Portlaoise Prison
Maximum Security prison built in the town of Portlaoise, Ireland.
Portlaoise Prison (Irish: Príosún Phort Laoise) is a maximum security prison in Portlaoise, County Laois, Ireland. Until 1929 it was called the Maryborough Gaol. It should not be confused with the Midlands Prison, which is a newer, medium security prison directly beside it; or with Dunamaise Arts Centre, which was the original Maryborough Gaol built c. 1789.
Portlaoise Prison was built in the 1830s, making it one of the oldest still operating today in the Irish prison system. It is the prison in which people convicted of membership of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and other illegal paramilitary and designated terrorist organisations are usually detained.
A number of IRA and dissident republican prisoners are housed in "E Block". Anyone charged under section 30 of the Offences Against the State Act must be sent to the prison because of its unique security measures.
Soldiers from the Irish Army patrolled Portlaoise Prison on a permanent basis from 1973 until 2024.
Security
Up until 2024, Soldiers guarded the prison 24 hours a day. The security featured a detachment consisting of approximately platoon strength, armed with rifles and anti-aircraft machine guns, who patrolled the prison complex.
“Portlaoise Prison” enters the record as maximum Security prison built in the town of Portlaoise, Ireland. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Portlaoise, Prison and Maximum can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Portlaoise Prison” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Portlaoise, Prison and Maximum provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q14466340. Authority coordinates are 53.038, -7.287. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 1789, 1973 and 2024.
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This entry incorporates text from “Portlaoise Prison” 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.