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Quick Facts
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Bobby Sands was an Irish nationalist who led a hunger strike in prison in 1981. He was elected Member of Parliament during the strike and died May 5, 1981.
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Play NowBobby Sands. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 11:13, May 22, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/bobby-sands-20941955.
Bobby Sands. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/bobby-sands-20941955 [Accessed 22 May 2013].
"Bobby Sands." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 22 2013, 11:13 http://www.biography.com/people/bobby-sands-20941955.
"Bobby Sands," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/bobby-sands-20941955 [accessed May 22, 2013].
"Bobby Sands," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/bobby-sands-20941955 (accessed May 22, 2013).
Bobby Sands [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 22] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/bobby-sands-20941955.
Bobby Sands, http://www.biography.com/people/bobby-sands-20941955 (last visited May 22, 2013).
Bobby Sands. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/bobby-sands-20941955. Accessed May 22, 2013.
Unable to move authorities to give in to his requests, and unwilling himself to end his hunger strike, Sands's health began to deteriorate. During the first 17 days of the strike alone, he lost 16 pounds.
A hero among his fellow nationalists, Sands was elected as a Member of Parliament for Fermanagh and South Tyrone. To the shock of Unionists, he won more than 52 percent of the vote in the North Ireland. While cheered by the victory,
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Sands seem to know that he was destined to be a martyr.
Death and Legacy
Only days after slipping into a coma, on the morning of May 5, 1981, Sands died from malnutrition due to starvation. He was 27 years old, and had refused to eat for 66 days. He'd become so fragile over his final weeks, he spent his final days on a water bed to protect his deteriorating and fragile body. At time of his death, Sands was married to Geraldine Noade, with whom he had one son, Gerard.
While loyalists dismissed Sands's death, others were quick to recognize its significance. Over the next seven months, nine other IRA supporters died on a hunger strike. Eventually, the British government gave proper political recognition to the prisoners, many of them earning their release under the 1998 Good Friday agreement.
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