At the time of Bobby Sands’ hunger strike, there was a global presence that was watching over him especially after his death. He became a martyr through his fast and unbreakable will. The same can be said for a lot of the strikers. Their deaths will forever be a part of Ireland’s history. Bobby Sands and Joe McGuinness, in particular, are very similar in the fact that they were both elected MP’s while being imprisoned. In the case for Sands, he was able to climb the parliamentary ladder because some of his opponents had dropped out of the race. At the time, Sands was imprisoned in Long Kesh and was continuing his hunger strike. The Independent Republican MP that had the seat before Sands had passed away and it was seen as an opportunity by his supporters as a viable way to grab some attention. Sands pursued the seat and inevitably ended up narrowly winning the seat on April 9th of 1981. This wasn’t the first time a prisoner/hunger striker would obtain a seat in Parliament. Similarly, Joe McGuinness was an elected MP in 1917 for the seat of South Longford. At the time of his campaign and election he was serving time in prison for his involvement in protest as a Sinn Fein member. With Joe McGuinness, he did not actually take his seat in the Commons but rather moved to the First Dail government where he would serve as PM for the political party.
These two figures are significant because they both garnered an abundance of attention and brought their struggles to the international stage. This is more prevalent when discussing Bobby Sands however because of hunger striking being much more intense in the early 80’s. People from around the world heard of this man in Ireland fasting and striking against his oppressed nation. It’s a story that catches the eye and it’s appealing to here an underdog story. This is why strikers like Bobby Sands had attained so much attention because of the story that was tied to it and of course his eventual death brought even more people to the stage to see what was happening in Northern Ireland. Bobby Sands was idolized after his death. In an idealistic/romantic sense, he was seen as divine and pictured as such for his sacrifice to the Irish nation.
“Joseph P. McGuinness.” Irish Volunteers.org. N.p., 2014. Web. 15 Dec. 2016.