Review of Bobby Sands: Nothing but an Unfinished Song.

• Date: 22 December 2006
• Author: Rolston, Bill
• Published date: 22 December 2006
• Author: Rolston, Bill

Denis O'Hearn, Nothing but an Unfinished Song: Bobby Sands, the Irish Hunger Striker Who Ignited a Generation. New York: Nation Books, 2006; ISBN 1-5602-5888-8 (paper).

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AFTER THE REPUBLICAN HUNGER STRIKES THAT LEFT 10 PRISONERS dead, the face of the main hunger striker, Bobby Sands, smiles down from a wall mural on the side of the Sinn Fein headquarters on the Falls Road in West Belfast. The existence of the image is noteworthy enough; this is the man the Daily Telegraph predicted in 1981 would not "procure lasting fame." Of course, the image could be explained in terms of a recalcitrant community that has failed to go with the times, hanging onto some quasi-religious attraction to an uneducated terrorist and criminal. Yet more is going on, as revealed in what, to me, is the much more telling part of the mural, a quotation from Bobby Sands' writings: "Everyone, republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to play." It is difficult to recall now how revolutionary that sentiment was in those days a quarter of a century ago. I remember a huge public political meeting in West Belfast in the days leading up to the hunger strike. The republican representatives appeared briefly merely to reprimand the socialists and human rights activists present. Unless or until they had "lain in a wet ditch with an ArmaLite," the argument went, they had no right to any input into the debate on republican struggle.

It is often noted that the hunger strike, and specifically the election of Sands to the British Parliament, marked a watershed for Sinn Fein, kick-starting the political involvement that eventually led to the peace process. Equally noteworthy, however, was the extent to which the events reflected back on the communities where republicanism had its base. Thus, even those who had not been involved in armed activity could have an input; the struggle quickly changed...