[Ciaran]

Although I grew up in a Roman Catholic family in Belfast, I was very young (not quite 6 years old) so my memories from the actual time are rather hazy and, being honest, my interpretation of them has been shaped by the events and my experiences in the intervening 30 years.


There was clearly a lot of anger at the time but my first specific memory relating to the hunger strikes was in the weeks after Sands' death when we attended a family holiday in County Donegal (just over the border in the Republic of Ireland) where I recall many protest marches and, from the perspective of a young child, many rather terrifying billboard posters. I didn't understand what they were or what they related to - I just sensed the anger and that's my recollection.


I'm sure it was the same in Belfast too but, back then, it wouldn't have seemed out of place or unusual for me as each trip into Belfast City Centre meant walking through an army checkpoint and being searched down (this happened to everyone btw, men, women and children), a lot of barbed wire and a strong military presence. It stuck out in County Donegal, for me, as Donegal had always been completely different ... remote, quiet, everyone friendly etc.


Many years later, I have mixed feelings about Sands and what he and the fellow hunger strikers represent. I am strongly Irish and unequivocally so but I am not an Irish republican. In fact, I have a revulsion to Irish republicanism, whether violent or non-violent in approach. My political views are at a polar opposite.


In addition, I have my own anger at much of the generalisations made by the world's media in relation to the deaths of Sands and the other hunger strikers. Yes, they died and, yes, they died for something that they believed in. However, they had that choice .... thousands of people died in the Northern Ireland conflict who were innocent victims - killed often at random because they were Protestant (killed by Irish republican paramilitaries whom Sands was one) or because they were Roman Catholic (killed by loyalist paramilitaries). These killings were not carried out in battles or wars, they were assassinations in cold blood against people who were unarmed and often in front of their family members (many people didn't open their doors at night for this very reason).


Therefore, whilst there is a part of me that has an admiration for Sands (I'm Irish so I understand and appreciate the blood sacrifice aspects) and the courage of his convictions, I detest the "hero" and iconic status that he has across much of the world when the real victims, those who didn't choose to die and didn't want to get caught up in this conflict, have been conveniently erased from history.