Quotes by Bobby Sands

Posted by Jim on May 7, 2011

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May 5th is the 30th anniversary of the heroic death of Irish patriot Bobby
Sands on hunger-strike at Long Kesh prison. In his solemn memory, we
publish a brief collection of quotes, some famous, some less well known.
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“They have nothing in their whole imperial arsenal that can break the
spirit of one Irishman who doesn’t want to be broken.”

“We must see our present fight right through to the very end.”

“We refuse to lie here in dishonor! We are not criminals, but Irishmen!
This is the crime of which we stand accused.”

“Generations will continue to meet the same fate unless the perennial
oppressor-Britain-is removed, for she will unashamedly and mercilessly
continue to maintain her occupation and economic exploitation of Ireland
to judgment day, if she is not halted and ejected.”

“Everyone, Republican or otherwise, has their own particular part to
play. No part is too great or too small; no one is too old or too young
to do something.”

“Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.”

“I am a political prisoner. I am a political prisoner because I am a
casualty of a perennial war that is being fought between the oppressed
Irish people and an alien, oppressive, unwanted regime that refuses to
withdraw from our land.

“I believe and stand by the God-given right of the Irish nation to
sovereign independence, and the right of any Irishman or woman to assert
this right in armed revolution. That is why I am incarcerated, naked and
tortured.

“Foremost in my tortured mind is the thought that there can never be
peace in Ireland until the foreign, oppressive British presence is
removed, leaving all the Irish people as a unit to control their own
affairs and determine their own destinies as a sovereign people, free in
mind and body, separate and distinct physically, culturally and
economically.

“I believe I am but another of those wretched Irishmen born of a risen
generation with a deeply rooted and unquenchable desire for freedom. I
am dying not just to attempt to end the barbarity of H-Block, or to gain
the rightful recognition of a political prisoner, but primarily because
what is lost in here is lost for the Republic and those wretched
oppressed whom I am deeply proud to know as the ‘risen people’.”

“They will not criminalise us, rob us of our true identity, steal our
individualism, depoliticise us, churn us out as systemised,
institutionalised, decent law-abiding robots. Never will they label our
liberation struggle as criminal.”

“I am standing on the threshold of another trembling world. May God have
mercy on my soul.”

“I may die, but the Republic of 1916 will never die. Onward to the
Republic and liberation of our people.”

“Ní bhrisfidh siad mé mar tá an fonn saoirse agus saoirse mhuintir na
hEireann i mo chroí. Tiocfaidh lá éigin nuair a bheidh an fonn saoirse
seo le taispeáint ag daoine go léir na hEireann ansin tchífidh muid eirí
na gealaí.”

[If they aren’t able to destroy the desire for freedom, they won’t break
you. They won’t break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom
of the Irish people is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the
people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then
we’ll see the rising of the moon]