Brendan Hughes (16 October 1948 – 16 February 2008), also known as "The Dark", was a leading Irish republican and former Officer Commanding (OC) of the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). He was the leader of the 1980 Irish hunger strike.Hughes was born into a republican Catholic family from the Lower Falls Road area of Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was a cousin of Charles Hughes, who was the O/C of D Company in the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade during the Falls Curfew, and was shot and killed in March 1971 by the Official Irish Republican Army during a feud between the Provisional and Official IRAs. Wikipedia