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H-Blocks: The Truth: A Reply to H.M. Government, , Information on Ireland, 1980, 0950738107, 9780950738109, . DOWNLOAD HERE Northern Ireland managing difference, John P. Darby, Minority Rights Group, 1995, History, 38 pages. H blocks British jail for Irish political prisoners, Denis Faul, Raymond Murray, 1979, History, 154 pages. An Anti-imperialist's Guide to the Irish War , , 1983, Great Britain, 138 pages. Portions of this page may be (c) 2006 Muze Inc. Some database content may also be provided by Baker & Taylor Inc. Copyright 1995-2006 Muze Inc. For personal non-commercial use only. All rights reserved. Content for books is owned by Baker & Taylor, Inc. or its licensors and is subject to copyright and all other protections provided by applicable law. 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 (14 km) southwest of Belfast. The prison and its inmates played a prominent role in recent Irish history, notably in the 1981 hunger strike. The prison was closed in 2000 and demolition began on 30 October 2006, but on 18 April 2013 it was announced that the remaining buildings would be redeveloped into a peace center.[1] Initially the internees were housed, with different paramilitary groups separated from each other, in Nissen huts at a disused RAF airfield that became the Long Kesh Detention Centre. The internees and their supporters agitated for improvements in their conditions and status; they saw themselves as political prisoners rather than common criminals. In July 1972 William Whitelaw introduced Special Category Status for those sentenced for crimes relating to the civil violence. There were 1,100 Special Category Status prisoners at that time. However, Special Category Status was short-lived. As part of the government's policy of "criminalisation", and coinciding with the end of internment, the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Merlyn Rees, ended Special Category Status from 1 March 1976. Those convicted of scheduled terrorist offences after that date were housed in the eight new "H-Blocks" that had been constructed at Long Kesh, now officially named Her Majesty's Prison Maze (HMP Maze). Existing prisoners remained in separate compounds and retained their Special Category Status with the last prisoner to hold this status released in 1986. Some prisoners changed from being Special Category Status prisoners to being common criminals. Brendan Hughes, an IRA prisoner, had been imprisoned with Special Category Status in Cage 11 but was alleged to have been involved in a fight with warders. He was taken to court and convicted then returned to the jail as a common prisoner and incarcerated in the H-Blocks as an ordinary prisoner, all within the space of several hours.[5] Prisoners convicted of scheduled offences after 1 March 1976 were housed in the "H-Blocks" that had been constructed. Prisoners without Special Category Status began protesting for its return immediately after they were transferred to the H-Blocks. 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. Not allowed their own clothes, they wrapped themselves in bedsheets. Prisoners participating in the protest were "on the blanket". By 1978 more than 300 men had joined the protest. The British government refused to yield. Prison guards soon refused to let the blanket protesters use the toilets without proper uniforms. The prisoners refused, and instead began to defecate within their own cells, smearing excrement on the walls. This began the "dirty protest". But again the new 1979 government of Margaret Thatcher did not respond. On 27 October 1980, seven Republican prisoners refused food and demanded political status. Thatcher's Conservative government did not initially give in. In December the prisoners called off the hunger strike when the government appeared to concede their demands. However, the government immediately reverted to their previous stance, confident the prisoners would not start another strike. Bobby Sands, the Officer Commanding of the Provisional IRA prisoners, began a second action on 1 March 1981. Outside the prison in a major publicity coup, Sands was nominated for Parliament and won the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election. But the British government was still resisting and on 5 May, after 66 days on hunger strike, Sands died. More than 100,000 people attended Bobby Sands' funeral in Belfast. Another nine hunger strikers (members of both the IRA and the INLA) died by the end of August before the hunger strike was called off in October. On 25 September 1983, the Maze suffered the largest breakout of prisoners from a British prison. Thirty-eight prisoners hijacked a prison meals lorry and smashed their way out. During the breakout four prison officers were stabbed, including one, James Ferris, who died of a heart attack as a result. Another officer was shot in the head, and several other officers were injured by the escapees.[6] Nineteen of the prisoners were soon recaptured, but the remainder escaped. In December 1997, IRA prisoner Liam Averill escaped from the prison dressed as a woman during a Christmas party for prisoners' children.[7] Averill, who was jailed for life after committing two murders, was not recaptured, and was instead given amnesty in early 2001 when he was one of a number of republican escapees to present themselves to the authorities in a two-week period.[8] Over the 1980s the British government slowly introduced changes, granting what some would see as political status in all but name. Republican and loyalist prisoners were housed according to group. They organised themselves along military lines and exercised wide control over their respective H-Blocks. The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader Billy Wright was shot dead in December 1997 by two Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners.[9] The prisoners also played a significant role in the Northern Ireland peace process. 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/Ulster Freedom Fighters (UDA/UFF) including Johnny Adair, Sam McCrory and Michael Stone. They had voted for their political representatives to pull out of talks. Shortly after Mowlam's visit, they changed their minds, allowing their representatives to continue talks that would lead to the Good Friday Agreement of 10 April 1998. Afterwards, the prison was emptied of its paramilitary prisoners as the groups they represented agreed to the ceasefire. In the two years following the agreement, 428 prisoners were released. On 29 September 2000, the remaining four prisoners at Maze were transferred to other establishments in Northern Ireland and the Maze prison was closed. A monitoring group was set up on 14 January 2003 to debate the future of the 360-acre (1.5 km2) site. With close motorway and rail links, there were many proposals including a museum, a multi-purpose sports stadium and an office, hotel and leisure village. In January 2006 the government unveiled a masterplan [10] for the site incorporating many of these proposals, including a 45,000 seat national multi-sport stadium for football, rugby and Gaelic games. 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. The capacity of the proposed Stadium was later adjusted to first 35,000 and then 38,000 and the organising bodies of all three sports - Irish FA, Ulster Rugby and Ulster GAA - agreed in principle to support the integrated scheme. Discussion is still ongoing as to the listed status of sections of the old prison. The hospital and part of the H-Blocks are currently listed buildings, and would remain as part of the proposed site redevelopment as a "conflict transformation centre" with support from republicans such as Martin McGuinness and opposition from unionists who consider that this risks creating "a shrine to the IRA".[11] In January 2013 plans were approved by the Northern Ireland environment minister Alex Attwood for the site to be redeveloped as showgrounds as the result of an application by the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society with the objective of relocating Balmoral Show from its current location in Belfast.[12] He was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During his strike he was elected as a member of the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner candidate.[2][3] His death resulted in a new surge of IRA recruitment and activity. International media coverage brought attention to the hunger strikers, and the republican movement in general, attracting both praise and criticism.[4] Sands was the firstborn son of a Roman Catholic family; his Catholic mother (Rosalind Sands) and his half-Catholic, half-Protestant father (John Sands) had both been raised in the Catholic slums of Belfast, and after marriage they relocated to the new development of Abbots Cross in suburban North Belfast, Newtownabbey, County Antrim in an effort to avoid the poverty and sectarian violence that had plagued them in their youths.[5][6] His parents were able to live in the Protestant-dominated neighbourhood (there was not a single Catholic church, though there were three Protestant churches and a Protestant-only school) by deliberately concealing their Catholicism from their neighbours, aided by the fact that Sands was not a traditional Catholic surname. Bobby was born in 1954, his first sister, Marcella, was born in April 1955 and second sister, Bernadette, in November 1958.
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