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
1981 Irish hunger strike Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice that his organisation did not allow to many of its victims". In the two weeks following Sands' death, three more hunger strikers died. Francis Hughes died on 12 May, resulting in further rioting in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland, in particular Derry and Belfast. Following the deaths of Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O'Hara on 21 May, Tomás Ó Fiaich, by then Primate of All Ireland, criticised the British government's handling of the hunger strike. Despite this, Thatcher continued to refuse to negotiate a settlement,