Bobby Sands Biography

Robert Gerard ‘Bobby’ Sands was an Irish hero who has gone down in the history as the martyr from the Irish Republican Party. He was born and brought up in north Belfast in a middle class family. When he was very young he experienced violence and intimidation at the hands of the Protestants. A particular incident in his adolescence led him to carry revolutionary ideas about politics and the situation of his community. He was thrown out of work on a gun point by the members of Protestant loyalists Tartan gang. This led him to join the Provisional IRA and he was charged for his involvement in the gun battle with the Royal Ulster Constabulary and he was sentenced to imprisonment for 14 years. While he was in the prison, he was subjected to regular solitary confinement sentences for his outspoken nature and contradiction with the authority. He contested from the prison to get a seat in the British Parliament and owing to high propaganda for him and his party, he became the youngest MP of Britain. He was regularly subjected to solitary confinements in the jail for his outspoken nature and his row with the authorities. He organized protests seeking to regain the special category status for republican prisoners in jail - he sat on a hunger strike for it in 1981 and died after 66 days of starvation.