Sinn Fein’s electoral strategy began 30 years ago during the 1981 hunger strikes. Since those painful days and emotional election victories -- beginning with Bobby Sands’s historic win in Fermanagh/South Tyrone, 30 years ago this week, the North now faces three elections -- on May 5, the anniversary of Bobby Sands’s death.

We reprint the reflections form 1998 of some senior republicans on the terrible prison struggle which gave birth to their electoral strategy.