Hunger strike time, instead of many prisoners striking at the same time, the hunger strikers started fasting one after the other in order to maximise publicity over the fate of each one. Bobby Sands was the first of ten republican paramilitary prisoners to die during a hunger strike in 1981. There was widespread sympathy for the hunger strikers from Irish republicans and the broader nationalist community on both sides of the Irish border. Bobby Sands was elected as an MP to the UK's Houses of Parliament and two other hunger strikers, Paddy Agnew and Kieran Doherty, were elected to Dáil Éireann in
Hunger strike government interned many IRA members, three of whom died on hunger strike: Sean McCaughey, Tony D'Arcy and Sean (Jack) McNeela. Hundreds of others carried out shorter hunger strikes during the de Valera years with no sympathy from the Government. The tactic was revived by the Provisional IRA in the early 1970s, when several republicans such as Sean MacStiofain successfully used hunger strikes to get themselves released from custody without charge in the Republic of Ireland. Michael Gaughan died after being force-fed in a British prison in 1974. Frank Stagg, an IRA member being held in a British jail, died after