But doesn’t anyone think to ask several more pertinent questions first before flying straight into apologist mode?

1- Why was Bobby Sands in prison? NOT… Why was he on protest?

I can answer that. He was a member of a terrorist organisation that, good cause or otherwise, committed sectarian killings as well as attacks on shopping centres and businesses that killed and maimed innocents.

2- Even if the Brits are easy targets for criticism over the troubles, and their occupation of Ireland, does noone think its time to look at the unionist or protestant side of the story? for every bloody sunday there was a bloody friday! (cue confused looks and scratching of heads… yes, that’s right, but perhaps the pro republican agenda glossed over those acts committed by ‘freedom fighters’)

I enjoyed the film, as far as the subject matter makes that possible, and i admire McQueen’s work but i just feel that people have disgustingly one sided interpretations of political events. Bobby Sands is not a hero. The IRA are not heros. While i believe that some of this films viewers will be intelligent enough to see this as but one side of a horrible story, i fear that many aren’t and this film is merely going to consolidate the myths that surround this subject.

I just think that its such an upsetting thing that people would propogandise stories, telling one point of view and ignoring the hideous things that happened to many protestant families during the troubles too.

The people we should be holding up as heros aren’t terrorists like Sands, including in that definition paramilitaries too, but peaceful intelligent men like Jon Hume and David Trimble. Both men held to ransom by their own communities because extremism and fear mongering held sway.

Without partition the same would have happened in a “united ireland”. It is an unfortunate but necessary piece of legislation. I hope that despite all of the atrocities that Ulster can find a piece of its own making. Develop its own sense of national identity beyond Britishness or Irishness. Both are overrated.

[...] Hunger is the first feature film by Turner Prize winning British Video artist Steve McQueen. It took the Caméra d’Or prize at Cannes, honoring outstanding work by a first time director. The film is gut-wrenching, but not without tact. Political themes are deeply explored, but Hunger avoids being overly preachy. The film follows the true story of the last six weeks in the life of inmate Bobby Sands, a hunger striker and member of the IRA. Because it’s based on actual historical events, it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that the film does not have a happy ending. A movie review and critic By Kevin Buist [...]

If asking why Bobby Sands was in prison is pertinent - then maybe we can ask some other pertinent questions. For instance, maybe we can start with why Bobby joined the IRA in the first place.

1. Could it be because he saw what happened to the Catholic community when they began protesting for civil rights in the late 1960’s? Catholics had virtually no rights and when they began to protest they were brutally attacked by the Protestant police force and mobs of Protestants. Did you forget Burntollet Bridge?

2. And those same protests for equal rights led to Catholic families being burned out of their homes by Protestants. Parts of Belfast went up in flames. Bobby’s family was driven out of their home in Rathcoole by the local gangs of Protestants, and they often went chasing after him intent on beating the hell out of him for no other reason than because he was Catholic.

3. Or perhaps you forgot about Bloody Sunday - January 30, 1972 when members of the British Paratroop Regiment opened fire on an unarmed crowd of civil rights demonstrators in the city of Derry killing thirteen of them - mostly men and boys.

4. Or what about the Falls Road curfew? What about the decision the British made to stage sweeps, their brilliant idea of lifting potential IRA members. They busted peoples doors in during the middle of the night. Men and boys were dragged out of their beds by their hair and thrown into the backs of armoured cars. The British got a few IRA members, but the vast majority of the men and boys who were imprisoned in the cages of Long Kesh had no affiliation with the IRA. But they were kept there, imprisoned without charge or trial for months, even years at a time.

The IRA aren’t saints, but for every action of theirs, the British and the Protestant police force / the Protestant paramilitary groups have been guilty of twice as many atrocities. The British have engaged in a deliberate shoot to kill policy in the north of Ireland - did you conveniently forget the massacre at Loughgall? And let’s not forget Gibraltar when three unarmed IRA volunteers were gunned down in the middle of the street in broad day light.

And the British / Protestant paramilitary groups also targeted lawyers like Patrick Finucane and Rosemary Nelson who dared to defend IRA volunteers in court. Finucane was shot in front of his family and died. Nelson was blown up by a car bomb. Everybody knows that the British are responsible, that they turned the Protestants loose to do their dirty work, but they’ve never been called to account for it.

So if there’s any moral high ground to be had in this conflict in Ireland - the IRA are standing on it because in comparison, the British and the Protestant paramilitary groups have already shown that they are the worst type of scum and frankly, I don’t believe that any of them possess the courage, the heart, the faith, and their belief in themselves or their cause to go the distance on a hunger strike the way Bobby and the nine other hunger strikers did.