On 15 May 1972, five members of the Provisional IRA embarked on a hunger strike for ‘political status’. The men were led by Billy McKee, OC of the republican prisoners in Belfast's Crumlin Road jail. In a statement of support, their comrades argued: ‘As soldiers they are entitled to be treated as POWs’. In turn, the hunger strikers promised victory or death. One week later, another five IRA men joined the protest.

Years later, McKee admitted that a hunger strike had already been ‘on the cards’ and that the prison leadership ‘decided to bring it forward … to try and counteract … [the] aggro that was against us outside’. Nineteen seventy-two was by far the most violent and deadly year of the ‘Troubles’ but a nascent peace movement was on the rise. Though based mainly in Belfast, it would soon spread to Derry after the Official IRA killed a local teenager home on leave from the British Army. Hundreds of women marched on the organization's Derry headquarters in protest. By the time another group of IRA prisoners had joined the hunger strike, the Officials announced an indefinite ceasefire.