The Mammoth Book of Prison Breaks Read Online Free Page B

sympathisers there. One of them, a former prisoner at the Maze, allowed them to remain hidden in his home, in the place where he had previously secreted an arms cache. The men – joined by chance by another group of fugitives – remained hidden there, using coffee jars when they needed to urinate, and only coming out for vital bodily functions, which didn’t, unfortunately for them, include showers. They were eventually freed from their new prison and smuggled across the border.
    Kelly and McFarlane assumed new identities and went to live in Europe, continuing the struggle on behalf of the IRA. They were arrested in Amsterdam in January 1986, and eventually deported back to Ireland on 3 December. When they were returned to the Maze, the same senior prison officer who had been on duty on the day of the escape was waiting to escort McFarlane to his cell. He was released from the Maze on parole in 1997, but was charged the following year with offences relating to a kidnapping that took place in December 1983. That case collapsed when the prosecution evidence was ruled inadmissible, and McFarlane received compensation from the Irish government. He is now a voluntary worker for Sinn Fein.
    Kelly was released in 1989 and went into politics. He was part of the team involved in negotiations with the British government between 1990 and 1993, as well as those leading to the Good Friday Agreement. He is currently the Sinn Fein party spokesperson on Policing and Criminal Justice.
    Of the other prisoners, three were killed on active service with the IRA, and some battled extradition for years, until the Good Friday Agreement led to the withdrawal of the requests. According to a BBC documentary in September 2008, one of the escapees has not been heard of since May 1983.
    The “great escape”, as it was inevitably dubbed, wasn’t the only flight from the Maze, but they were few and far between. Some of them were as doomed to failure as the IRA man who had put together a costume of cabbage leaves and was going to crawl out of the compound disguised as a row of cabbages. On 10 August 1984, Benjamin Redfearn was crushed to death while trying to escape in the back of a refuse lorry. In March 1997, a tunnel was found complete with electric lighting – it had got beneath the perimeter wall of H7 and was only eighty feet from the main wall. On 10 December 1997, Liam Averill was smuggled out of the prison dressed as a woman, as part of a group of women and children attending a Christmas party; he evaded capture until given amnesty in 2001.
    The Maze prison was closed in 2000; H7 was demolished in November 2007. A monument to the hunger strikers still remains in the Free Derry area of Bogside, and some of the original Maze buildings have been given listed status.
    Sources:
    BBC Northern Ireland, September 2008:
Breakout
(interviews with Bobby Storey, Bik McFarlane, Gerry Kelly and Courtney Campbell)
    BBC News, 8 February 2010: “Maze Prison buildings to keep listed status”
    BBC News, 16 March 1998: “The Maze – home to paramilitaries”
    The Guardian, 5 April 2007: “Thirty years on, the Maze reveals a secret”
    The People, 14 September 2003: “Maze Escape Party Row”
    BBC News, 8 December 2006: “Go ahead given for kidnap trial”
    New York Times, 4 December 1986: “Dutch Extradite Two I.R.A. Fugitives”
    BBC On This Day: “25 September 1983: Dozens escape in Maze breakout”
    Hennessey, Sir James:
Report of Inquiry into the Security Arrangements at HM Prison, Maze
(HMSO, 1984)
    McKane, William:
Unpretentious Valour
(C R Print, 2008)
    Hayes, Paddy:
Break Out!
(O’Brien Press, 2004)

Breaking the Heart of Midlothian
    Edinburgh’s Old Tolbooth, immortalized in the works of Sir Walter Scott, stood as the town’s jail for over 250 years, next door to St Giles’ High Kirk. Its forbidding presence stood as a warning to the good folk of the Scottish capital, who would flock to the platform on its west side to witness the public