ABSTRACT
I n a speech delivered in Belfast on 5 March1981, Margaret Thatcher famously remarked: “There is no such thing as political murder, pol-
itical bombing or political violence. There is only
criminal murder, criminal bombing and criminal
violence.”1 The visceral and deeply moving por-
trait of Bobby Sands – the first of the ten men
who starved themselves to death in their struggle
for “political status” in the infamous Maze
Prison – in Steve McQueen’s critically acclaimed
movieHunger provides an excellent exposition of
the untruth of Thatcher’s statement.2
