The Troubles republican prisoners led to more than 500 of them in the Maze prison initiating the "blanket" and "dirty" protests. Their protests culminated in hunger strikes in 1980 and 1981, aimed at the restoration of political status, as well as other concessions. In the 1981 Irish hunger strike, ten republican prisoners (seven from the Provisional IRA and three from the INLA) died of starvation. The first hunger striker to die, Bobby Sands, was elected to Parliament on an Anti-H-Block ticket, as was his election agent Owen Carron following Sands' death. The hunger strikes resonated among many nationalists; over 100,000 people attended
Kevin Lynch (hunger striker) days later. He is commemorated on the Irish Martyrs Memorial at Waverley Cemetery in Sydney, Australia. Kevin Lynch (hunger striker) Kevin Lynch (25 May 1956 – 1 August 1981) was an Irish republican hunger striker and member of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) from Park near Dungiven, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The Dungiven hurling team was renamed Kevin Lynch's Hurling Club in his honour after his death. Lynch was the youngest in a family of eight children born to Paddy and Bridie Lynch in Park, north County Londonderry. Lynch's older brother, Frank, was an amateur boxer and he also