MAZE

a prison in Northern Ireland, just outside Belfast , where people opposed to the government who were thought to be terrorists were kept without trial (a practice known as ‘internment’). It opened in 1971, at a former military base called Long Kesh. The different sections of the prison were known as H-blocks because each building was shaped like the letter H. When internment ended in 1975, prisoners who had been found guilty of terrorism protested that they should be treated as political prisoners. Some of them went on hunger strike and several died, including Bobby Sands, who had been elected as a Member of Parliament while in the prison. After the Good Friday Agreement the prison was gradually emptied and it closed in 2000.