Long Kesh

Effectuation of the Special Powers Act in August 1971, and by that Interment due to which people could be detained over a long period of time without trial or even without indictment, caused difficulties in Northern Irish prison system. In order to handle the tremendous intake of internees a former station of the Royal Air Force (RAF) near Lisburn was converted in a prison camp.

Immediately after it's opening Long Kesh Detention Centre accommodated 342 mainly Catholic internees in semi-round structures of bended sheet metal, so-called Nissen huts. The Nissen huts, as well as the manner the centre was operated, gave Long Kesh the appearance of a prisoner of war camp instead of a civilian prison complex. In addition a less stringent regime was granted to prisoners convicted on terrorist offences by Whitelaw in July 1972. Due to this Special Category Status the internees of Long Kesh, but also detainees in Armagh Prison and Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast, were segregated by allegiance, and they were allowed to wear their own clothes, to arrange meetings and to refuse prison work. Basically the internees were not only considered prisoners of war, but they also acted accordingly by, for example, adhering the unwritten duty to escape and return to the unit.

Within a year the population of Long Kesh had tripled and in December 1975 the detention centre held nearly two thousand internees, 170 of whom were Protestant. Apart from Long Kesh being overpopulated the government had a need for a sturdy prison. The outworn prisons might have discourage ordinary prisoners from escaping, but didn't stand up to a well-directed escape of paramilitary with outside help.
In less then twelve months the Royal Engineers, the building experts of the British Army, manage to built a maximum security prison, Her Majesty's Prison Maze, on the grounds of Long Kesh Detention Centre. In fact, they built eight prisons as each H-shaped block of cells, hence the name H-Blocks, was basically an autonomous high security prison unit with its own yard, entrance gate and fencing. Likewise all other buildings, such as the administration office, the hospital and the two chapels, were all separately fenced off with wire netting and barbed wire. The eight H-Blocks were isolated from the detention centre by a five meter high concrete perimeter wall fitted with twelve watchtowers. The prison itself was divided by walls in three so-called phases. Initially these phases marked the progress of construction, but at a later stage it was decided to use them as additional security feature.
From 1976 onwards the Special Category Status was gradually lifted in the wake of which The Maze, or in Irish Ceis Fada, became the focal point of the prison protests and hunger strikes during the late 1970's and early 1980's.

Following the Good Friday Agreement HM Prison Maze was emptied of most prisoners and after the last prisoners had left in September 2000 the prison was placed in hot storage, meaning that some H-Blocks were kept on stand by just in case. In 2006 however the curtain irrevocably came down when bulldozers reduced Cage 20 to rubble. Within a few years the site will be transformed in a park with a museum, containing some of the original buildings, and a stadium.

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Long Kesh

There is a place just outside Lisburn
It's a place that's known to few
Where a group of Irish rebels
Are held by Faulkner's crew
There are forced to live in cages
Like the inmates of Bellevue
But the spirit of 1916
Will always see them through

The men in this vile place
They come from far and near
Some from the Derry Bogside
And Omagh town so near
And some of them from Belfast
From the Markets and the Falls
From the narrow streets of Ardoyne
And all around Tyrone

On that black day in August
When Faulkner showed his hand
He thought that by internment
He could break our gallant band
But the boys from Ballymurhy
How they showed the way that night
How they taught those English soldiers
How Irishmen could fight

Long Kesh it's known to everyone
The system must be broke
Ardoyne, the New Lodge and the Falls
Will see the system choke
No more the Special Powers Act
The means will evoke
And Long Kesh will be the U stone
On which the system´s broke

A word now Irish people
No matter where you are
Remember our brave rebels
In Long Kesh this year
And by civil disobedience
Or any other way
We'll make a stand until the day
Each one of them are free

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