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
Joe McDonnell (hunger striker) wing O'Rawe and McFarlane were on, Anthony McIntyre, has backed up O'Rawe's version of events in relation to the 1981 hunger strike. McDonnell is commemorated on the Irish Martyrs Memorial at Waverley Cemetery in Sydney, Australia. Joe McDonnell (hunger striker) Joseph (Joe) McDonnell (14 September 1951 – 8 July 1981) was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), who died in the 1981 Irish hunger strike. McDonnell was born on Slate Street in the lower Falls Road of Belfast as one of 10 children. He attended a nearby Roman Catholic school. He married Goretti in 1970, and moved