HM Prison Maze However, the government immediately reverted to their previous stance, in the belief that the prisoners would not start another strike. Bobby Sands, the leader of the Provisional IRA prisoners, began a second action on 1 March 1981. Outside the prison, in a major publicity coup, Sands was nominated for Parliament and won the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election. But the British government still resisted and on 5 May, after 66 days on hunger strike, Sands died. More than 100,000 people attended Sands' funeral in Belfast. Another nine hunger strikers (members of both the IRA and the INLA) died by the
Hunger strike fasting to death in pre-Christian Ireland. The fasts were primarily undertaken to recover debts or get justice for a perceived wrong. There are legends of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, using the hunger strike as well. In India, the practice of a hunger protest, where the protestor fasts at the door of an offending party (typically a debtor) in a public call for justice, was abolished by the government in 1861; this indicates the prevalence of the practice prior to that date, or at least a public awareness of it. This Indian practice is ancient, going back to