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Nothing But an Unfinished Song: The Life and Times of Bobby Sands
 
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Nothing But an Unfinished Song: The Life and Times of Bobby Sands [Paperback]

Denis O'Hearn (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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Nothing But an Unfinished Song: The Life and Times of Bobby Sands + One Day In My Life + Ten Men Dead: Story of the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike
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Product details

  • Paperback: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Nation Books; illustrated edition edition (17 Nov 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1560258888
  • ISBN-13: 978-1560258889
  • Product Dimensions: 21.8 x 14.2 x 3.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 196,740 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Denis O'Hearn
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Review

The life of a truly remarkable young man: Bobby Sands ... how he grew from a plucky lad into a deeply committed, sensitive, anti-imperialist revolutionary, and how he, in turn, transformed the Nationalist Movement into a deeper, broader one. ... The life of Bobby Sands shows development, growth, maturation, and a profoundly humanistic internationalist flavor, in the midst of a bitter, ugly struggle that can purge the humanity out of anyone. The work also presents us with a picture not merely of the armed combatant, but of his love of music, and stories, and how he used these gifts to lift the spirits of his mates in the darkest of days. Nothing But An Unfinished Song is the story of how Irish nationalists battled British occupation, sectarian violence, and broken spirits. It has a message that will find interest everywhere. (Mumia Abu-Jamal )

Denis O'Hearn in his gripping, heart stopping, exhilarating sometimes sad book, Bobby Sands, tells an extraordinary story of life, love and noble death...A grand and inspiring book by a grand and inspiring writer. (Malachy McCourt )

Bobby Sands, as this magnificent biography reminds us, was a hero for the whole world and yet broad Belfast to the core. We cried when he died, but he laughed in the face of tyranny and taught us the deepest meaning of comradeship. (Mike Davis )

An excellent book. It tells not just the story of Bobby, the prison protest and hunger strikes but accurately captures the atmosphere of the prison. Friends and comrades of Bobby tell of the person they knew -- [so Bobby is] alive and vibrant on every page. Most importantly, the book traces the development of a very ordinary, politically naive boy from a working class background on the outskirts of Belfast to the highly politicised, articulate, prolific, competent revolutionary that he became in later years. (Dr Laurence McKeown, former IRA prisoner who joined the hunger strike led by Bobby Sands. He is an author and playwright and Research Coordinator with Coiste na nIarchimi, the republican ex-prisoners’ network in Ireland. ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

The life of a truly remarkable young man: Bobby Sands ... how he grew from a plucky lad into a deeply committed, sensitive, anti-imperialist revolutionary, and how he, in turn, transformed the Nationalist Movement into a deeper, broader one. ... The life of Bobby Sands shows development, growth, maturation, and a profoundly humanistic internationalist flavor, in the midst of a bitter, ugly struggle that can purge the humanity out of anyone. The work also presents us with a picture not merely of the armed combatant, but of his love of music, and stories, and how he used these gifts to lift the spirits of his mates in the darkest of days. Nothing But An Unfinished Song is the story of how Irish nationalists battled British occupation, sectarian violence, and broken spirits. It has a message that will find interest everywhere. -- Mumia Abu-Jamal Denis O'Hearn in his gripping, heart stopping, exhilarating sometimes sad book, Bobby Sands, tells an extraordinary story of life, love and noble death...A grand and inspiring book by a grand and inspiring writer. -- Malachy McCourt Bobby Sands, as this magnificent biography reminds us, was a hero for the whole world and yet broad Belfast to the core. We cried when he died, but he laughed in the face of tyranny and taught us the deepest meaning of comradeship. -- Mike Davis An excellent book. It tells not just the story of Bobby, the prison protest and hunger strikes but accurately captures the atmosphere of the prison. Friends and comrades of Bobby tell of the person they knew -- [so Bobby is] alive and vibrant on every page. Most importantly, the book traces the development of a very ordinary, politically naive boy from a working class background on the outskirts of Belfast to the highly politicised, articulate, prolific, competent revolutionary that he became in later years. -- Dr Laurence McKeown, former IRA prisoner who joined the hunger strike led by Bobby Sands. He is an author and playwright and Research Coordinator with Coiste na nIarchimi, the republican ex-prisoners' network in Ireland. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
All of us have a story to tell. There's few though whose life, cut short at 27 years of age, can be said to have impacted so dramatically on the course of Irish politics and to have become such an internationally recognised icon as Bobby Sands. Guerrilla fighter in the Irish Republican Army, he was elected a member of the British parliament shortly before his death on hunger strike in the H Blocks of Long Kesh/Maze Prison on 5 May 1981.

I shared a prison wing with Bobby for nine months in 1979. Later I joined the hunger strike that he had just died on. I approached Denis O'Hearn's biography of Bobby therefore with a little trepidation. I should not have been concerned. It is an excellent book. It tells not just the story of Bobby, the prison protest and hunger strikes but accurately captures the atmosphere of the prison - the good times and bad, the hopes and despair, the pain, the joy and the totally selfless love that is rarely witnessed between a group of males. The strength of the book is that O'Hearn does not attempt to tell what he thinks happened behind prison walls (as other academics have) or to interpret events within his own ideological paradigm. Instead he facilitates others - friends, associates and comrades of Bobby - to tell of the person they knew and allows that person to become alive and vibrant on every page.

Most importantly, the book traces the development of a very ordinary, young, politically naive, high-spirited boy from a working class background on the outskirts of Belfast to the highly politicised, articulate, prolific, competent revolutionary that he became in later years. In this way O'Hearn informs a new generation of political activists in Ireland and elsewhere that they too can become a 'Bobby Sands' but hopefully never have to make the life and death decisions that he was faced with.

This year, the 25th anniversary of the hunger strike, it is timely for this biography to appear. It demonstrates the global interest that is retained in events that happened over a period of 217 days in 1981 when ten men died one after the other in prison cells in a struggle to be treated as the political prisoners they were. No wonder that states tremble before the power of such an idea that cannot be conquered, quenched, bought off or tortured into submission. No wonder that from the lips of oppressed peoples around the world the name, Bobby Sands, is uttered with such fondness and admiration.

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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Brillant!!!! 19 Sep 2006
Format:Paperback
Congratulations to Dennis O'Hearn,on his suberb potrayal of Bobby Sands....I was gripped from the first page. I was most impressed with the amount of new material this book contains. I have read many,many books on the hungerstrikes and prison protests this book is up there with the best(10 men dead and nor meekly serve my time).This book tells the story of Bobby Sands and for the first time I got to know Bobby the person. This book gives the reader an insight into Bobby's journey. It shows how Bobby grew and matured while in prison,how he educated himself,and how he developed to become the Republican icon that he is today.In parts of this book I was laughing and crying at the same time, so magnificently does Dennis O'Hearn capture the humour that these brave men kept even in the most harrowing moments. I will be encouraging my sons and daughters to read this book as it answers the questions they have already started to ask. I only hope that one day this book is on the school curriculum so that Bobby's story can be taught to the future generations.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I was attending secondary school in West Belfast when Bobby Sands gave his life on hunger strike for the political recognition of the Republican struggle in Ireland. In his life and by his death he transformed politics in my society and became an inspirational and internationally respected figure. I later became aware of his transcendent poetry, all the more remarkable for being written in a prison 'tomb',and his songs that became national standards in the recordings of Christy Moore. But I knew very little about the man who became an icon of the Irish struggle for self-determination, the hunger-striker who became a member of the British Parliament while he lay in a prison hospital

Denis O'Hearn has put this to rights with a meticulously researched account of Sands' short life that included community and military activism and a harrowing journey through a gruelling and oppressive prison system. Through sheer bloody-mindedness, mental and physical resolve, and the capacity to recognise 'opportunities' in the most brutal forms of detention, Sands changed the trajectory of Irish politics. O'Hearn reveals a character full of ceaseless energy, buoyancy, sensitvity as well as political vision in a brisk, gripping and deeply moving account of Sands' life.

While providing a full and informative account of the early days of the 'troubles' in Ireland, this book also challenges complacency, urges activisim and rejects thinking within the narrow confines of mainstream political discourse. Bobby Sands, the activist, has been revealed to a new generation and renewed to those who grew up in that period of immense change.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Bobby Sands: Nothing But an Unfinished Song
I have read quite a few books about Bobby Sands and the hunger strikes. I found Denis O'Hearn's version of events probably the best. Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2010 by Stephen C. Quigley
same old same old
A wasted opportunity. Biog of the ira terrorist is just a regurgitation of what we already know.
Published on 23 Nov 2009 by hugo
Inspirational
This book is a remarkable achievement. With great skill and sensitivity the author pieces together the character and politics of the most famous IRA fighter of modern times. Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2006 by Safe House
Inspirational
This book is a remarkable achievement. With great skill and sensitivity the author pieces together the character and politics of the most famous IRA fighter of modern times. Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2006
A masterly biography
This book is superb and should be read by anyone with even a fleeting interest in Irish politics and events. Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2006
Former hunger striker welcomes book
All of us have a story to tell. There’s few though whose life, cut short at 27 years of age, can be said to have impacted so dramatically on the course of Irish politics and... Read more
Published on 19 Jan 2006 by Dr Laurence McKeown
Family does not endorse book, full of "factual inaccuracies"
In response to an article headlined 'New Book is First Study of Bobby Sands', which appeared in a recent edition of the Andersonstown News, I wish to put the record... Read more
Published on 12 Jan 2006
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