Bobby Sands: 66 Days Bobby Sands: 66 Days Bobby Sands: 66 Days is a 2016 documentary film about Bobby Sands and the 1981 Irish hunger strike from Northern Ireland. The film mixes reenactment, animation, interviews and archive footage to relate the story of Bobby Sands and the 1981 Irish hunger strike, as well as covering the events leading up to the hunger strike and its complex legacy. Martin McCann reads several excerpts from Sands' own diary. "Bobby Sands: 66 Days" premiered at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto on 3 May 2016. It went on general release in Ireland on 5 August
1981 Irish hunger strike 1981 Irish hunger strike The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during The Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners. In 1978, the dispute escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to leave their cells to wash and covered the walls of their cells with excrement. In 1980, seven prisoners participated in the first hunger strike, which ended after 53 days. The second hunger strike took place in 1981 and was a