By Jane Enright, Woodside
On Sept. 28, three other National Irish Freedom Committee members and I attended a screening of the acclaimed Bobby Sands biopic “Hunger” at the New York Film Festival.
“Hunger,” British director Steve McQueen's first film, won the Best First Feature Film award at this year's Cannes Film Festival. It is a powerful and gut-wrenching account of the 1981 hunger strike during which Sands and nine other men died.
“Hunger” dramatizes life inside Long Kesh Prison outside Belfast, Northern Ireland, and the events surrounding the 1981 Irish Republican Army/Irish National Liberation Army hunger strike. This drama focuses primarily on the prison experience of Sands, a 27-year-old Belfast resident and IRA volunteer, convicted of firearms possession and sentenced to 14 years imprisonment.
Sands died May 5 after 66 days on the strike in Long Kesh. Sands was the first of 10 Irish political prisoners to die on the strike, undertaken to regain political status (special category status) for IRA and INLA prisoners in British prisons.
Political status was eventually restored to Irish republican political prisoners on Oct. 3, 1981, but only after Sands and nine other men had died.
The British government, under then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, attempted to vilify these men by revoking the SCS previously given to Irish men and women convicted of political offenses. They were reclassified as criminals. After numerous failed attempts at negotiation, these men volunteered to undertake the hunger strike.
This film is a graphic account of the last few months of Sands' life. Although I have read many accounts of the strike, this film gripped me at a deeper emotional level. These were young men willing to die for their cause, men with their whole lives ahead of them.
In 90 minutes, this film managed to portray the brutality these men endured in Long Kesh and the events that forced them to go on the strike.
Watching this film was painful. The sights and sounds of beatings these young men endured was heartbreaking. This movie filled me with painful empathy and deep respect for these men. It also made me angry. Life in Long Kesh was gruesome.
That said, I am glad I saw this film. It made the strike more real.
Ten men died in 1981 to regain political status for Irish freedom fighters. Today, there are close to 100 Irish political prisoners in British prisons without SCS because provisional government Sinn Fein gave away these rights when it signed the Belfast Agreement (“Good Friday Agreement”) in 1998.
