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Robert Gerard Sands was an Irish Republican who died on hunger strike whilst in prison for the possession of firearms. He had been elected as a Member of Parliament during his fast. While in jail Sands became a writer of poetry.

Dear Mum

• Dear Mum, I know you're always there
  To help and guide me with all your care,
  You nursed and fed me and made me strong
  To face the world and all its wrong.

The Rhythm of Time

• It lights the dark of this prison cell,
  It thunders forth its might,
  It is 'the undauntable thought', my friend,
  That thought that says 'I'm right!'

Other writings

• I was only a working-class boy from a Nationalist ghetto, but it is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom. I shall not settle until I achieve liberation of my country, until Ireland becomes a sovereign, independent socialist republic.
  • Republican News, 1978-12-16

• The days were long and lonely. The sudden and total deprivation of such basic human necessities as exercise and fresh air, association with other people, my own clothes and things like newspapers, radio, cigarettes books and a host of other things, made my life very hard.
  • An Phoblacht/Republican News, 1978 (under the pseudonym 'Marcella').
  • On his experience in solitary confinement in prison.

• I am standing on the threshold of another trembling world. May God have mercy on my soul.
  • "Skylark Sing your Lonely Song: An Anthology of the Writings of Bobby Sands" (Mercier Press, Cork, 1991).
  • Diary entry, 1981-03-01 (the first day of his hunger strike).

• They won't break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then we'll see the rising of the moon.
  • "Skylark Sing your Lonely Song: An Anthology of the Writings of Bobby Sands" (Mercier Press, Cork, 1991).
  • Diary entry, 1981-03-17 (translated from the original Irish).

• There can never be peace in Ireland until the foreign, oppressive British presence is removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and economically.
  • Vol. Bobby Sands, Provisional Irish Republican Army, 1981.

Unsourced

• In my position you can't afford to be optimistic.
  • Said by Owen Carron, Sands' election agent, to have been his response on hearing he had been elected MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone.