An Escalation of Reasonableness 
Conor Gearty
- To Raise up a New Northern Ireland: Articles and Speeches 1998-2000 by David Trimble
I had been living in England for just eight months when Bobby Sands died in the Maze Prison hospital after spending 66 days on hunger strike. Speaking on the day of his death in the House of Commons, Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister, described him as a ‘convicted criminal’ who ‘chose to take his own life’. This did not stop a crowd of nearly a hundred thousand people attending his funeral in Belfast. One week later, Francis Hughes died, and eight more men – Patsy O’Hara, Raymond McCreesh, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee and Michael Devine – starved themselves to death in the months that followed.
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Conor Gearty, Rausing Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights and professor of human rights law at the LSE, has written a number of books on terrorism and human rights.
Other articles by this contributor:
How did Blair get here? · the folly of the impending war
A Misreading of the Law · Why didn’t Campbell sue?
Airy-Fairy · Blunkett’s Folly
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