Responses to the Northern Irish hunger strikes, 1980-81: Boston and Birmingham

It uses a comparative case study approach to analyse reactions in the cities of Birmingham and Boston. Drawing on a wide range of original sources including archives, contemporary newspapers, memoirs, parliamentary debates, as well as a multidisciplinary secondary literature, the thesis argues that reactions to the hunger strikes in Birmingham and Boston were profoundly complex.

This complexity of responses enriches our understanding of the effects of the strikes. It also expands our detailed knowledge of its impact beyond Northern Ireland, something which the existing scholarly literature has not yet done systematically. One of the key aims of this study is to internationalise the hunger strikes, taking the events out of a narrow Irish frame of reference, to offer a broader perspective of responses to the prison protest.