:000:51:03

And some people saw it as a cynical move.

0:51:030:51:04

This was Sinn Fein trying to take advantage

0:51:040:51:07

of this extraordinary situation that was going on within the prison.

0:51:070:51:10

My body is broken and cold.

0:51:190:51:21

I'm lonely and I need comfort.

0:51:210:51:23

From somewhere afar I hear those familiar voices which keep me going.

0:51:250:51:29

"We're with you, son.

0:51:290:51:30

"We are with you."

0:51:300:51:32

I went in to get him to sign papers.

0:51:340:51:37

At the time I was only 26, 27,

0:51:370:51:40

and obviously didn't realise

0:51:400:51:42

what maybe I was getting into.

0:51:420:51:45

But, however,

0:51:450:51:47

I said to him, I remember, and he was a bit offended, I said to him,

0:51:470:51:53

"If you ever think of changing your mind about this, tell me."

0:51:530:51:57

He says, "That doesn't arise at all."

0:51:570:52:00

I noticed that his dinner was sitting on the tray.

0:52:020:52:05

I did obviously realise that this was a very serious place,

0:52:070:52:10

and that this man meant business, you know.

0:52:100:52:13

And he did say to me, he said he would die.

0:52:130:52:15

He said, "I know that I will die."

0:52:150:52:18

Hunger strikes are a peculiarly modern tactic.

0:52:300:52:34

They fit in two ways with developments

0:52:340:52:35

in the contemporary world,

0:52:350:52:37

one of which is the power of the media,

0:52:370:52:39

which means that somebody suffering in one place in the world

0:52:390:52:42

can be accessible to everybody in the world.

0:52:420:52:45

So states become more and more reluctant to create victims

0:52:450:52:49

or create martyrs, at least publicly.

0:52:490:52:51

And therefore, if the state is not going to create martyrs,

0:52:510:52:53

people will have to make martyrs of themselves.

0:52:530:52:56

So in 1963,

0:52:580:53:00

we saw the incredibly potent image

0:53:000:53:01

of the Buddhist monk from South Vietnam

0:53:010:53:04

who set himself on fire.

0:53:040:53:05

And that became an image that was beamed around the world,

0:53:050:53:09

and became crucial in undermining the American regime

0:53:090:53:12

in South Vietnam.

0:53:120:53:14

And that's an example of the kind of power of self-inflicted suffering

0:53:140:53:18

to move people, even people who have no connection with the struggle.

0:53:180:53:22

So we were very conscious, if we were to achieve anything

0:53:270:53:31

within our own publicity,

0:53:310:53:33

that the imagery of our prisoners... We had to humanise them.

0:53:330:53:38

Bobby had went into prison very early,

0:53:380:53:41

so there weren't really any great photographs of him.

0:53:410:53:43

I remember the ones we had taken,

0:53:430:53:45

that's the ones when we were in the prison.

0:53:450:53:47

That particular one was Tomboy, myself, Bobby and Denis.

0:53:490:53:55

I don't know where the camera came from.

0:53:550:53:57

I still don't know where it came from or who owned it

0:53:570:53:59

and the photo was taken.

0:53:590:54:01

The image doesn't give you any deep reading of the expression

0:54:040:54:07

or of that person.

0:54:070:54:09

So the sort of ambiguity of the image itself is crucial

0:54:090:54:14

to the projection of martyrdom onto the figure...

0:54:140:54:18

..and it's really this kind of dialogue

0:54:220:54:25

between the image and the viewer,

0:54:250:54:28

the viewer thinking of the suffering,

0:54:280:54:30

or the kind of otherworldliness of what they've done.

0:54:300:54:34

And images have a certain impact,

0:54:370:54:40

or a certain potency, you could say.

0:54:400:54:43

But it takes events outside of the image to create

0:54:430:54:48

the full kind of fusion, if you like, of that iconography.

0:54:480:54:52

-NEWS PRESENTER:

-After the First World War,

0:55:060:55:08

Churchill wrote that entire countries had been swept away,

0:55:080:55:11

but the dreary spires of Fermanagh and Tyrone still stood intact.

0:55:110:55:15

There are 5,000 more nationalist voters than unionist voters here,

0:55:150:55:19

and only the unwillingness to elect an IRA man will cut into that.

0:55:190:55:24

Well, it's a terrible choice between a provisional IRA man on one hand,

0:55:240:55:29

and a reactionary discredited unionist.

0:55:290:55:33

So it is an acute dilemma for a large number of Catholics

0:55:330:55:37

in the constituency.

0:55:370:55:39

People are not being asked to come out

0:55:390:55:41

and make any decision in opposition to

0:55:410:55:43

or in favour of violence or armed struggle or anything else.

0:55:430:55:47

Bobby Sands is the single anti-unionist candidate

0:55:470:55:50

in this election, standing on a single issue.

0:55:500:55:53

A lot of what Bobby Sands was doing in a way was taking one truth

0:56:000:56:04

and making a different truth.

0:56:040:56:07

The truth he was taking

0:56:070:56:09

was the truth that actually the IRA was not suffering.

0:56:090:56:13

The IRA was not a victim in the Troubles.

0:56:130:56:16

The vast majority of IRA killings were pretty safe for the killer.

0:56:180:56:23

Their classic weapon was the car bomb.

0:56:230:56:26

You set the bomb, you walked away from the carnage, you were safe.

0:56:260:56:29

You walked up to somebody's door, you knocked on the door,

0:56:290:56:32

you shot somebody in the head, you walked away.

0:56:320:56:34

You placed a mine on a road when a British Army convoy

0:56:360:56:39

was coming along, and you did it by remote control.

0:56:390:56:42

And remote control is not the warrior's honour.

0:56:440:56:47

What the hunger strikes did partly for the IRA, I think,

0:56:480:56:52

was reversed that truth.

0:56:520:56:54

They couldn't do their courage in the usual way that soldiers do,

0:56:560:56:59

so how could you do it?

0:56:590:57:00

You could do it by dying.

0:57:000:57:02

Here was someone on their behalf, almost, who was saying,

0:57:030:57:06

"I will show exemplary courage,"

0:57:060:57:08

and therefore somehow change in people's heads

0:57:080:57:10

the idea of what this movement is about.

0:57:100:57:13

He was only a child in '68 when the civil rights movement started.

0:57:140:57:17

But the IRA really didn't understand what Bobby Sands was doing.

0:57:190:57:22

What does the IRA go and do?

0:57:250:57:27

Right in the heart of the election campaign, they murder,

0:57:270:57:31

in the most grotesque way, Joanne Mathers, mother of two,

0:57:310:57:34

for the awful crime of collecting census forms.

0:57:340:57:37

So they're saying, "You know what?

0:57:400:57:42

"It still is about killing and we're going to keep doing it."

0:57:420:57:44

And for the voters in Fermanagh South Tyrone,

0:57:440:57:48

you have this awful dilemma.

0:57:480:57:50

What are they actually voting for?

0:57:500:57:52

Joanne Mathers is buried on the day of the election results.

0:57:560:58:00

So are they voting compassionately to save a life

0:58:010:58:04

or are they voting for an organisation

0:58:040:58:07

which is in the business of taking life?

0:58:070:58:09

The count took place in the technical college in Enniskillen.

0:58:170:58:20

I've never seen so many cameramen, press, from Radio Moscow,

0:58:200:58:24

Radio Prague, Australia, Japan, all there because they saw this,

0:58:240:58:29

I think, in terms of David versus Goliath.

0:58:290:58:32

There was Bobby Sands, there was Thatcher.

0:58:320:58:34

Sands, Bobby, Anti H-Block, Armagh,

0:58:360:58:41

-political prisoner - 30,492.

-CHEERING

0:58:410:58:48

West, Henry W, Ulster Unionist -

0:58:480:58:52

29,046.

0:58:520:58:56

And I declare that Bobby Sands has been duly elected

0:58:560:59:01

to serve as a member for this constituency.

0:59:010:59:04

CHEERING

0:59:040:59:07

I always remember the smile on his mother and his sister's face.

0:59:070:59:11

I presume they would have believed and hoped

0:59:110:59:14

that it would have saved his life.

0:59:140:59:17

I went in to see him the next day and he was pleased,

0:59:170:59:20

but he said to me, he says, "It makes no difference."

0:59:200:59:23

He said, "It will make no difference to me."

0:59:230:59:26

He knew. He seemed to have it worked out, you know?

0:59:260:59:28

It is a tremendous boost for the H-Block campaign,

0:59:280:59:31

but it's bound to be regarded throughout the world

0:59:310:59:34

as much more than that -

0:59:340:59:35

as a victory for the IRA.

0:59:350:59:38

-NEWS PRESENTER:

-Sands's election to parliament embarrassed the British

0:59:380:59:42

and it has made Sands more than the folk hero he had already become.

0:59:420:59:45

This 11-year-old boy sitting on the debris of a recent riot

0:59:450:59:49

says Sands is dying for him.

0:59:490:59:51

-POLICE OFFICER:

-You are causing an obstruction.

0:59:510:59:54

You are required to disperse.

0:59:540:59:56

I have no doubts or regrets about what I am doing

0:59:571:00:00

for I know what I have faced for eight years,

1:00:001:00:03

and in particular for the last four and a half years, others will face.

1:00:031:00:06

All men must have hope and never lose heart...

1:00:091:00:11

..but my hope lies in the ultimate victory for my poor people.

1:00:131:00:16

Is there any hope greater than that?

1:00:181:00:19

England was the big fish in the small pool,

1:00:311:00:35

and then suddenly the big whale of America swims in.

1:00:351:00:41

If America gets involved, everything changes.

1:00:411:00:45

They are political prisoners,

1:01:011:01:03

whether the British say they are or not.

1:01:031:01:05

And let's pray for a united Ireland.

1:01:051:01:07

-Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

-INDISTINCT CHEERING

1:01:071:01:10

We are screaming that the British Government

1:01:151:01:17

has to end the war.

1:01:171:01:19

I believed that the solution was getting America involved.

1:01:211:01:25

The more people who put pressure on the American government

1:01:251:01:29

to do something, the better.

1:01:291:01:30

It was a difficult one

1:01:341:01:36

to explain to an Irish-American audience.

1:01:361:01:40

This is being used to whip up support for a violent movement.

1:01:401:01:46

But when you are conveying a complex message

1:01:471:01:50

against the Provos' simple message - "Brits out" - our job was not easy.

1:01:501:01:56

Here we were in America at the time,

1:02:001:02:02

and the narrative that we had come to accept about the Troubles

1:02:021:02:05

in Northern Ireland was a romantic group of victims,

1:02:051:02:09

that when they went to the streets,

1:02:091:02:11

they were doing it out of a sense of pride and desperation.

1:02:111:02:17

It was a romanticised version of the problem.

1:02:171:02:20

And in comes this character named Bobby Sands,

1:02:221:02:26

and what he did was a brilliant political move.

1:02:261:02:31

There was a sense here of people ready to transcend the past.

1:02:311:02:35

There were voices, including, most prominently, Senator Kennedy's,

1:02:361:02:40

that found a way of saying,

1:02:401:02:43

"We must help the British appreciate that they should meet the conditions

1:02:431:02:48

"Bobby and the other hunger strikers had set forth."

1:02:481:02:51

And I think something we didn't quite appreciate

1:02:521:02:56

was just how stubborn the British could be,

1:02:561:02:59

even against their own interests.

1:02:591:03:01

Oh, no. I mean, nobody would suggest for a moment, would they,

1:03:011:03:03

that an MP who commits an offence and is sentenced to prison

1:03:031:03:06

should be treated differently from anybody else?

1:03:061:03:08

I'm not suggesting it, and I don't think anybody else is either.

1:03:081:03:11

That's where the diplomatic effort comes in.

1:03:111:03:13

They have to up their counter-propaganda efforts,

1:03:131:03:15

and it is counter-propaganda.

1:03:151:03:17

It is about an image of what you're trying to project to the world.

1:03:171:03:20

Sinn Fein rejected the British Parliament anyway,

1:03:231:03:25

so it was a sort of publicity stunt,

1:03:251:03:27

but it was a publicity stunt with the power of votes.

1:03:271:03:30

And that was alarming.

1:03:301:03:33

Mrs Thatcher was a very conscious of the propaganda battle in Washington

1:03:351:03:38

and she fought it back.

1:03:381:03:39

Irish-Americans, including Teddy Kennedy, God bless him,

1:03:391:03:43

were scared off, because criticise the British,

1:03:431:03:47

and you'll be seen as supporting the IRA.

1:03:471:03:50

And that was the simple tactic of both the British and Irish embassy,

1:03:501:03:55

-and it worked.

-While we might ask the American administration

1:03:551:03:59

to ask Thatcher to soften her stance,

1:03:591:04:02

we were not going to ask them to intervene in an active sense

1:04:021:04:06

in the affairs of another country.

1:04:061:04:08

They had larger concerns involving the IRA as a troublesome element,

1:04:081:04:14

and a criminal element, in many eyes,

1:04:141:04:16

and I think that just trumped the issue.

1:04:161:04:20

But of course, not that long after the start of the hunger strike,

1:04:201:04:22

President Reagan is shot.

1:04:221:04:24

He's out of action for about ten days in the hospital,

1:04:241:04:27

and we were about to break diplomatic relationships

1:04:271:04:30

with Libya on the issue of terrorism.

1:04:301:04:33

At the end of the day,

1:04:351:04:37

the view of the White House was that while, in a sense,

1:04:371:04:39

you could say that a man like Bobby Sands was a prisoner

1:04:391:04:43

of conscience, that cause and that organisation

1:04:431:04:49

is also a terrorist organisation.

1:04:491:04:51

I was thinking today about the hunger strike.

1:04:571:05:00

People say a lot about the body. I don't trust it.

1:05:011:05:04

I consider there is a kind of fate indeed.

1:05:051:05:08

Firstly, the body doesn't accept the lack of food...

1:05:091:05:12

..and it suffers from the temptation of food.

1:05:141:05:16

The body fights back, sure enough...

1:05:191:05:21

..but at the end of the day, everything returns

1:05:221:05:25

to the primary consideration - that is, the mind.

1:05:251:05:28

So loss of weight the first month is gradual,

1:05:341:05:36

and it's not as catastrophic as one would imagine.

1:05:361:05:39

And during that month the body is not yet digesting itself.

1:05:391:05:43

It's not the weight change which radically changes.

1:05:431:05:46

It's the effects of the whole fasting which kicks in.

1:05:461:05:49

Between 35 and 45 days is what the Chief Medical Officer told me...

1:05:501:05:54

What he called the ocular motor phase.

1:05:541:05:56

The muscles in your eyes don't work as well as they should

1:05:561:06:00

and you get nystagmus.

1:06:001:06:01

You get these rapid eye movements which are uncontrollable,

1:06:011:06:04

and it's extremely unpleasant.

1:06:041:06:06

It causes vomiting, and it was the phase that hunger strikers

1:06:061:06:09

who were beginning to strike feared the most.

1:06:091:06:11

After day 45, all of a sudden the vertigo stops.

1:06:141:06:16

After the vertigo ends,

1:06:191:06:20

the person comprehends everything and he can make a rational decision.

1:06:201:06:24

But this is not going to last very long, and you have this entity

1:06:241:06:27

called anosognosia which means the person

1:06:271:06:29

does no longer realise exactly how serious the situation is.

1:06:291:06:33

-Maggie!

-Out!

-Maggie!

-Out!

1:06:381:06:41

-Maggie, Maggie, Maggie!

-Out, out, out!

1:06:411:06:43

You could very quickly see on the streets of Dublin,

1:06:481:06:50

on the streets of Cork,

1:06:501:06:51

that the emotional power was beginning to draw in people

1:06:511:06:54

who had not previously been involved in Republican politics

1:06:541:06:57

and had probably not even been involved in politics at all.

1:06:571:06:59

And that's what terrified the southern government.

1:07:001:07:03

I mean, they were really very, very scared by this.

1:07:031:07:05

You've got to remember, in the Republic,

1:07:091:07:11

most people didn't want to know about the North.

1:07:111:07:14

You know, they had been psychologically prepared

1:07:141:07:17

to wake up in the morning and hear the latest atrocity

1:07:171:07:20

and then try to get on with the rest of the day

1:07:201:07:22

without paying any attention to it.

1:07:221:07:24

There was this terror that the Troubles

1:07:241:07:26

were going to spill across the border.

1:07:261:07:28

But Fianna Fail, which was the dominant political party

1:07:301:07:32

in the south,

1:07:321:07:33

was particularly sensitive to this

1:07:331:07:35

because it had put itself forward as being the real Republican party

1:07:351:07:38

on the islands of Ireland.

1:07:381:07:40

In my view, a declaration by the British Government of their interest

1:07:401:07:45

in encouraging the unity of Ireland...

1:07:451:07:47

CHEERING DROWNS SPEECH

1:07:471:07:50

And then, with the hunger strikes,

1:07:501:07:52

you had Sinn Fein and the IRA making a really vivid claim to saying,

1:07:521:07:58

"You are not the Republicans, we are the Republicans."

1:07:581:08:01

You can pull up your rhetoric,

1:08:011:08:03

we can pull up the bodies of starving men.

1:08:031:08:05

I'm continually... I'm still very deeply concerned and anxious

1:08:051:08:10

about the H-Block situation.

1:08:101:08:13

And the British Government fully understand that concern.

1:08:131:08:16

An election is pending.

1:08:161:08:18

Now, that is what worries Mr Haughey,

1:08:181:08:20

that he is going to lose power.

1:08:201:08:22

The electoral arithmetic is very tight

1:08:221:08:26

and any growth in support for H-Block supporters

1:08:261:08:29

could be translated into elections to the Dail,

1:08:291:08:32

and you see an increasing number of desperate attempts

1:08:321:08:36

to try and produce some sort of initiative - anything.

1:08:361:08:39

Mr Bobby Sands, the IRA hunger striker,

1:08:421:08:45

has been given the last rites by a Roman Catholic priest

1:08:451:08:47

in the hospital of the Maze prison near Belfast.

1:08:471:08:50

The Northern Ireland Office has granted his request

1:08:501:08:53

for a special visit from the Dublin MPs Sile de Valera, Neil Blaney

1:08:531:08:56

and John O'Connell,

1:08:561:08:58

in the hope that they can persuade him to give up his seven-week fast.

1:08:581:09:01

It was a very, obviously, emotional meeting.

1:09:041:09:06

Dr John O'Connell, who was Health Minister,

1:09:061:09:08

he says to Neil Blaney, "I'm going to ask him to come off."

1:09:081:09:11

And Blaney says, "Don't. You can't do that."

1:09:111:09:14

He says, "I am. I have to."

1:09:141:09:15

He was very ill. He was blind in one eye,

1:09:181:09:21

because I always remember him rubbing his eye.

1:09:211:09:23

And Sile de Valera was crying.

1:09:231:09:25

O'Connell pressed Bobby to come off but he said he wasn't

1:09:261:09:30

and he told him about all the suffering

1:09:301:09:32

that they had done in the H-Blocks.

1:09:321:09:36

And that only exacerbated the situation with Sile de Valera,

1:09:361:09:39

because she was actually crying into an awful state then

1:09:391:09:42

when she heard all that was going on, you know?

1:09:421:09:44

I found that I could not persuade him.

1:09:471:09:49

I emphasised how important his own life was.

1:09:491:09:51

I didn't think a life was worth that.

1:09:511:09:53

But he was very determined

1:09:531:09:54

and I got the impression he was fully resigned to die.

1:09:541:09:58

I've saw in this man more determination

1:09:581:10:00

than I've ever seen in any person before.

1:10:001:10:04

He now weighs 47kg.

1:10:041:10:08

He cannot read and he cannot focus his eyesight

1:10:081:10:12

and believes he is going blind.

1:10:121:10:14

Himself thinks he has possibly three or four days left to live.

1:10:141:10:18

There can be no possible concessions on political status.

1:10:221:10:26

To do that, in fact, would put many, many people into jeopardy.

1:10:261:10:31

If everyone said that a crime which you and I regard as a crime,

1:10:331:10:36

described as a crime, and which is a crime,

1:10:361:10:39

if ever there was an attempt to say it is not a crime, it's political,

1:10:391:10:42

then everyone, I'm afraid, would go in fear.

1:10:421:10:45

The prisoners are clearly recognised as political prisoners.

1:10:451:10:48

It is stupid of Mrs Thatcher, and it's idiotic of her,

1:10:481:10:52

to turn around and say, "A crime is a crime is a crime."

1:10:521:10:54

When you have both protagonists taking public stances,

1:10:581:11:02

what is lacking is trust.

1:11:021:11:04

The Government's position is there will be no negotiations before

1:11:041:11:08

the end of the strike. Of course, the prisoners didn't believe them,

1:11:081:11:13

and neither side wants to lose face,

1:11:131:11:15

and that's the tragedy of it.

1:11:151:11:17

-NEWS PRESENTERS:

-The IRA's Bobby Sands,

1:11:461:11:48

nearly blind and close to death,

1:11:481:11:50

today refused to meet with two human rights mediators who went

1:11:501:11:53

to Maze Prison to try to persuade Sands to end his hunger strike.

1:11:531:11:56

The authorities would not agree to Mr Sands's conditions,

1:11:561:11:59

that his friends would be with him when he met the delegation,

1:11:591:12:01

and the commissioners will not now be taking up his case.

1:12:011:12:05

Outside the prison, a group of loyalist protesters

1:12:051:12:07

angrily put the point

1:12:071:12:09

that the people in real need of human rights justice

1:12:091:12:11

are those who'd suffered as a result of IRA killings.

1:12:111:12:14

Bobby Sands is putting on a performance for the world.

1:12:141:12:17

He is trying to get the maximum publicity possible for his cause.

1:12:171:12:22

That is a cause that has murdered people,

1:12:221:12:23

that has murdered children in my constituency.

1:12:231:12:26

That's the cause that Bobby Sands represents.

1:12:261:12:28

The Protestants are delighted that Sands chose not to let

1:12:301:12:33

the Human Rights Commission intervene to stop the hunger strike,

1:12:331:12:37

and ironically, many Irish Republican sympathisers

1:12:371:12:40

are also happy that apparently Sands still chooses death.

1:12:401:12:44

One said, "The IRA needs a martyr, and Sands is a good one."

1:12:441:12:47

It has been some time since Republican sympathisers

1:12:541:12:57

marched through Belfast with quite this degree of support

1:12:571:13:00

and this degree of emotional intensity,

1:13:001:13:02

and it took place in a mood of bitterness and confusion

1:13:021:13:04

generated by the breakdown of the mediation effort

1:13:041:13:07

by the human rights commissioners.

1:13:071:13:09

The Irish Prime Minister, Mr Haughey,

1:13:091:13:11

came in for as much hostility from the marchers as Mrs Thatcher.

1:13:111:13:14

We were helpless in terms of getting the administration to intervene.

1:13:191:13:23

Ed Meese at that stage was his chief of staff.

1:13:231:13:27

So I went to see Meese

1:13:271:13:28

and he started the conversation by telling me

1:13:281:13:32

that, "We've had to deal with difficult prison situations

1:13:321:13:35

"in California. In dealing with prisoners,

1:13:351:13:37

"they only understand one thing, and that's toughness.

1:13:371:13:41

"So I'm not going to advise the President to phone

1:13:411:13:45

"the British Prime Minister to dilute her toughness."

1:13:451:13:49

But it was a gift to the Provos.

1:13:491:13:51

Bobby Sands was reported closer to death today...

1:14:091:14:12

Tension increased throughout Belfast and there was more violence...

1:14:121:14:15

At the Vatican, Pope John Paul begged the world...

1:14:151:14:17

NEWSREADER SPEAKS FRENCH

1:14:171:14:20

I believe I am but another of those wretched Irishmen

1:14:241:14:27

born of a risen generation

1:14:271:14:30

with a deeply rooted and unquenchable desire for freedom.

1:14:301:14:33

I may be a sinner, but I stand,

1:14:351:14:39

and if it so be will die...

1:14:391:14:40

..happy knowing that I do not have to answer

1:14:421:14:44

for what these people have done to our ancient nation.

1:14:441:14:47

I was in the prison hospital.

1:14:591:15:02

The scene that greeted my eyes, I couldn't believe.

1:15:021:15:04

He was lying on his back. There was a cage.

1:15:061:15:10

The blankets were covering the cage

1:15:101:15:12

because they couldn't touch his body.

1:15:121:15:14

And he said, "Who's that?"

1:15:141:15:16

And I said, "It's Jim, Bobby."

1:15:161:15:19

He said, "I can't see. I'm blind."

1:15:191:15:22

HE EXHALES SHAKILY

1:15:241:15:26

He reached out his hand.

1:15:281:15:30

We touched...

1:15:361:15:37

..we said goodbye...

1:15:391:15:40

..and he said, "Tell the lads I'm hanging in."

1:15:421:15:46

This is the last visit you'll have with him.

1:15:471:15:50

-That's right.

-Did you say goodbye to Bobby?

1:15:501:15:52

Yeah, we said goodbye.

1:15:521:15:54

And he just asked me, "Was there any change?"

1:15:541:15:56

I told him there wasn't.

1:15:561:15:58

And he just said, "That's it, then."

1:15:581:15:59

He says, "Look after me ma.

1:15:591:16:02

"Go and see me ma."

1:16:021:16:04

So...

1:16:041:16:05

I would like to appeal to the people...

1:16:051:16:07

..to remain calm and have no fighting

1:16:091:16:12

or cause no death or destruction.

1:16:121:16:14

My son's offered his life for better conditions in prison,

1:16:141:16:18

but not to cause further death outside.

1:16:181:16:22

-That's all I can say.

-How is he today?

1:16:221:16:24

He's dying.

1:16:241:16:26

I can hear the curlew passing overhead.

1:16:371:16:39

Such a lonely cell.

1:16:441:16:45

Such a lonely struggle.

1:16:471:16:48

But, my friend...

1:16:531:16:55

..this road is well trod, and he, whoever he was

1:16:561:17:01

who first passed this way...

1:17:011:17:05

deserves the salute of the nation.

1:17:051:17:07

I am but a mere follower...

1:17:111:17:13

..and I must say oiche mhaith.

1:17:141:17:18

Goodnight.

1:17:181:17:20

-NEWS PRESENTER:

-Bobby Sands's death by hunger strike guarantees him

1:17:291:17:32

a place in the Republican pantheon,

1:17:321:17:33

an assured estimation as an IRA martyr,

1:17:331:17:36

and one of the small but select group whose self-inflicted deaths

1:17:361:17:39

have punctuated Irish history during the 20th century.

1:17:391:17:42

Now, it's too soon to say, and no-one knows...

1:17:421:17:44

SPEECH FADES OUT

1:17:441:17:46

I was actually home when the word came through.

1:17:531:17:56

It was weird, because no-one spoke.

1:17:561:17:59

And...

1:18:041:18:05

They just walked down the street.

1:18:071:18:10

INDISTINCT SPEECH

1:18:101:18:12

And someone started singing Faith Of Our Fathers.

1:18:121:18:14

And as they walked round the neighbourhood,

1:18:161:18:18

it was one of the most spiritual experiences ever.

1:18:181:18:21

Bearing in mind Bobby had gone, it was almost as if...

1:18:211:18:25

..he has given us something new, the strength of these people.

1:18:261:18:30

INDISTINCT SPEECH

1:18:301:18:33

-NEWS PRESENTER:

-In Moscow, the Soviet news agency Tass

1:18:401:18:42

described Bobby Sands as a fighter for civil liberties

1:18:421:18:45

and the Maze Prison as a concentration camp.

1:18:451:18:48

Tass said Sands had been condemned to death by the government's refusal

1:18:481:18:52

to meet his demand for political status.

1:18:521:18:53

The British Government's failure to even attempt

1:18:581:19:00

to work for humanitarian resolution reflects the moral bankruptcy

1:19:001:19:04

of their policies in Northern Ireland.

1:19:041:19:07

It is my hope that the call of Bobby Sands's mother for nonviolence

1:19:081:19:12

will be followed, so that the British Government

1:19:121:19:16

can suffer the glare

1:19:161:19:17

of a much-deserved negative world reaction.

1:19:171:19:20

One of the grim features of Irish political history is it often seems

1:19:391:19:44

impaled by terrible events, by catastrophe, down the centuries.

1:19:441:19:48

The death of Sands cast a foreshadow of uncertainty and apprehension

1:19:511:19:57

on the island.

1:19:571:19:58

Was it one of those events that changed things utterly,

1:20:001:20:03

to adapt William Butler Yeats, speaking as he was of Easter 1916?

1:20:031:20:08

Certainly power beyond the facts of some sort was going on.

1:20:141:20:20

Some seductive mystique was once again being generated -

1:20:211:20:26

that curious mystique of Irish republicanism,

1:20:291:20:34

physical-force Irish republicanism.

1:20:341:20:36

One of the great strengths of Irish nationalism as a force

1:21:011:21:05

is its brilliant ability to take the dead

1:21:051:21:09

and reshape them as mythological characters.

1:21:091:21:13

And so Bobby Sands, of course, through the funeral,

1:21:141:21:18

which was an extraordinary event...

1:21:181:21:20

He is sucked immediately into this kind of mythological tradition,

1:21:201:21:25

and making it into something that's no longer individual but in fact

1:21:251:21:29

has become timeless and historic and some kind of essence

1:21:291:21:33

of what it means to be Irish.

1:21:331:21:36

Until Bobby died,

1:21:501:21:52

there was always the hope that the British would introduce

1:21:521:21:56

some sort of reforms to end the hunger strike.

1:21:561:22:01

But they didn't.

1:22:011:22:02

And then it was simply a waiting game as we counted down

1:22:041:22:08

through the rest of our comrades.

1:22:081:22:10

Bobby Sands died a week ago, and the British Government did not relent.

1:22:141:22:19

Do you believe that your brother's death will make any difference

1:22:191:22:23

-to their attitudes?

-Hopefully, yes.

1:22:231:22:25

But I would just like to say that Margaret Thatcher

1:22:251:22:28

and the British Government has murdered my brother.

1:22:281:22:31

They cannot break these men.

1:22:501:22:52

They cannot force these men to accept criminal status.

1:22:521:22:55

They will carry it through, because there was

1:22:551:22:57

another Republican hunger striker, Terence MacSwiney,

1:22:571:23:00

and he left the Republicans as saying,

1:23:001:23:02

"It is not those who can inflict the most,

1:23:021:23:04

"but those who can suffer the most who will win in the end."

1:23:041:23:08

Mrs Thatcher realised that, terrible thought it would be,

1:23:291:23:32

the more people died, the worse it would get for the IRA.

1:23:321:23:36

It didn't mean that she wanted more people to die,

1:23:361:23:38

but she understood that the oddness of the hunger strike as a weapon

1:23:381:23:42

was that it weakened with each death.

1:23:421:23:45

The pressure comes on the people who are organising the striking,

1:23:501:23:53

doesn't it? Why are we dying if we're not getting anything?

1:23:531:23:56

CHEERING

1:23:561:23:59

She would think, what's the IRA doing that they want mothers' sons

1:24:051:24:09

to die? What about the families?

1:24:091:24:11

And, indeed, that became an issue in the hunger strike.

1:24:131:24:15

Throughout the hunger strike,

1:24:251:24:27

the prisoners in the Maze rejected appeals to end their fast.

1:24:271:24:30

Papal envoys, priests, politicians,

1:24:301:24:33

Red Cross delegations all came and went

1:24:331:24:35

without changing the men's attitudes.

1:24:351:24:37

The cracks began to show in the campaign

1:24:371:24:40

not inside the prison, but from outside.

1:24:401:24:43

One by one, the prisoners reached a crucial stage of their fast.

1:24:431:24:47

One by one, their families stepped in to stop them dying.

1:24:471:24:50

Now, let me make it absolutely clear

1:24:591:25:01

as I say a word about the hunger strike.

1:25:011:25:03

No concessions have been made to the IRA

1:25:041:25:07

and there will be no perpetration

1:25:071:25:11

of anything which looks like concessions

1:25:111:25:16

to those who commit violence.

1:25:161:25:19

The real irony is that Bobby Sands...

1:25:551:25:57

He saw himself as a soldier in the armed struggle of the IRA,

1:25:571:26:02

yet winning that election had a really profound effect in terms

1:26:021:26:06

of reshaping the whole idea of what Sinn Fein and the IRA could achieve.

1:26:061:26:10

Just through using the rhetoric and using the imagery

1:26:101:26:14

that Bobby Sands had unleashed,

1:26:141:26:17

but using it in a way that was persuasive to enough people

1:26:171:26:21

that they would vote for you.

1:26:211:26:23

The acts of Bobby Sands came at a time

1:26:541:26:57

when the American political class

1:26:571:27:01

was sort of waking up to their responsibility.

1:27:011:27:03

He forced us to recognise that there were plenty of people

1:27:041:27:09

with whom we could work if we were willing to expend

1:27:091:27:14

the political capital to solve this problem.

1:27:141:27:18

You know, Bobby Sands,

1:27:191:27:22

maybe he didn't even understand that something profound and good

1:27:221:27:26

was just about to happen.

1:27:261:27:27

It is what eventually led to the Good Friday Accords.

1:27:291:27:33

There are turning points in modern Irish history.

1:27:451:27:48

1916 is a turning point.

1:27:481:27:50

1981, those 66 days of Bobby Sands's hunger strike,

1:27:501:27:53

are undoubtedly a turning point.

1:27:531:27:56

How are you keeping?

1:27:571:27:58

In a way, Bobby Sands did win.

1:28:011:28:03

He is always going to be there in the consciousness of revolutionaries

1:28:031:28:07

around the world. But in fact,

1:28:071:28:09

he posed a really significant challenge to revolutionaries

1:28:091:28:13

because by reaching back into Irish history, into the notion that,

1:28:131:28:17

actually, you win by enduring and not by inflicting suffering,

1:28:171:28:21

he changed the nature of how people should think about

1:28:211:28:24

how they might force political change.

1:28:241:28:26

You win when you capture the public imagination.

1:28:261:28:29

I am standing on the threshold of another trembling world.

1:28:351:28:37

May God have mercy on my soul.

1:28:391:28:41

# When inner scars

1:28:511:28:55

# Show in your face

1:28:551:28:59

# And darkness hides

1:28:591:29:04

# Your sense of place

1:29:041:29:08

# Well, I won't speak

1:29:081:29:13

# I will refrain

1:29:131:29:18

# And be the song

1:29:181:29:21

# Just be the song... #

1:29:221:29:24

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