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Brian Walker charts Bobby Sands' life from his early years to the IRA activities that led to his arrest first in 1973 and again in 1976 and explores why he was selected to lead the republican hunger strike at the Maze prison.

The report begins in the Protestant housing estate of Rathcoole where Bobby Sands was known for his guitar playing and cross-country running.

Sectarian intimidation forced the Sands family to move to Catholic west Belfast in 1972, where Sands joined the IRA. He was imprisoned in 1973, released in 1976 and six months later arrested and sentenced for possession of a revolver.

Walker interviews Kieran Nugent, the first republican prisoner to refuse to wear prison clothes, who talks about how Sands insisted that prisoners learnt and used the Irish language.