Derry billboard marks 35th anniversary of Bobby Sands election as an MP

Foyle Sinn Fein MLA Raymond McCartney has launched a new billboard in Derry commemorating the 35th anniversary of Bobby Sands election to the Westminster parliament. Sands won the Fermanagh and South Tyrone seat on 9 April 1981, defeating Ulster Unionist Party candidate Harry West by 30,493 votes to 29,046. In doing so, he became youngest MP at the time. However, he died in Long Kesh prison on 5 May that year after spending days 66 days on hunger strike. Aged 27, he was the first of 10 IRA and INLA hunger strikers to die. Speaking at the unveiling of the billboard at Free Derry Wall in Derry’s Bogside (pictured) Mr McCartney, who spent 53 days on hunger strike from 27 October to 18 December the previous year, said the election of the Belfast republican was an “iconic moment, not just in terms of the prison struggle but the wider struggle for a United Ireland.” He added: "Margaret Thatcher thought she could break the republican struggle by criminalising it. By claiming it had no support and no legitimacy. “The 30,000 people who came out to elect Bobby proved her wrong. "And as we face into another potentially historic election in the centenary year of 1916, it's timely that we remember such a pivotal event. "In 1981 thousands rallied to the call to elect Bobby, recently on Easter Sunday thousands more rallied to remember the Rising.” He concluded: “Let us all remember the spirit of 1916 and 1981 and in this election embrace that same spirit by voting Sinn Féin." Among those in attendance at the unveiling of the billboard was Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness who is standing as a Sinn Fein candidate in the Foyle constituency in the upcoming Assembly election, being held on 5 May - the 35th anniversary of Sands death.