On February 14, 1981, Republican prisoners held in Long Kesh (Maze) Prison in Northern Ireland began making plans for a new hunger strike. These preparations were a precursor to the highly publicized 1981 Irish hunger strike, which sought to regain political prisoner status for paramilitary inmates. The decision to embark on this extreme form of protest had profound and lasting implications for the Republican movement, Northern Irish politics, and Anglo-Irish relations, drawing international attention to the conflict.
