 Home |
Explore the BBC |
 |
|
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 |
 Bobby Sands' funeral 
|
|
1981 Hunger strikes In the 1970s, the UK government developed a new strategy to beat the IRA. Its new focus would be on defeating the IRA through the criminal courts rather than dealing with it as part of a political problem. Republican inmates of the newly-built Maze Prison were refused special status (akin to prisoner of war status) afforded to internees. The prisoners' campaign escalated into the hunger strikes of 1980-81. While the IRA leadership had reservations about the tactic, it scored a massive international publicity coup when lead hunger strike Bobby Sands won a closely-fought Westminster by-election. However, no compromise was found and Bobby Sands became the first of 10 republicans to die in the protest. At least 70,000 people attended his funeral. Violence erupted across nationalist areas of Northern Ireland and IRA membership jumped. UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher maintained a hardline throughout which left a bitter legacy. The hunger strikes failed in their short-term goals - but it increasingly convinced the younger IRA leaders of the benefits of political action in tandem with a military strategy. The strategy, led by the same members who had advocated the "long war", became known as the "Armalite and ballot box". It would define IRA tactics over the years to come.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~44~RS~)
BBC NEWS CHANNEL
News services
