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  • Bobby Sands

    I think that Bobby sands made a great scarifice for Irish Freedom and I would like to put a thread here on History to commemorate him.

    The Lost Songs of Bobby Sands

    Bobby Sands left school in the Summer of ’69.
    With a light hearted swagger, for he had lots of time.
    With guitar chords and a song book, he was a jolly soul
    But he wouldn’t give his life to rock and roll.

    Woodstock and Burntollet both made their calls
    To the heart-strings of a young boy as he strolled down the Falls
    But the rhythm and the lyrics of a people's dripping tears
    Soon set in concrete the path of future years.

    Tho’ Hendrix and McCracken were married in his dreams
    And a troubador's freedom figured in his schemes
    The empire’s final grasp still enforced it’s hold
    Hobbling the dreams of young and old.

    Thus a shy and laughing schoolboy a legend soon would die
    - The ordinary becomes extraordinary in the twinkle of an eye!
    And a thousand poems unwritten and a hundred songs unheard
    Mean that twentyfive years later we cherish every word.

    ©Michael O’Flanagan 2006
    Last edited by Rashers; 07-07-2011, 12:37 AM.

  • #2
    Originally posted by Riposte View Post
    I think that Bobby sands made a great scarifice for Irish Freedom and I would like to put a thread here on History to commemorate him.

    The Lost Songs of Bobby Sands


    Bobby Sands left school in the Summer of ’69.
    With a light hearted swagger, for he had lots of time.
    With guitar chords and a song book, he was a jolly soul
    But he wouldn’t give his life to rock and roll.

    Woodstock and Burntollet both made their calls
    To the heart-strings of a young boy as he strolled down the Falls
    But the rhythm and the lyrics of a people's dripping tears
    Soon set in concrete the path of future years.

    Tho’ Hendrix and McCracken were married in his dreams
    And a troubador's freedom figured in his schemes
    The empire’s final grasp still enforced it’s hold
    Hobbling the dreams of young and old.

    Thus a shy and laughing schoolboy a legend soon would die
    - The ordinary becomes extraordinary in the twinkle of an eye!
    And a thousand poems unwritten and a hundred songs unheard
    Mean that twentyfive years later we cherish every word.

    ©Michael O’Flanagan 2006
    a sad waste of a young life
    Here Rex!!!...Here Rex!!!.....Wuff!!!....... Wuff!!!

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    • #3
      Bobby Sands Diary

      For the first seventeen days of his hunger-strike Bobby Sands kept a secret diary in which he wrote his thoughts and views.
      ----------------------------------------------------

      Sunday 1st

      I am standing on the threshold of another trembling world. May God have mercy on my soul.

      My heart is very sore because I know that I have broken my poor mother's heart, and my home is struck with unbearable anxiety. But I have considered all the arguments and tried every means to avoid what has become the unavoidable: it has been forced upon me and my comrades by four-and-a-half years of stark inhumanity.

      I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to withdraw from our land.

      I believe and stand by the God-given right of the Irish nation to sovereign independence, and the right of any Irishman or woman to assert this right in armed revolution. That is why I am incarcerated, naked and tortured.

      Foremost in my tortured mind is the thought that 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.

      I believe I am but another of those wretched Irishmen born of a risen generation with a deeply rooted and unquenchable desire for freedom. I am dying not just to attempt to end the barbarity of H-Block, or to gain the rightful recognition of a political prisoner, but primarily because what is lost in here is lost for the Republic and those wretched oppressed whom I am deeply proud to know as the 'risen people'.

      There is no sensation today, no novelty that October 27th brought. (The starting date of the original seven man hunger-strike) The usual Screws were not working. The slobbers and would-be despots no doubt will be back again tomorrow, bright and early.

      I wrote some more notes to the girls in Armagh today. There is so much I would like to say about them, about their courage, determination and unquenchable spirit of resistance. They are to be what Countess Markievicz, Anne Devlin, Mary Ann McCracken, Marie MacSwiney, Betsy Gray, and those other Irish heroines are to us all. And, of course, I think of Ann Parker, Laura Crawford, Rosemary Bleakeley, and I'm ashamed to say I cannot remember all their sacred names.

      Mass was solemn, the lads as ever brilliant. I ate the statutory weekly bit of fruit last night. As fate had it, it was an orange, and the final irony, it was bitter. The food is being left at the door. My portions, as expected, are quite larger than usual, or those which my cell-mate Malachy is getting.

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      • #4
        .

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        • #5
          Monday 2nd

          Much to the distaste of the Screws we ended the no-wash protest this morning. We moved to 'B' wing, which was allegedly clean.

          We have shown considerable tolerance today. Men are being searched coming back from the toilet. At one point men were waiting three hours to get out to the toilet, and only four or five got washed, which typifies the eagerness (sic) of the Screws to have us off the no-wash. There is a lot of petty vindictiveness from them.

          I saw the doctor and I'm 64 kgs. I've no problems.

          The priest, Fr John Murphy, was in tonight. We had a short talk. I heard that my mother spoke at a parade in Belfast yesterday and that Marcella cried. It gave me heart. I'm not worried about the numbers of the crowds. I was very annoyed last night when I heard Bishop Daly's statement (issued on Sunday, condemning the hunger-strike). Again he is applying his double set of moral standards. He seems to forget that the people who murdered those innocent Irishmen on Derry's Bloody Sunday are still as ever among us; and he knows perhaps better than anyone what has and is taking place in H-Block.

          He understands why men are being tortured here -- the reason for criminalisation. What makes it so disgusting, I believe, is that he agrees with that underlying reason. Only once has he spoken out, of the beatings and inhumanity that are commonplace in H-Block.

          I once read an editorial, in late '78, following the then Archbishop O Fiaich's 'sewer pipes of Calcutta' statement. It said it was to the everlasting shame of the Irish people that the archbishop had to, and I paraphrase, stir the moral conscience of the people on the H-Block issue. A lot of time has passed since then, a lot of torture, in fact the following year was the worst we experienced.

          Now I wonder who will stir the Cardinal's moral conscience...

          Bear witness to both right and wrong, stand up and speak out. But don't we know that what has to be said is 'political', and it's not that these people don't want to become involved in politics, it's simply that their politics are different, that is, British.

          My dear friend Tomboy's father died today. I was terribly annoyed, and it has upset me.

          I received several notes from my family and friends. I have only read the one from my mother -- it was what I needed. She has regained her fighting spirit -- I am happy now.

          My old friend Seanna (Walsh, a fellow blanket man) has also written.

          I have an idea for a poem, perhaps tomorrow I will try to put it together.

          Every time I feel down I think of Armagh, and James Connolly. They can never take those thoughts away from me.

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          • #6
            m

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            • #7
              Tuesday 3rd

              I'm feeling exceptionally well today. (It's only the third day, I know, but all the same I'm feeling great.) I had a visit this morning with two reporters, David Beresford of The Guardian and Brendan O Cathaoir of The Irish Times. Couldn't quite get my flow of thoughts together. I could have said more in a better fashion.

              63 kgs today, so what?

              A priest was in. Feel he's weighing me up psychologically for a later date. If I'm wrong I'm sorry -- but I think he is. So I tried to defuse any notion of that tonight. I think he may have taken the point. But whether he accepts it, will be seen. He could not defend my onslaught on Bishop Daly -- or at least he did not try.

              I wrote some notes to my mother and to Mary Doyle in Armagh; and will write more tomorrow. The boys are now all washed. But I didn't get washed today. They were still trying to get men their first wash.

              I smoked some 'bog-rolled blows' today, the luxury of the Block!

              They put a table in my cell and are now placing my food on it in front of my eyes. I honestly couldn't give a damn if they placed it on my knee. They still keep asking me silly questions like, 'Are you still not eating?'

              I never got started on my poem today, but I'll maybe do it tomorrow. The trouble is I now have more ideas.

              Got papers and a book today. The book was Kipling's Short Stories with an introduction of some length by W. Somerset Maugham. I took an instant dislike to the latter on reading his comment on the Irish people during Kipling's prime as a writer: 'It is true that the Irish were making a nuisance of themselves.' Damned too bad, I thought, and bigger the pity it wasn't a bigger nuisance! Kipling I know of, and his Ulster connection. I'll read his stories tomorrow.

              Ag rá an phaidrín faoi dhó achan lá atá na buachaillí anois. Níl aon rud eile agam anocht. Sin sin. (Translated this reads as follows: The boys are now saying the rosary twice every day. I have nothing else tonight. That's all.)

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              • #8
                rp, i will never understand why they went on hunger strike..did they not realise it was a futile gesture
                Here Rex!!!...Here Rex!!!.....Wuff!!!....... Wuff!!!

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                • #9
                  The 10
                  Attached Files

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                  • #10
                    n

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                    • #11
                      Wednesday 4th

                      Fr Murphy was in tonight. I have not felt too bad today, although I notice the energy beginning to drain. But it is quite early yet. I got showered today and had my hair cut, which made me feel quite good. Ten years younger, the boys joke, but I feel twenty years older, the inevitable consequence of eight years of torture and imprisonment.

                      I am abreast with the news and view with utter disgust and anger the Reagan/Thatcher plot. It seems quite clear that they intend to counteract Russian expansionism with imperialist expansionism, to protect their vital interests they say.

                      What they mean is they covet other nations' resources. They want to steal what they haven't got and to do so (as the future may unfortunately prove) they will murder oppressed people and deny them their sovereignty as nations. No doubt Mr Haughey will toe the line in Ireland when Thatcher so demands.

                      Noticed a rarity today: jam with the tea, and by the way the Screws are glaring at the food. They seem more in need of it than my good self.

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                      • #12
                        A Monument to the 10 Hungerstrikers,
                        Attached Files

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                        • #13
                          Thursday 5th

                          The Welfare sent for me today to inform me of my father being taken ill to hospital. Tried to get me to crawl for a special visit with my family. I was distressed about my father's illness but relieved that he has been released from hospital. No matter what, I must continue.

                          I had a threatening toothache today which worried me, but it is gone now.

                          I've read Atkins' statement in the Commons, Mar dheá! (Atkins pledged that the British government would not budge an inch on its intransigent position.) It does not annoy me because my mind was prepared for such things and I know I can expect more of such, right to the bitter end.

                          I came across some verse in Kipling's short stories; the extracts of verses before the stories are quite good. The one that I thought very good went like this:

                          The earth gave up her dead that tide,
                          Into our camp he came,
                          And said his say, and went his way,
                          And left our hearts aflame.

                          Keep tally on the gun butt score,
                          The vengeance we must take,
                          When God shall bring full reckoning,
                          For our dead comrade's sake.

                          'I hope not,' said I to myself. But that hope was not even a hope, but a mere figure of speech. I have hope, indeed. All men must have hope and never lose heart. But my hope lies in the ultimate victory for my poor people. Is there any hope greater than that?

                          I'm saying prayers -- crawler! (and a last minute one, some would say). But I believe in God, and I'll be presumptuous and say he and I are getting on well this weather.

                          I can ignore the presence of food staring me straight in the face all the time. But I have this desire for brown wholemeal bread, butter, Dutch cheese and honey. Ha!! It is not damaging me, because, I think, 'Well, human food can never keep a man alive forever,' and I console myself with the fact that I'll get a great feed up above (if I'm worthy).

                          But then I'm struck by this awful thought that they don't eat food up there. But if there's something better than brown wholemeal bread, cheese and honey, etcetera, then it can't be bad.

                          The March winds are getting angry tonight, which reminds me that I'm twenty-seven on Monday. I must go, the road is just beginning, and tomorrow is another day. I am now 62 kgs and, in general, mentally and physically, I feel very good.

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                          • #14
                            thanks riposte for taking the time to put this up , never read his diary,s

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                            • #15
                              v

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