North Belfast assemblywoman Caral Ni Chuilin helped to re-launch the Bobby Sands Trust website which recently updated its contents to exhibit reams of information, photos and personal writings from the hunger strikers.

The internet portal contains thousands of facts about Bobby Sands, the 27 year old Member of Parliament who went on hunger strike in 1981 after years of solitary confinement along with nine other men.

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams said that due to the diligent work of some republican activists at that time, material was kept and archives were developed.

"I think this is really important," he said.

"It means that those who want to learn about aspects of the situation at that time are now able to read, in the words of those who were involved then, their thoughts and ideas and fears and hopes, and then to be able to form their own judgements based upon all the information provided."

The Trust has the aim of archiving all Irish republican prison-related poems and songs since the founding of the United Irishmen, and to also eventually archive prison protest songs from other anti-imperialist struggles and anti-fascist struggles around the world.

The Trust is made up of comrades of Bobby and his republican contemporaries. 

Originally, North Belfast civil rights lawyer Pat Finucane, who was assassinated in 1989 by loyalist paramilitaries, was an advisor to the Trust.

The legal firm Madden and Finucane continues to act for the Trust whose original members were Gerry Adams, Danny Morrison, Tom Hartley, Tom Cahill [deceased], Marie Moore and Danny Devenny. For a time Bobby's two sisters, Marcella and Bernadette, were members of the Trust. 

Current members are Gerry Adams, Danny Morrison, Tom Hartley, Jim Gibney, Brendan 'Bik' McFarlane, Sile Darragh, Carál Ní Chuilín and Peter Madden.