Bobby Sands was born in Belfast and was apprenticed to a coachbuilder. He joined the Irish Republican Army in 1972 and in 1973 was charged with having in his possession four guns. He was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. In 1977, after his release, he was again arrested when a furniture factory was bombed in Belfast. He was sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment in the H-Block of the Maze Prison, Long Kesh. He began a hunger strike on the 1st of March, 1981 as part of a campaign to demand, among other things, political status. In April 1981 he was elected Member of Parliament for Fermanagh and Tyrone. He died on 5th May 1981, the sixty-sixth day of his hunger-strike. His prison diary and poems were published by Sinn Fein in 1981, and in 1982 an anthology of his writings, Skylark, Sing Your Lonely Song, was published.

Born:	9 March 1954
Died:	5 May 1981