| Bobby Sands was born on 9 March 1954 in | | | | reading widely and learning Irish. On his release in |
| Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. It | | | | 1976 he re-joined his local unit and resumed an |
| was a predominately loyalist area and Sands’ | | | | active role in the IRA’s campaign. Within six |
| family were forced to move due to loyalist | | | | months he was arrested again, there had been a |
| intimidation. When he left school, he became an | | | | bomb attack on the Balmoral Furniture Company |
| apprentice coach-builder but he was forced out by | | | | at Dunmurry, followed by a gun battle, Bobby |
| fellow-workers who were loyalist. In June 1972, | | | | was captured in a car near the scene in which a |
| the Sands were again forced to move home, | | | | revolver that had been used in the attack was |
| they re-located to the newly-built Twinbrook | | | | discovered. He was convicted of possession of |
| housing development on the fringe of nationalist | | | | fire-arms and sentenced to fourteen years |
| West Belfast. That same year at the age of | | | | imprisonment. He was again sent to Long Kesh, |
| eighteen, Bobby joined the Republican movement, | | | | after internment had been introduced, a series of |
| in October he was arrested and charged with | | | | buildings known from their floor plans as H-blocks |
| possession of hand-guns which were discovered in | | | | had been constructed to make it suitable for |
| a house in which he was staying. He was | | | | housing large numbers of inmates belonging to |
| incarcerated with political status in Long Kesh | | | | paramilitary organisations. |
| prison for the next three years, he spend his time | | | | |