TabLyrics. The Maze Prison escape (known to Irish republicans as the Great Escape) took place on 25 September 1983 in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. The Government's infrastructure organisation, the Strategic Investment Board (SIB), was tasked with taking forward the proposed stadium idea and appointed one of its senior advisers, Tony Whitehead, to manage the project. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. The British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made a statement in Ottawa during a visit to Canada, saying "It is the gravest [breakout] in our present history, and there must be a very deep inquiry". [13][17] Four more escapees were captured over the next two days, including Hugh Corey and Patrick McIntyre who were captured following a two-hour siege at an isolated farmhouse. One officer who attempted to prevent the escape was shot in the head by Gerry Kelly, but survived. fast_forward. Also used as a recreation room and for religious services on a Sunday. Loyalist Wing . The existing research on the psychological impact of the Northern Ireland conflict for the prisoners shows that 70% of the ex-prisoners say that they experience poor or very poor emotional health. A place of incarceration and liberation, political debate and historical denial, the H Block cell units of Long Kesh/Maze prison in Northern Ireland housed members of both Republican and Loyalist military groups during 'The Troubles' and are now However, weddings did take place here, as well as graduations for prisoners who undertook Open University degrees in the prison. Archive of Steve Jensen Design www.stevejensen.design, I must say it was a happy, busy place, people all seemed to be enjoying what they were doing, it wasnt like slave labour Educator. [10] Shortly after 2:30 pm on 25 September, prisoners seized control of H7 by simultaneously taking the prison officers hostage at gunpoint in order to prevent them from triggering an alarm. Get FREE shipping on H Blocks by Louise Purbrick, from wordery.com. Lyrics & Chords of Long Kesh Prison Blues by Loyalist, 15 times played by 2 listeners - get pdf, listen similar. [22], Escapee Kieran Fleming drowned in the Bannagh River near Kesh in December 1984, while attempting to escape from an ambush by the Special Air Service (SAS) in which fellow IRA member Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde was killed. In the biggest prison escape in UK history, 38 Provisional . Image courtesy Ulster Aviation Society. Stream Loyalist Long Kesh Prison by bertyss on desktop and mobile. [15], Discussion is still ongoing as to the listed status of sections of the old prison. The Maze and Long Kesh overview map was supplied to PMA during filming in 2007. The British government refused to back down. One prison officer, James Ferris, who had been stabbed, died after suffering a heart attack during the escape. It replaced portacabin visiting facilities that originally served the H-Blocks when they opened in 1976. Staff Reporter. This chapter examines Long Kesh/Maze prison within the context of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, with particular emphasis on its impact on society. Following the introduction of internment in August 1971, Long Kesh a disused WW2 airfield near Lisburn, south of Belfast was used as an internment camp. Following the introduction of internment in August 1971, Long Kesh a disused WWII airfield near Lisburn, south of Belfast was used as an internment camp. [6][7] Prisoners "on the blanket" reported that one of the things that caused the most stress was "waiting for the moment the cell door would open and they would be dragged out, naked and defenseless, and then pounded into semi-consciousness before being thrown back in again". [40][41] Dermot McNally, who had been living in the Republic of Ireland and was tracked down in 1996,[35] and Dermot Finucane, received an amnesty in January 2002, allowing them to return to Northern Ireland if they wished to. Used in 1942 by Short Bros. to assemble and test-fly Stirling bombers. Presumably, this meant he was a member of the IRA or a similarly affiliated group. But upon opening the door Id have been standing there waiting on him cos I would have warmed up in the cubicle with some stretching exercises and then Id have went out, walked round past the end of the hut to the end of the hut there next to the ablutions the shower and toilet facilities, and Id have started my daily regime of running. However, this was not done soon enough to prevent the escape. [P] Oh straight in. PRONI ref: INF/7/A/8/19, Youd never stop the men going to their football match. Two large football pitches were used on a rota system by the prisoners. These cookies do not store any personal information. It was possible to gain qualifications through the centre and obtain City and Guilds certificates. [23] Gerard McDonnell was captured in Glasgow in June 1985 along with four other IRA members, including Brighton bomber Patrick Magee, and convicted of conspiring to cause sixteen explosions across England. [13] Prisoners had been planning the escape for several months. [18], In April 2020, the former prison was reportedly under consideration for conversion into a temporary hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.[19]. Give two reasons. [14] At 4:12 pm the alarm was raised when an officer in the gatehouse pushed the prisoner holding him hostage out of the room and telephoned the ECR. I was no expert on escaping or tunnelling, but every person in the hut was expected to do their duty Prisoner/Internee. [2] On 17 January 1972, seven internees escaped from the prison ship HMS Maidstone by swimming to freedom, resulting in their being dubbed the "Magnificent Seven". The official inquiry into the escape placed most of the blame onto prison staff, who in turn blamed the escape on political interference in the running of the prison. The guides include audio descriptions of the Hospital, the H-Blocks and the Compounds, accompanied by excerpts from participants. It was situated at the former Royal Air Force station of Long Kesh, on the outskirts of Lisburn. What do these different terms tell us about the different perceptions of Long Kesh? [37] Brennan, who had married a US citizen, was deported from the United States to the Republic of Ireland in August 2009. MADE IN A TAN LEATHER WITH ULSTER EMBOSSED ON ONE SIDE AND PORTADOWN ON THE OTHER, INSIDE IS I [2][3] On 31 October 1973, three leading IRA members, including former Chief of Staff Seamus Twomey, escaped from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin when a hijacked helicopter landed in the exercise yard of the prison. A place of incarceration and liberation, political debate and historical denial, the H Block cell units of Long Kesh/Maz. Existing prisoners remained in separate compounds and retained their Special Category Status with the last prisoner to hold this status being released in 1986. PRONI ref: INF/7/A/8/16, H-Block classroom, 1981. The prisoner was taken away to solitary confinement, and rumours spread across the wing that the prisoner had been badly beaten. That was when you saw them really happy Educator, The physical instructor would have been, he would have been refereeing the match and done everything by the book Prisoner, There must have been over a hundred men, all with long, dirty, greasy hair, long beards some longer than others totally unkempt. A multi-storey building, containing the emergency control room and various offices. [14] Officers arriving for work were entering the gatehouse from outside the prison, and each was ordered at gunpoint to join the other hostages. Portlaoise Prison Portlaoise County Laois H Blocks Long Kesh Lisburn County Antrim BT27 5RP . 5th May 2014. It is fully integrated; Loyalist; ex-Republican and non-political prisoners are accommodated in all the wings and carry out prison work together in the workshops. Former Prison Officer Dessie Waterworth describes the control room inside a H-Block at the Maze and Long Kesh. Abstract. [14] James Prior announced that the prison's governor had resigned, and that there would be no ministerial resignations as a result of the report's findings. [14] The escape was the biggest in British history, and the biggest in Europe since World War II. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. In fact, despite the opening of the H-Blocks in 1976, they remained in use until 1988, with people who had been sentenced before 1976 finishing their sentence in the cages/ compounds and anyone sentenced after March 1976 going into the H-Blocks. This area contained the Staff Club, the Governors lounge and accommodation, staff lockers and staff car park. Located in front of the main entrance to an H-Block, it was accessible to vehicles. and U.D.A. The entire site was encircled by watch towers and a perimeter wall, and also included a separate hospital building, a visiting building, multidenominational chapel and two large football pitches, alongside multiple administrative buildings. The Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher did not initially give in. [7], Nineteen IRA members escaped from Portlaoise Jail on 18 August 1974 after overpowering guards and using gelignite to blast through gates. The tunnel was fitted with electric lights, and was 80 feet (24m) from the outside wall, having already breached the block's perimeter wall. It was like a, and I defy anybody else to describe it as a prisoner of war camp, you know. "Our day" is the date hoped for by Irish nationalists on which a united Ireland is achieved. 7. [13][18], The Hennessy Report was published on 26 January 1984 placing most of the blame for the escape on prison staff, and made a series of recommendations to improve security at the prison. Rosena Brown (Risn De Brn; born c.1945) is an Irish actress of television, cinema, and stage from Belfast, Northern Ireland who also served as an intelligence officer for the Provisional IRA. VINTAGE IRISH ULSTER LEATHER PRISON BOOK ENDS LONG KESH MAZE LOYALIST SHIPS FLAG. The video guides below were created from footage recorded in the Maze and Long Kesh in 2007. Outside the prison, in a major publicity coup, Sands was nominated for Parliament and won the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election. The highlight of your week would be getting the call for a visit Prisoner. That is, of the loyalist and republican prisoners who did not escape, only the republicans were moved, beaten, kicked, bitten by dogs, and subjected to religious and political insults. Abstract. [53] Averill mingled with a group of prisoners' families attending a Christmas party, and escaped on the coach taking the families out of the prison. Official aerial photograph of RAF Long Kesh airfield, 28 July 1942. The highlight of your week would be getting the call for a visit Prisoner. WILLIAM 'PLUM' SMITH'S BOOK, Inside Man: Loyalists of Long Kesh - The Untold Story, gives a personal account of his imprisonment as a young man from the Shankill Road. 59 Inside Northern Ireland's largest prison of Long Kesh, Rocky Burns described how he and his fellow loyalist prisoners would 'sing the Loyalist War songs of Ulster in . They organised themselves . The hospital contained both individual cells and small wards. One of the bizarre things to me always was that this rectangular space was called circle Educator, The whole architecture of the H-blocks, it is not a normal type of architecture, this is an architecture that grew out of the whole horrific conflict situation. Prison Chaplain, I still think it was probably one of the most extraordinary contexts that I ever said mass in, or that I ever sort of related to people in any sort of a pastoral way Prison Chaplain, the prison authorities referred to them as compounds but we as prisoners referred to them as cages Prisoner, basically you were simply left to your own devices. Prisoner, You were unlocked in the morning at 8 oclock and locked up at night at 9 oclock and during the day you had free time to do whatever: walk, run, sing, listen, read, education Prisoner/ Internee, I was no expert on escaping or tunnelling, but every person in the hut was expected to do their duty Prisoner/Internee, it is the most unfriendly place on Gods earth, its pretty scary I can tell you Prison Officer, Documentation of an attempted escape from a compound within Maze and Long Kesh Prison, 5 May 1976. A small single storey building used by remand prisoners (prisoners awaiting trial). The article charts the environment Spence presided over in jail, the . Each prisoner was designated a box or partitioned table and chairs for their visit. Resources are directed towards it and a more liberal attitude adopted towards certain facilities. In January 2009, plans to build the new multi-purpose stadium on the site of the prison were cancelled, with the Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure, Gregory Campbell, citing a lack of support and concerns for a net loss to the economy. Republican and loyalist prisoners were housed according to group. The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader Billy Wright was shot dead in December 1997 by two Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners.[13]. It was situated at the former Royal Air Force station of Long Kesh, on the outskirts of Lisburn.This was in the townland of Maze, about nine miles . Republicans Against Fascism @RepublicansAF 22 hours ago. TabLyrics. [P] Thats what happened the first riot in Long Kesh, in cage 2. Catholics are marching for civil rights and loyalist attacks have brought the British army onto the streets to quell the riots. By clicking Accept, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. HM Prison Maze. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. In total, 22 compounds/ cages were constructed in Long Kesh. This incident was seen by a soldier on duty in a watch tower, who reported to the British Army operations room that he had seen prison officers fighting. The former terrorist was jailed for 10 years and was the first loyalist prisoner to arrive in Long Kesh RAF base near Lisburn. Due to prison overcrowding, from December 1972 Long Kesh was also used for sentenced prisoners. Taken from an album from the Royal Ulster Constabulary archive collection. Each H-Block was identified by a number e.g. In December 1997, IRA prisoner Liam Averill escaped dressed as a woman during a Christmas party for prisoners' children. On 9 January 1998, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam, paid a surprise visit to the prison to talk to members of the Ulster Defence Association including Johnny Adair, Sam "Skelly" McCrory and Michael Stone. So you had to get up at a certain time every morning, you had to have your bed pack made, you werent allowed to lie in your bed until a specific time in the afternoon and, you know, it was regimented like that. Poster depicting the 1983 escape. Aircraft hangars built for the Royal Air Force (RAF) station at Long Kesh, 1941-1946. Following the introduction of internment in August 1971, Long Kesh - a disused WWII airfield near Lisburn, south of Belfast - was used as an internment camp. So originally in 1971 all the internee prisoners people who werent convicted through the normal courts, people who were interned without trial something like 300 prisoners were actually moved down here into compounds 2, 3 and 4, I believe, at the time. This was the location where ten men died during the 1981 hunger strike. On 25 September 1983, the Maze saw the largest breakout of prisoners from a British prison. Other people would have been cleaning the perimeter etc. The circle was an administration area, containing the control room of each H-Block. search. In the middle-class suburbs of south Dublin, the political atmosphere that is transforming the North finds an unlikely convert in law student Kieran Conway. The RUC and army arrested 342 Irish nationalists, but key Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members had been tipped off and 104 of those arrested were released when it emerged they had no paramilitary connections. The H-Blocks, eight in total, first opened in 1976. . [28] Robert Russell was extradited back to Northern Ireland in August 1988 after being captured in Dublin in 1984,[29][30] as was Paul Kane in April 1989. In March 1997, an IRA escape attempt was foiled when a 40ft (12m) tunnel was found. In later years, adjacent yards were combined. Long Kesh. The Maze Prison escape (known to Irish republicans as the Great Escape) took place on 25 September 1983 in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. He had served 10 years in Long Kesh Prison (also known as the Maze) for offenses relating to the struggle for Irish independence. [14] At the main gate, a prison officer was shot in the leg while chasing the only two prisoners who had not yet reached the outer fence. In January 2006, the government unveiled a masterplan[14] for the site incorporating many of these proposals, including a 45,000 seat national multi-sport stadium for football, rugby and Gaelic games. The site's significance is intrinsically linked with the 1969-1998 'troubles' in Northern Ireland. Now, the prison authorities referred to them as compounds but we as prisoners referred to them as cages., The prison officer would have came around 7.30, would have opened the door, would have came in and done a head count. During the course of his extradition proceedings, he applied to the Minister of Justice in Ireland not to send him back because he feared being assaulted by the prison staff and members of the security forces. Control Building Plan. your own Pins on Pinterest play_arrow . Their first act of defiance, initiated by Kieran Nugent, was to refuse to wear the prison uniforms, stating that convicted criminals, and not political prisoners, wear uniforms. [42] However, Tony McAllister was not granted a similar amnesty. Introduction This paper marks an attempt to explore how identity was, and is, negotiated by two opposed groups at the shared site of Long Kesh/Maze prison, Northern Ireland. Long Kesh was also used for sentenced republican and loyalist prisoners from 1972. At this time two prison officers blocked the exit with their cars, forcing the prisoners to abandon the lorry and make their way to the outer fence which was 25 yards away. PRONI ref: INF/7/A/8/18. They organised themselves along military lines and exercised wide control over their respective H-Blocks. A short film, produced by PMA in January 2020, which offers new insight into life in the compounds/ cages of Long Kesh. This is my account of what happened during the burning of Long Kesh. Semi-cylindrical hut built using corrugated metal, which could be partitioned into cubicles. IRA volunteers regarded themselves as prisoners of war with a duty to escape. [10], Fifteen escapees were captured on the day, including four who were discovered by the RUC hiding underwater in the river Lagan using reeds to breathe. Recorded in 2004. Ulster Unionist Party UUP Harry West Political Poster Irish British Original. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Opened in 1989, it was never used for regular services as it was deemed a security risk. 1972 was also witness to the renaming of the site as Maze Prison, although prisoners . Area for washing, showering and disposal of overnight waste. Wright resumed his UVF activities around 1986 and became commander of its Mid-Ulster Brigade . One prison officer died of a heart attack during the escape and twenty others were injured, including two who were shot with guns that had been smuggled into the prison. It held prisoners suspected of taking part in armed paramilitary campaigns during the Troubles, with separate wings for loyalists and for republicans. Were housed according to group volunteers regarded themselves as prisoners of war with a duty to escape different... Prison portlaoise County Laois H Blocks Long Kesh IRA volunteers regarded themselves as prisoners of war with a to. Aircraft hangars built for the Royal Air Force station of Long Kesh Lisburn Antrim! Loyalist prisoner to hold this status being released in 1986 the article charts the environment presided! Assemble and test-fly Stirling bombers civil rights and loyalist prisoners from a prison! 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