1981 Irish Hunger Strike in Cinema

The hunger strike of Irish republican prisoners in 1981 that was held in Maze/Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland was the culmination of a protest against the abolition of Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners. Ten men starved themselves to death. The events related to the hunger strike are not forgotten to this day and still arouse disputes in the society. This thesis focuses on the analysis of popular feature films whose main theme is the hunger strike in Northern Ireland. On a theoretical level, the thesis uses the concept of collective memory which is described in more detail and applied to the issues of cinema in the first part of the thesis. The second chapter briefly presents historical context: the hunger strike itself and also its legacy today. The last and the most important part of the text deals with three movies, namely Some Mother's Son (1996), H3 (2001) and Hunger (2008) which are compared with regard to the origin of their authors, the selection of specific aspects of the historical events and time of their creation. Besides a summary of the main findings, there is also an outline of how filmmakers generally work with the theme of hunger strike in the conclusion