HM Prison Maze
prison in Northern Ireland
HM Prison Maze (previously Long Kesh Detention Centre, and known colloquially as the Maze or H-Blocks) was a prison and internment camp 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.
The prison was situated at the former Royal Air Force station of Long Kesh, on the outskirts of Lisburn. This was in the townland of Maze, about nine miles (14 km) southwest of Belfast. The prison and its inmates were involved in such events as the 1981 hunger strike. The prison was closed in 2000 and demolition began on 30 October 2006, but on 18 April 2013 it was announced by the Northern Ireland Executive that the remaining buildings would be redeveloped into a peace centre. However, these plans were later abandoned.
Background
Following the introduction of internment in 1971, Operation Demetrius was implemented by the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and British Army with raids for 452 suspects on 9 August 1971. The RUC and army arrested 342 Irish nationalists, but key Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members had been tipped off and 104 of those arrested were released when it emerged they had no paramilitary connections. Those behind Operation Demetrius were accused of bungling the raids by arresting many of the wrong people and using out-of-date information.
The public source identifies “HM Prison Maze” as prison in Northern Ireland. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Prison, Maze and prison.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1478908. VIAF identifies the subject as 249022850. Authority coordinates are 54.489, -6.107. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1971, 2000, 1974 and 1981.
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This entry incorporates text from “HM Prison Maze” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.