Hunger (2008 film) for eight awards at the 2009 IFTAs, winning six at the event. The film stars Fassbender as Bobby Sands, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer and MP who led the second IRA hunger strike and participated in the no wash protest (led by Brendan "The Dark" Hughes) in which Irish republican prisoners tried to regain political status after it had been revoked by the British government in 1976. It outlines events in the Maze Prison in the period leading up to the hunger strike and its aftermath. Prison officer Raymond Lohan prepares to leave work; he cleans his bloodied
1981 Irish hunger strike with problems including digestive, visual, physical and neurological disabilities. The British press hailed the hunger strike as a triumph for Thatcher, with "The Guardian" newspaper stating "The Government had overcome the hunger strikes by a show of resolute determination not to be bullied". At the time most thought the hunger strike a crushing defeat for the republicans, a view shared by many within the IRA and Sinn Féin, but Sands' by-election win was a propaganda victory, and the hunger strike became a Pyrrhic victory for Thatcher and the British government. Thatcher became a republican hate figure of Cromwellian proportions, with