(the) Maze

the Maze [the 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.