A Personal Reflection On The Anniversary Of The Death Of Bobby Sands
Today (May 5th, 2007) marks the 26th anniversary of the death of IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands. He and nine other Freedom Fighters were to die in an epic battle that pitted their naked, broken bodies against the iron, concrete and jackboot of the concentration camp of H-Block, the frontline of the Brits’ war against Republican prisoners.
As they were nearing the end of their young lives, I, as a child of almost six years of age, had just begun to live mine. Yet their “most moving gesture of sacrifice, selflessness and courage one could ever imagine”, as Fidel Castro described it, would in great part influence, and be very much related to, the subsequent course of my life.
Their struggle was not ‘merely’ for political status; they were in actual fact, (as they had done utilising different means before their imprisonment), prosecuting an unswerving and implacable campaign of resistance against the crime of British Rule in Ireland, and all the horror and suffering that that entailed; their actions were a to-the-death continuation of their part in the liberation struggle.
Of this, Bobby wrote in his prison diary on the first day (March 1st) of his hunger strike: 'I believe I am but another of those wretched Irishmen born of a risen generation with a deeply rooted and unquenchable desire for freedom. I am dying not just to attempt to end the barbarity of H-Block, or to gain the rightful recognition of a political prisoner, but primarily because what is lost in here is lost for the Republic and those wretched oppressed whom I am deeply proud to know as the 'risen people'.
On the 9th day of his hunger strike Bobby further wrote: “I may die, but the Republic of 1916 will never die. Onward to the Republic and liberation of our people.”
The H-Block martyrs died that the nation might live; that the British political and military presence in Ireland be obliterated; that the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland be vindicated and made a reality; that Ireland might take its place among the nations of the world.
They have set the benchmark for all of us in struggle. Their sacrifice is an enduring reminder of the lengths that we must be prepared to go to in resisting that which is wrong and in attempting to bring about that which is right.
Theirs example is a testament to the fact that there can never be compromise with imperialism, or occupation, and that there can never be compromise with injustice.
Their memory steels us in Éirígí in that firm conviction. It steels, and helps me personally, to paraphrase Bobby’s poem ‘The Torture Mill – H Block’, “fight back my tears and scorn my fears, and cast aside my pain. For loud and high we must sing our cry, ‘A Nation once again!’”.
I measc laochra na nGael go raibh a n-ainmeacha dílis uilig
Daithí Mac An Mhaistír