Hunger Strike is an old Celtic tradition going back to the Brehon Laws. It was how you publicly displayed your desire for restitution for wrongs done against you. The first time it was used as political protest was in 1913 by James Connolly. In May of 1981 the young prisoners who died on hunger strike changed the history and the direction of Northern Ireland in the decades that followed their deaths.
Irish Mythology - Mythical Cycle - Book of Invasions
