The Hunger Strike memorial honoring the ten IRA members who died during the 1981 hunger strike in the HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland, just outside Belfast. Bobby Sands was the first to die (after 66 days). His funeral was attended by more than 100,000 people. The film "Hunger" has just been released which focuses on these significant events.
I often ask locals the question of why this island is not a united island today. I never seem to get a straight answer. Nobody wants to talk about it. I'm told that it's too hurtful, the scars are too deep as a legacy from "the troubles."
My wife and I recently took a trip up to Northern Ireland, to Derry, the city where the riots first broke out after the RUC (N. Irish police) attacked a peaceful civil rights march in 1968. This event was seen as a trigger for the decades of violence that followed. The Bogside area of the city was also the spot where Bloody Sunday occurred in 1972 where British paramilitary troops murdered 14 civilians (including seven teenagers) and shot and wounded another 14.
We had a private tour conducted by an IRA member and former prisoner who witnessed the events of Bloody Sunday. His perspective is that the British controlled the media, spinning it as a Catholic vs. Protestant issue, when this was clearly not the case. It was, and remains, an issue of colonization. All I can say is that he spoke his truth. And it was powerful.
If you're interested in any of this history, I highly recommend the following films:
- "Michael Collins" (1996)
- "Bloody Sunday" (2002)
- "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" (2006)
- "Hunger" (2008)
The murals below were painted by a trio of artists to signify the events of Bloody Sunday and the sectarian violence in the Bogside area of Derry during "the troubles." It's known as the People's Gallery.
