BREAK OUT: MASTERPLAN SPROUTED FROM SEEDS OF DEFEAT

Sunday, March 21, 2004

THE mass breakout by IRA inmates from the Maze Prison in September 1983 was a
morale-boosting triumph for the IRA - but had its origins in bitter defeat.
THE mass breakout by IRA inmates from the Maze Prison in September 1983 was a
morale-boosting triumph for the IRA - but had its origins in bitter defeat.
A total of 38 Provos smashed out of the most secure jail in Europe in broad daylight - the
biggest escape in British prison history.
Ironically, a source of inspiration for the breakout - and other IRA escapes - was the
example of British soldiers in Nazi POW camps during World War II.
Republicans even referred to the warders as "the Germans".
But the main motivation behind the Maze breakout was the devastating failure of the 1981
hunger strike campaign in the jail, when 10 republicans, including Bobby Sands, starved to
death in a bid to win political status.
When the IRA commander, Brendan McFarlane, and the surviving prisoners called off their
217-day fast, on October 3, 1981, they were a beaten force. They had lost 10 comrades
and gained no concessions.
That afternoon in the blocks there were no cries of "tiocfaidh ár lá" (our day will come), the
resistance cry of the IRA. This was not their day.
They were at a low ebb, and the dead hunger strikers left a dreadful atmosphere hanging
over the blocks.
The deaths also had an effect on the prison officers and the authorities.
The NIO wanted prisoners working to earn back some of the remission lost during
protests, and knew a confrontational regime could not be sustained forever.
During the protests there had been systematic intimidation of warders and numerous
killings of staff on the outside by the IRA.
The protests were as gruelling for the authorities as they were for the prisoners.
Certain republican groups began co-operating with the prison authorities, knowing that
each concession won would make it easier to topple the system
One of the key concessions won was segregation from loyalist prisoners, so they could
plot and plan without interference.
Ironically, it was through working with loyalist prisoners that the issue was forced to a
conclusion.
Each group attacked the other to show they couldn't live together. Loyalists were
persuaded to pull their weight by smashing up their cells.
Segregation was granted, and three of the blocks became exclusively republican.
With each concession granted new possibilities presented themselves to weaken the
jailers' power.
If the IRA could not win political status through hunger strikes, perhaps they could re-
assert it by staging an escape . . . and not just an ordinary escape, but a mass breakout.