Bernadette Sands McKevitt (b. Abbotts Cross, Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland, November 1958[1]) is an Irish republican, and a former leading member of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement. She lived in the mainly loyalist Rathcoole area of Newtownabbey before her family were forced out of their home to live in the mainly republican West Belfast. She is the younger sister of Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) hunger striker Bobby Sands. She was unable to attend her brother Bobby Sands' funeral because she was on the run at the time. Her husband, Michael McKevitt, was the Quartermaster General of the IRA and later a founding member of an anti-Good Friday Agreement splinter group styled by the media as the 'Real Irish Republican Army'. Bernadette and McKevitt have three children.[2] In 2003, McKevitt was convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to 20 years in prison.