#OTD in 1954 – Birth of Bobby Sands in Abbots Cross, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim.

Bobby Sands was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected to the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block candidate. His death and those of nine other hunger strikers, in their efforts to achieve political prisoner status […]

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#OTD in 1980 – British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, stated in the House of Commons: “The government will never concede to political status to the hunger strikers, or to any others convicted of criminal offences in the province.”

The hunger strikes of 1980-81 were a confrontation between British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the iron will of Irish republican prisoners in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, in an attempt to break the British policy of criminalising paramilitary prisoners. The prisoners’ ultimate demand, to be granted a ‘special category status’ that distinguished them from other prisoners, led to […]

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#OTD in 1954 – Birth of Bobby Sands in Abbots Cross, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim.

Bobby Sands was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected to the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block candidate. His death and those of nine other hunger strikers, in their efforts to achieve political prisoner status […]

Read More

#OTD in 1954 – Birth of Bobby Sands in Abbots Cross, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim.

Bobby Sands was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected to the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block candidate. His death and those of nine other hunger strikers, in their efforts to achieve political prisoner status […]

Read More

#OTD in 1954 – Birth of Bobby Sands in Abbots Cross, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim.

Bobby Sands was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected to the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block candidate. His death and those of nine other hunger strikers, in their efforts to achieve political prisoner status […]

Read More

#OTD in 1954 – Birth of Bobby Sands in Abbots Cross, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim.

Bobby Sands was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected to the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block candidate. His death and those of nine other hunger strikers, in their efforts to achieve political prisoner status […]

Read More

#OTD in 1954 – Birth of Bobby Sands in Abbots Cross, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim.

Bobby Sands was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected to the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block candidate. His death and those of nine other hunger strikers, in their efforts to achieve political prisoner status […]

Read More

#OTD in 1954 – Birth of Bobby Sands in Abbots Cross, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim.

Bobby Sands was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected to the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block candidate. His death and those of nine other hunger strikers, in their efforts to achieve political prisoner status […]

Read More

1954 – Birth of Robert Gerard ‘Bobby’ Sands in in Rathcoole, north Belfast, spending his early years in Abbots Cross in the Newtownabbey area of north Belfast.

He was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected to the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block candidate. His death and those of nine other hunger strikers, in their efforts to achieve political prisoner status from […]

Read More