Nothing But an Unfinished Song: The Life and Times of Bobby Sands

Bobby Sands was twenty seven years old when he died. He spent almost nine years of his life in prison because of his activities as a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). When he died on 5 May 1981, on the sixty-sixth day of his hunger strike against repressive prison conditions in Northern Ireland's H Block prisons, parliaments across the world stopped for a minute silence in his honor. Nelson Mandela followed Sands' example and led a similar hunger strike in South Africa, and Fidel Castro compared his suffering to that of Jesus. Bobby Sand's remarkable life and death have made him an "Irish Che Guevara." He is an enduring figure of resistance whose life has been an inspiration to millions around the world. In Hollywood, actors like Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke and Brad Pitt have flirted with a biopic of his life. But until the publication of Nothing But an Unfinished Song, no book has adequately explored the motivation of the hunger strikers, nor recreated this period of history from within the prison cell. Denis O'Hearn's powerful biography, with new material based on primary research and interviews, illuminates for the first time this enigmatic, controversial and heroic figure.

Bobby Sands was twenty seven years old when he died. He spent almost nine years of his life in prison because of his activities as a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). When he died on 5 May 1981, on the sixty-sixth day of his hunger strike against repressive prison conditions in Northern Ireland’s H Block prisons, parliaments across the world stopped for a minute silence in his honor. Nelson Mandela followed Sands’ example and led a similar hunger strike in South Africa, and Fidel Castro compared his suffering to that of Jesus.

Bobby Sand’s remarkable life and death have made him an “Irish Che Guevara.” He is an enduring figure of resistance whose life has been an inspiration to millions around the world. In Hollywood, actors like Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke and Brad Pitt have flirted with a biopic of his life. But until the publication of Nothing But an Unfinished Song, no book has adequately explored the motivation of the hunger strikers, nor recreated this period of history from within the prison cell. Denis O’Hearn’s powerful biography, with new material based on primary research and interviews, illuminates for the first time this enigmatic, controversial and heroic figure.

Publishers Weekly

Irish nationalist and British MP Bobby Sands died in 1981, 66 days into a hunger strike. Sands's story is different from those of other Fenian heroes because most of his exploits were not in the field but rather in prison, where he spent almost all his adult life. Originally arrested by the British in 1972 for a string of armed stickups that apparently had little to do with the IRA, Sands gradually educated himself in prison and became fluent in the Gaelic language. Released for a short time, he found himself again behind bars after the bombing of a furniture showroom went awry. IRA men were being treated as criminals, not political prisoners, and in protest, they went "on the blanket," naked. It eventually became a test of wills between Sands and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who declared she would "never talk to terrorists." O'Hearn chronicles Sands's excruciating death and its aftermath. It galvanized the Catholics of Northern Ireland and, according to O'Hearn, a professor at Queen's College in Belfast, "helped bring Republicans in from the cold," that is, into the political process that culminated in the Good Friday accords in 1998. This extensive-and depressing-biography adds valuable insight into the political evolution of Irish nationalism from the 1960s through today. (Feb.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

At seventeen Bobby Sands was interested in music, girls, and soccer. Ten years later he led his fellow prisoners on a protest that grabbed the world's attention. Bobby Sands turned twenty-seven on a hunger strike, after spending almost nine years in prison because of his activities as a member of the Irish Republican Army. When he died on May 5, 1981, on the sixty-sixth day of his hunger strike against repressive conditions in Northern Ireland's H-Block prisons, parliaments across the world stopped for a minute's silence in his honor. Nelson Mandela followed his example and led a similar hunger strike in South Africa. Bobby Sands's remarkable life and death have made him the Irish Che Guevera. He is an enduring figure of resistance whose life has inspired millions around the world. But until the publication of Nothing but an Unfinished Song no book has adequately explored the motivation of the hunger strikers, nor recreated this period of history from within the prison cell. Denis O'Hearn's biography, which contains an enormous amount of new material based on primary research and interviews, illuminates for the first time this enigmatic, controversial, and heroic figure