Her Majesty's Prison Maze was a prison in Northern Ireland that was used to house paramilitary prisoners during the Troubles from August 1971 to September 2000. On 15 October 1974 Irish Republican internees burned 21 of the compounds used to house the internees thereby destroying much of Long Kesh.
A hunger strike is a method of non-violent resistance in which participants fast as an act of political protest, or to provoke a feeling of guilt in others, usually with the objective to achieve a specific goal, such as a policy change. Most hunger strikers will take liquids but not solid food.
The 1981 Irish hunger strike was the culmination of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Irish republican prisoners in Northern Ireland. The protest began as the blanket protest in 1976, when the British government withdrew Special Category Status for convicted paramilitary prisoners. In 1978, the dispute escalated into the dirty protest, where prisoners refused to leave their cells to wash and covered the walls of their cells with excrement. In 1980, seven prisoners participated in the first hunger strike, which ended after 53 days.
Séanna Walsh or Séanna Breathnach is a Sinn Féin member of Belfast City Council and a former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Milltown Cemetery is a large cemetery in west Belfast, Northern Ireland. It lies within the townland of Ballymurphy, between Falls Road and the M1 motorway.
The blanket protest was part of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners held in the Maze prison in Northern Ireland. The republican prisoners' status as political prisoners, known as Special Category Status, had begun to be phased out in 1976. Among other things, this meant that they would now be required to wear prison uniforms like ordinary convicts. The prisoners refused to accept that they had been administratively designated as ordinary criminals, and refused to wear the prison uniform.
The dirty protest was part of a five-year protest during the Troubles by Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners held in the Maze Prison and a protest at Armagh Women's Prison in Northern Ireland. In March 1978 some prisoners refused to leave their cells to shower or use the lavatory because of attacks by prison officers, and the inmates would later start smearing faeces on the walls of their cells.
Mairéad Farrell was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). She was shot and killed by the British Army in Gibraltar on 6 March 1988.
HM Prison Belfast, also known as Crumlin Road Gaol, is a former prison situated on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. Since 1996 it is the only remaining Victorian era former prison in Northern Ireland. It is colloquially known as the Crum.
Kieran Nugent was an Irish volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and best known for being the first IRA 'blanket man' in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. When sentenced to three years for hijacking a bus, Nugent refused to wear a prison uniform and said the prison guards would have to "...nail it to my back".
Jimmy Steele was an Irish republican militant and editor. He was one of the most prominent Irish Republican Army (IRA) men in Belfast after the Irish Civil War. Steele spent most of his life in jail as a result of his actions against British security forces.
Seán McCaughey was an Irish Republican Army leader in the 1930s and 1940s and hunger striker.
The Northern Ireland Prison Service is the agency charged with managing prisons in Northern Ireland.
Laurence McKeown is an Irish author, playwright, screenwriter, and former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
Pat "Beag" McGeown was a volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
Jackie "Teapot" McMullan is a former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
Robert 'Rab' Kerr is an Irish republican ex-prisoner who spent 18 years in British prisons, during which he spent three years on the 'Blanket Protest' in the H-Blocks and took part in the 'Great Escape' from Long Kesh in 1983. Since his release from prison he has co-authored four books of photographs documenting the history of Belfast during the last century, as well as producing a number of booklets and magazines. In 2008 he wrote what has been described as the first republican tourist guide to Belfast: Republican Belfast: A Political Tourist's Guide. He is married to Sinn Féin politician Jennifer McCann.
The 1980–1981 Armagh Prison Dirty Protest occurred at the all-women Armagh Prison in Northern Ireland, where prisoners refused to bathe, use the lavatory, empty chamber pots, or clean their cells. This resulted in unsanitary conditions and increased abuse at the hands of the prison guards. The protest borrowed tactics previously used by male Irish republican prisoners in Long Kesh Prison, that had started in 1978.
Richard O’Rawe is a former Provisional IRA prisoner and author of Blanketmen.
In October 1923 mass hunger strikes were undertaken by Irish republican prisoners protesting the continuation of their internment without trial. The Irish Civil War had ended six months earlier yet the newly formed Provisional Government of the Irish Free State was slow in releasing the thousands of Irish republican prisoners opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
