Maze Prison hunger strikes: NI papers reveal officials’ stance
Sir John Blelloch said deaths were expected due to resoluteness of Bobby Sands
Policemen talk to men bearing banners on behalf of hunger striker Bobby Sands, during a May Day march at Clerkenwell Green in London in May 1981. Photograph: Central Press/Getty Images
Insights by a key Northern Ireland Office (NIO) official at the time of the 1980-81 hunger strikes by republican prisoners at the Maze Prison are included in previously confidential British government files made public in Belfast today as part of the regular release of state papers.
The hunger strikes grew out of republican opposition to the withdrawal of special category status for convicted paramilitary prisoners. Seven prisoners took part in the first hunger strike, which ended after 53 days in 1980. The second hunger strike in 1981 led to the deaths of 10 prisoners, including Bobby Sands who was elected as an MP before he died.