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Parliamentary Recognition for Bobby Sands MP
To/Against/For: Parliament to properly recognize Mr. SandsParliamentary Recognition for Bobby Sands MP
When MP Bobby Sands died in 1981, he was not given full and proper recognition by Parliament. We ask that this at last be afforded on the 30th Anniversary of his death on 5th May, 2011.
We request that Parliament properly recognize the Right Honourable Bobby Sands MP.
We request that he and his family be afforded and offered the expressions of sympathy and loss and any other recognitions or honors afforded other departed MPs and their families.
British officials should respect this Anniversary and the sacrifices of the 10 who died and their families by not visiting Ireland from 1st March-3rd October
We request that British officials respect all Republican Anniversaries by not visiting Ireland on those days.
- On 9th April, 1981, the youngest member ever (at the time) was elected as MP to the Westminster (British) Parliament for Fermanagh and South Tyrone in the North of Ireland.
- His name was Bobby Sands (Roibeárd Gearóid O\'Seachnasaigh).
- He held the seat for 25 days.
- More unusual than his age of 27, is that he was a Political Prisoner in Maze/Long Kesh/H- Block Prison and a member of the P.I.R.A. who had begun a Hunger Strike on 1st March, 1981.
- He turned 27 on 9th March and died at 01:17 on 5th May, 1981 after 66 days on Strike.
- By that time, he had spent nearly 1/3 of his young life imprisoned after farsical trial in Diplock Courts. He and the others had been forced to live in totally inhumane conditions for many years.
When they refused to wear prison uniforms and be branded criminals, all clothes were taken from them. The replacements were 2 or 3 blankets which were used constantly unless the prisoners were forced to be naked.
They were beaten by columns of well protected guards when they would try to reach the restroom, so they stopped trying and were forced to be locked in their cells using the corners as restroom. When they were taken for baths, it could be freezing cold, or scalding hot. They were scrubbed with a coarse brush until their skin was raw. They were beaten, tortured and had their genitals squeezed until they passed out.
They had no paper, writing instruments, radios, often no toilet paper and old foam mattresses soaked with the various fluids and crawling with the maggots that occupied their tiny cells.
Often lights were left on continuously or they were left in total darkness with blocked windows and air stale with the putrid rotting blend of garbage in their cells.
He was a poet, a musician, a man who loved his country and her people enough to resist injustices with every fiber of his strength of being including his life. He dreamt along with so many others , that his family and indeed all of Ireland could have a future free of the tyranny which has so long tormented the people and the land. To be free to enjoy the beauty around them.
- Due to his objection to British rule of \"Northern Ireland,\" his desire for unity and independent rule for the country and people he loved and for he and his comrades to have Political Prisoner Status and Rights restored (they had been recinded 5 years prior which by definition classified all involved in the struggle for Irish freedom as criminals rather than Political Prisoners and the freedom they sought as a crime), upon his death, Parliament, in its announcement of his death, omitted the customary expression of sense of loss and sympathy for the family and any other recognitions or benefits afforded families of other MPs who died.
- It will be 30 years since his death on 5th May, 2011. It is far past time that Bobby and his family be afforded the same courtesies, recognition, honors and considerations as any other MP and his/her survivors.
- This should begin with a proper ceremony in Parliament.
- Expressions of sadness, tribute and protests against the British government came from around the world. But not from Parliament.
- The Hindustan Times said Margart Thatcher having allowed a fellow Member of Parliament to die of starvation was an incident never before occuring \"in a civilised country.\"
- Those lining the route and those marching with the cortege are estimated to be anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 of his countrymen and others from around the world.
- In the rest of Europe, there were widespread protests.
- Five thousand Milanese students marched and burned the Union Jack and shouted \"freedom for Ulster.\"
- The British Consulate at Ghent was raided.
- Thousands marched in Paris behind huge portraits of Bobby to chants of \"the I.R.A. will conquer.\"
- In Oslo, demonstrators threw a balloon filled with tomato sauce at Elizabeth II.
- The Soviet Union\'s \"Pravda\" it was described as \"another trgic page in the grim chronicle of oppression, discrimination, terror and violence in Ireland.\"
- Many French towns and cities have streets named after Bobby.
- In the Republic of Ireland, his death led to riots and bus burning.
- The International Longshoremen\'s Association in New York announced a 24 hour boycott of British ships.
- Over 1,000 people gathered in New York\'s St. Patrick\'s Cathedral to hear a Mass of Reconciliation for Ireland.
- Irish bars in the city closed for 2 hours in mourning.
- Hartford, Connecticut dedicated a memorial to Bobby and the other Hunger Strikers in 1997. It stands in a traffic circle known as \"Bobby Sands Circle.\"
- The New Jersey General Assembly, the lower house of the Legislature, voted 34-29 for a resolution honouring his \"courage and commitment.\"
- In 2001, a memorial to Sands and his 9 comrades who diedwas unveiled in Havana, Cuba.
- From Tehran, President Bani-Sadr sent condolences to the Sands family. The government
- renamed Winston Churchill Boulevard on which street sits the Embassy of the United Kingdom, to Bobby Sands Street. The Embassy moved its entrance to Ferdowsi Avenue to avoid using Bobby Sands Street on its letterhead.
- In India, Parliament opposition members in the upper house stood for a minute\'s silence in tribute.
- Many books, films and songs have been created in his honor.
- Bobby\'s writings were released in several forms with the compilation being \"Writings from Prison.\" It shows the heart and soul of the man. His humanity, intellect, strength, weakness, sadness, lonliness, joy and congeniality and the somberness that settled deep within him when
- he became resolved that it would be necessary for him to die.
- A Trust was established in his name.
- This is but a partial list of commemorations to this man, his strength and spirit.
- But not one official kind word from those who insisted upon \"ruling\" Bobby Sands and all the rest of Ulster.
- \"I was only a working-class boy from a Nationalist ghetto, but it is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom. I shall not settle until I achieve liberation of my country, until Ireland becomes a sovereign, independent socialist republic.\"
\"There can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign, oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically.\"
Vol. Bobby Sands, Provisional Irish Republican Army, 1981.
Thank you kindly for taking time to read, to contemplate and perhaps learn some new things.
If you choose to sign, we thank you additionally for your willingness to stand for justice and humanity.
Most sincere regards.
Recent Comments
| Name | Comment | |
| Patrick Fuhrman | There is no statute of limitations on a proper recognition and a sincere apology | |
| john mcgonigle | I have 300 never seen photographs of bobby sands funeral. I was there in May of 1981. I had the cover of Tim Pat Coogan's book "The Troubles". I'm showing my photos in West Belfast for the 30th anniv. My photos have Gerry Adams and Martin Mcguiness as pallbearers but also the entire Sands family and Bernadette Devlin. I had the British come after me twice for the photos including in the U.S. The photos are stark and compelling and I look forward to returning to Falls Road. Gerry Adams called me for a photograph. I think Bobby Sands was one of the greatest Irishmen to ever live especially since he gave the ultimate sacrifice of his own life without violence to combat the terrible living conditions of the Catholics against the brutal and unrelenting criminal nature of the British, the R>U>C> and the UDA. I hope you get to see my photos especially if you were at the funeral. Someday I hope the rest of the world realize what really went on in Northern Ireland in that era. I experienced enough of it and I an an American who was just photographing in rural Ireland during that era. | |
| deirdre | I'm writing a book about the IRA hunger strike and I find Bobby's story so amazing. RIP and good luck with this petition! | |
| Jacquie williams | R.I.P bobby sands such an amazing courageous guy a true ledgend.I hope justice is done for you inspirational men on h block, always in our thoughts forever in our hearts ... | |
| Barry Kearney | The failure to recognise the role of Bobby Sands MP, is an injustice and steps must be taken to correct this and recognise the role taken by Bobby Sands to ensure the freedom of his native land. | |
| Carla J. Devries | I'm really lonely too. Add me guys. | |
| kelly mckenna | ! | |
| Carla J. DeVries | Thanks to all who show their support of justice and freedom by signing this petition to request that proper recognition be given Bobby Sands MP on the 30th Anniversary of his death as it was not afforded him or his family at the time of his death from slow and extremely painful affects of starvation. |
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