The IRA hunger strikes

We begin with the trial of the former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor. It was claimed that he traded in arms and ammunition in return for so-called blood diamonds.Our guest, gemmologist James Evans discusses the creation of synthetic diamonds.Next we head to Syria where a gr ...  Show more

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Professor Guri Hjeltnes, an author and World War Two historian. We start with Nazi Germany’s occupation of Norway during World War Two by hearing about a secret res ...  Show more

In 1981 the British government was faced with prisoners dying on hunger strike in a jail in Northern Ireland. The Irish republican activists were demanding to be treated as political prisoners not criminals. Several of them died during the hunger strike, the first, Bobby Sands on ...  Show more

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why the potato crop failures in the 1840s had such a catastrophic impact in Ireland. It is estimated that one million people died from disease or starvation after the blight and another two million left the country within the decade. There had been ...  Show more

In 1984, the Conservative Party, lead by the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, gathered in the seaside town of Brighton for their annual conference. In the early hours of October 12th a bomb ripped through the Grand Hotel where Thatcher and several other conservative l ...

In the early 1980s, imprisoned IRA members went on a prolonged hunger strike, leading to the death of ten men. This is their story.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.