With the simple yet powerful act of refusing food, Bobby Sands and his fellow Irish Republican prisoners became the emblems of an intractable conflict. Violence and unrest had continued in Northern Ireland for two decades, yet the world’s attention was focused anew when in 1981 the inmates of Maze Prison took drastic action in an effort to be recognised as political prisoners. Reconstructions, archival material, and key interviews weave together a riveting exposition of the hunger strike, powerfully and personally expanded by excerpts from Sands’ evocative prison diary. Many gave their lives in The Troubles, but few under such a global spotlight and with such transformative consequences.