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208. The Maze Prison Escape · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to Who Did What Now?
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: The history podcast that is not your history class. With me,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: your host, Katie Charlewood, history harlot and reader of books.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: And I had a very stressful time of it last week,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: let me tell you. Now, as many of you know,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I am a massive whodunit fan. Agatha Christie, Dorothy O'Sears, like, etc.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: And I very much enjoy Murder, She Wrote. Now, so
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: much so that I actually went to the Murder, She
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Wrote festival last year. Now, I wanted to go the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: year before, but I just couldn't make it work in
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: my schedule. But this year, this year I could. So,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: last year I became a member of the Kelly House Museum. One...
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: because I love a regional museum, and two, because members
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: get early access to festival tickets, right? So, last year
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: was amazing, or this year was amazing. You know, I had,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: you know, an amazing time. There was about 200 of us,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: a bunch of us, like, dressed up like Jessica Fletcher
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and jogged through Cabot Cove. It was amazing. Now, now,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: there I am, waiting for the tickets to go live.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: And the site is slow, like 1990 slow. Like so
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: many people are trying to get tickets that the site
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: is crashing. My phone has a meltdown. I have a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: meltdown and I see the ticket numbers drop. They had
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: doubled the attendance. So they had 400 tickets, right? I
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: looked at it. It was already on 325. The next
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: time I was on, it was in 289. It was
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: It would accidentally, because I made the mistake of refreshing
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: my page, and the next thing you know, I had
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: six tickets, but it was capped at two, and it
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: was like a whole thing. So I had to go
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: back into the basket and remove those tickets and then
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: let back in again. And then my Apple Pay didn't work,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: and then it did work, and then it didn't, and
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: then it did, and everything was fine. Anyway, by the
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: grace of Jessica Fletcher, the payment goes through, and I
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: am in. But, like, this is the wild thing, though,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: because the festival... doubled its attendance from last year. And
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: it sold out in under an hour. Which, by the way,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: go Fangelas! And I love the festival team. Like, they
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: are doing their very best. It's a very small team.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: There are two part-time museum workers and a load of volunteers.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: And it's a labour of love for a lot of people.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: And the whole purpose is to raise money to keep
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the Kelly Museum going, right? That's the whole purpose of this.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: You know, everyone gets involved. You know, you bring people
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: up to Mendocino and you are supporting this museum. Now,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I kind of promise I won't come back with banana
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  Speaker 1: slugs because, ah, I've found a fondness for them. I
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: have one. His name is Jeffrey. I love him. I
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: brought one back for my daughter because she loves plushies.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, what if I got the banana slug
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: slippers next time? Like, what if I did? Like, wouldn't
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: that be fun? But this is the thing, though, when
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: it comes to this is like I was reading a
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: lot of like the comments and, you know, listen, a
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: waiting list is going to open up. You know, we're
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: really sorry. This is what we've been able to do
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: thus far, you know. And and there were so many
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: people like a lot of people were like, you know,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I was a member. I tried to get tickets, couldn't
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: get on. What a shame. Maybe next time. Like there
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: was a lot of like very considerate comments and stuff.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: And there was one person and it really bugged me, right?
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you, it bugged my tits. See,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: there was this one person who was like, maybe you
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: should actually find a different way to, you know, you know,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: put out the tickets because I don't want to be
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: a member of a museum like I'm never going to visit. Which,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: first of all, get fucked. The whole purpose of this
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  Speaker 1: is to fund the museum. You don't want to be
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a museum member. That is absolutely fine. I have a
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: recurring membership because I will continue to support this museum.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Whenever I visit a museum, I always donate because if
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: we do not fund the museums, if we do not
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: fund the libraries, they will not be able to run,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: especially in the areas that are not, you know, centralised.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: And I don't want history to just fucking disappear because
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: you're not going to be in a museum. What about
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: other people, right? Museums, typically, a lot of them, a
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: lot of museums, by the way, are free, right? Not
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: all of them because they still have to make money
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: because they cannot get funding and, you know, this kind
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: of stuff. And they rely on donations or ticket prices
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: to actually survive. Like, and the shit that is going
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: down with libraries right now, they're losing their funding all over, like,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: different countries. Like, it sucks, right? Utilize your libraries. Get
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: your bloody library card. Utilise it. Have fun. Like, enjoy.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Get the books. Get your hands on the books. Okay, anyway. Anyway,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Katie, please, it's
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: been five minutes. Quit your jabber-jabber and fact me. And
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: fact you I will, but first, we've got to get
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: our source on. Our sources are... Political violence on Northern Ireland.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Conflict and conflict resolution. And of course, we do have
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: our favourites. Biography.com and History. Are you sitting comfortably? Good.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Then let's begin. So this was actually supposed to be
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: last week's episode. But OK, I took a break last
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: week and. But to explain what happened, I kind of
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: have to very briefly explain the troubles. So the troubles
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: in Northern Ireland are still a very loaded topic. It's
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: living memory for a lot of people. And I decided
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to take a step back because last week was also
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks in New York.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: And something that is also very much in living memory.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: And I know I very well could have made a
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Twin Towers World Trade Center episode. I chose not to.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: And not just because I... watched that second plane hit.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: You know, I was home from school that day. I
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: don't know why. I don't know if it was like
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: a teacher's off day or I was sick, but I
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: remember being in the house. Now, anyway, I chose not
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: to make an episode. What I did do is refresh
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: my memory and read and reread stories of victims, survivors,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: the aftermath. And I have cried several times a day
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Every day in this last week. Because history isn't neutral.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: If it was, we would not be talking about it.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Because it would not be worth a conversation.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Because.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Facts don't care about your feelings. But that doesn't stop
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: it from triggering them.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: And.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: Then you have the troubles, which is such a gentle
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: term for what it was. And.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: It just felt sort of wrong for me to be
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: discussing this right now. I felt like because of, because
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: of being so loaded and because of it being emotional
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: and intense and really affecting a lot of people, it
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: just didn't feel like the right time to do that.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Now I am going to be discussing this and I know,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: you know, Why didn't you do it on the anniversary? Listen,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: there are enough people doing that. You don't need me
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: doing that right now. Now, I will be discussing it
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in the future. That is a plan. But not right now.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: But the troubles. Now, I'm going to try and cliff
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: note this the best I can. That does mean I'll
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: be simplifying a few bits here and there. And there's
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: probably a bunch of stuff that's not going to get mentioned.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: But if you really are interested in learning all about
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: The Troubles, if you want it fully fleshed out, well-researched,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: like Chris O'Brien's podcast, The Troubles, it is probably one
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: of the best pieces of media I have ever consumed
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: on the topic. Now, here we go. A lot of
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: bad things that happen to the Irish, it's because of
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the English. That's a joke. That's a joke. Chill out. Sidebar,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I once got in trouble for making a joke about
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Britain attacking Ireland for not being Catholic enough and then
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: attacking it for being too Catholic. And I had so
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: many people just been like, you're oversimplifying it. Yeah, it's
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: a seven second joke about language and religion being banned. Like,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: chill out. If you can't laugh at your own pain,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: you know, who can? But anyway, I am getting ahead
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: of myself. Cliff notes, cliff notes. Ireland was invaded many
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: times by many groups. Vikings, Normans, the Tudors and... Ireland
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: fought against invaders. It did, consistently, you know. But, you know,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: people like the Normans and the Norse, they learned that
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: intermarrying and blending of customs was a more successful way of, like,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: getting in. Yes, much oversimplification. Go to Dublinia in Dublin
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: if you want to know about the Viking history in Ireland,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: if you happen to be over in this way. Very good,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: very great, 10 out of 10. Probably the best example
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: of this would be Strongbow, but look that up. Not
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the cider, the person. But yes, the Tudors were a
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: different breed. They wanted assimilation, like the Borg in Star Trek.
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  Speaker 1: They wanted to strip the laws, customs, culture and language
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  Speaker 1: of the Irish people and replace it with English laws, customs,
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  Speaker 1: culture and language. By 1533, King Henry VIII had named
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  Speaker 1: himself Lord of Ireland. made deals with Irish chieftains, turned
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: them into earls in exchange for accepting English laws. Afterwards,
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  Speaker 1: he brought in anti-Catholic laws in a Catholic nation and
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: started dissolving the monasteries. Needless to say, people were not
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: entirely happy with that. Now, the Tudors really, like, I mean,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Henry Tudor, he really only had control of the pale,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: which was like an area... which is like part of Dublin,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: sort of. It's in that kind of zone. Now, the whole,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: you know, removing, you know, the main religion of the
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: country and also dissolving the monasteries did not go down well.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: And this whole anti-Catholic situation, Henry, good thing Henry didn't
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: actually have a good grip on Ireland because I don't
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: think it would have gone well for him. Enter Mary I.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Bloody Mary, as she is often called. even though she
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: killed a lot less people than everybody else. Now, she
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: started plantations in King's County and Queen's County, which are
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: like Leash and Offaly. So loyal English subjects plonked down
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: in Ireland with no support. They were not allowed to integrate.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: And yeah, they got raided a lot. It was not,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say it was not successful. Elizabeth I,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: she's in and She has better luck learning from Mary's mistakes,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: but it was Mr Arsehole himself, King James I of England,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: VI of Scotland, who really revved things up with the
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Ulster Plantations. Now, if you've listened to this podcast before,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: you will understand my hatred of King James. Just, he's
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: such a bitch. He was... Sleek it. It was slimy.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: It was such a wee shit. So he summoned some
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Irish earls to London under pretenses, right? So these are
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: generally acceptable royal reasons. And then when they arrived, they
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: were locked up or executed or sometimes both, right? Locked
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: up then executed, not executed then locked up. He wasn't
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: just like keeping a bunch of corpses in a dungeon.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, he might have, but I don't think that
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: was really the law of the land. Basically, the plan
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: was to remove them, confiscate their lands, and then award
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: that land to loyal English and Scottish plantals, who were,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: for the most part, Protestant. So this whole debacle leads
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: to the Flight of the Earls, where the remaining Irish
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: aristocracy fled Ireland with their families. The plan was to
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: raise armies abroad and then reclaim the land, but this
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: didn't quite materialise. So you have these loyal Protestants colonising
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Ulster and the Catholic Irish are driven off the land
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: and again didn't do much to quell resentment here. Over
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: the next 80 or so years the Irish natives rebelled
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: and there were attacks back and forth which really really
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: reels its head with James II. So James II is
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: brother to Charles II, the merry monarch, right? So James
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: was Catholic and so he introduced laws for religious freedoms
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: for Catholics and this got the English Parliament like a
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: wee bit worried because they were concerned that he was
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: going to try and convert, you know, the country back
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: to being like big super fans of the Pope. You know,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: what if he convinces the country that the The Eucharist
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: is actually the body of Christ and not just a
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: metaphorical representation of the body of Christ.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Oh no!
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Like that is like genuinely one of the big differences
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: between Catholicism and Anglicanism, so like Church of England. So
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: in Catholicism, like the belief is that, you know, the Eucharist,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: you know, the bread and the wine are quite literally,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: they turn into, like they are literally, you know, the
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: body and blood of Christ, right? Whereas in Anglicanism, which
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: is basically Catholicism-like, it's, like, two steps off. They're just like, no,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: it's just a representation of it, which is, like, that's
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: one of the issues. Anyhow. So, King James II, everyone's
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: concerned he's going to make people, like, believe it's body bread. So,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: they bring in William and Mary. So, William of Orange,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: who was a Dutch prince, and, more importantly, a Protestant prince.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: who was married to James's daughter, Princess Mary. Long story short,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: too late you say, a gay Dutchman marries his 15-year-old cousin,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: deposes his uncle-slash-father-in-law and claims the English throne as William
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: and Mary who become co-rulers, King and Queen of England. Meanwhile,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: William is also fighting a war in mainland Europe against
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Louis XIV of France. James Stuart, that is James II,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: he tries to make a comeback and reclaim the throne,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: but the French king sends troops to Ireland to support
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the fallen English king, basically to fight against William of Orange. However,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: William goes to Ireland with troops from the Great Alliance
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and absolutely crushes his uncle-slash-father-in-law. So, in this proxy battle,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: fought on Irish soil as part of the Nine Years' War. Again,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: long story short, The Battle of the Boyne was a
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: proxy battle on Irish soil between an English king and
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: a Dutch prince over the English throne. This is relevant,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: I promise. So basically, this becomes a day of celebration
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: by Protestants every year. And so it's seen as a
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: celebration by them, but it's seen as a provocation by Catholics.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: So now, whatever it was meant to be initially, right,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: whatever this celebration was, it has, in years, become an
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: excuse for, well, It has been co-opted quite a lot
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: by bigots and racists, burning effigies of minorities and such,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: but I digress. Like, like celebrating, you know, winning a
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: battle and, you know, things like that, absolutely fine. But like,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you know, burning effigies of migrant boats of people who
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: like drowned trying to escape war and everything else. Very shitty. Basically,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: since the Battle of the Boyne, sectarian violence was just
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: part of life in Northern Ireland. You had orange men who,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: supporters of William the Orange, the whole thing, they liked
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: to march directly through streets. Anyway, they attacked Catholic homes. Defenders,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: which is the Catholic side, they attacked Protestants and it
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: became this whole tit-for-tat for years. In 1800, the Act
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: of Union dissolved regional parliaments and created a United Kingdom.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: This is where the UK was born because it dissolved Wales, Scotland,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Northern Ireland, or Ireland, I should say, because it was
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: just Ireland at that point. And now, boom, Westminster ruling
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: everybody and it was the United Kingdom. A century later,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Ireland was fighting for home rule. They were not looking
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to secede from the United Kingdom. They just wanted to
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: have their own government and to be able to make
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: their own laws, right? They were not looking to leave
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the UK. Now, Unionists, mainly Protestants, were very anti-home rule
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and formed the UVF, the Ulster Volunteer Force, which was
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a militia. In response, Catholic Nationalists, who were, you know,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: obviously national, So they formed the Irish Volunteer Force 10
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: months later. Now, during this century as well, there was
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a mass emigration from Ireland as a result of the famines. Yes,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: there were several. The one that you know the most
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: is Angorta Moor, which is the Great Hunger. So that
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: would have the highest level of emigration, really, because, in
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: case you didn't know, the population of Ireland... has still
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: not reached the level it was at when we were pre-famine, right?
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: We have not reached that just because of the death
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and of course immigration which was the only only option
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: for quite a lot of people especially lower classes especially
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Catholics so big exit there mass exodus that's the word
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for mass exodus But yes, by the early 1900s,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: they are looking for home rule. Now, a vote on
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: repealing the Act of Union was postponed because of the
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: First World War. Now, everyone thought the war would be
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: over by Christmas, right? And so both unionists and nationalists,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: they sort of, you know, put arms down to begin
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: with and joined the war, fighting for the British army
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: because they wanted to fight, you know, the enemy. Now,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: As the war drew on, so did a lot of
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: people's patience and the Irish Republican Brotherhood was formed, the IRB.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: So here's the thing. Most of the country was laissez-faire
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: about home rule. Then the Easter Rising happened. In 1916,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the Easter Rising was the largest rebellion against British rule
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: since 1798, which I think was the Wexford Rebellion. Now,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: It was mainly in Dublin, but pockets did occur across
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the country too. Over 1,200 people joined the garrison. So
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: you had IRB, IVF, Irish Citizens Army, and of course
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the all-women Cumann na mBan. Now, the rebels surrendered to
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: protect Irish citizens from more bloodshed. So they were just like,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: please stop killing people, we surrender, right? Word spreads about
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: illegal court-martials, people being executed without trials. 14 rebels, including
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: the seven signatories on the Irish Proclamation of the Republic,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: were executed between May 2nd and 12th, 1916. And this
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: was already causing a stir, but one man was the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: straw that broke the camel's back and garnered national sympathy
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: for the cause. James Connolly. He was held in a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: room in Dublin Castle, which was basically a triage room
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: for the First World War. And the fatal injuries that
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Connolly had sustained during the rising gave him only days
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: to live. Doctors said he's not going to survive. And
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: on May 12th, he was brought to Kilmainham Jail by ambulance.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: He was brought out on a stretcher and tied to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: a chair because he could not stand or sit unaided.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: They bound him to the chair. His glasses were removed.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: And the firing squad lifted their weapons and shot him.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: They shot a man tied to a chair. A man
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: who had days to live. And this caused an uproar. Like,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: almost 200 civilians. Court-martialed. 90 were sentenced to death. And
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: James Connolly's death led to a condemnation of the British
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: government and in the 1918 election in December, Sinn Féin,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: the Republican Party, won in a landslide. And in January,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: they declared Irish independence. And so the IRA was formed,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the Irish Republican Army, ready for war with Britain. In 1920,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: the Government of Ireland Act passed, creating two parliaments. Belfast
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: for the Unionists and Dublin for the Nationalists. Now, this
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: split the country. Northern Ireland and Ireland. Six counties in Ulster,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: but not in all of Ulster, just six out of
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: nine were part of Northern Ireland. Now, This also led
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: to the Irish Civil War, but that's another story for
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: another day. So in the North, there was no goal
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: of integration between Catholic and Protestant society, which was perpetuated
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: by the Loyalist government and the Catholic Church. So the
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Church pushed for Catholic children to be educated in Catholic
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: schools only. So there was no mixing of a young age.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: So There were segregated schools, segregated streets, neighbourhoods, shops. So
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: prejudice was very easy to condition. Now the troubles start
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: round about the 1960s. And from the mid-60s, a civil
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: rights campaign was growing against the Unionist government's discrimination against
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: the Catholic population. The parades were held to commemorate 50
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: years since the Easter Rising. And this was in 1966, which, sure, fair,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: fair enough, you know. But during this, a bunch, well,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: I should say a branch of the IRA decided to
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: blow up Nelson's Column in Dublin, which is like, it's
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: an English army. Dude, like, you know, why would that
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: be in Ireland? You know what I mean? Anyway, oh,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: so whatever, fine. Everyone was pretty cool with it. They're like, sure,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: blow up Nelson's column. It's fine. Admiral. He was an admiral.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: He was an admiral, wasn't he? I don't know. I
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: don't care about Nelson. So someone's going to come on
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: here and be like, how do you not know who
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Nelson is? I don't remember people's titles all the time. Listen,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: it's fine. So sharply after this, the new UVF was
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: formed by Gusty Spence. This paramilitary group was made up
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of loyalists who, after said parades, Petro bombed a Catholic pub.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: The fire spread to next door, killing an elderly Protestant widow,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the 74-year-old grandmother, Matilda Gould. Later that month, the UVF
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: declared war on the IRA and anyone helping it, stating
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: that known IRA men would be executed mercilessly and without hesitation.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: They ended up shooting Catholic civilians over the next month
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: and the government of Northern Ireland declared the UVF illegal
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: and arrested Gusty Spence. Members of the UVF continued to
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: attack civil rights marches and there was no response, or
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: very little response, from the RUC, the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: So that's the police force in Northern Ireland. So this
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: led to Republicans and Nationalists to side-eye is a police force.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: ACAB in it. Their fears were solidified when the RUC
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: were caught beating peaceful marchers and this led to riots.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: In 1969 another civil rights march was attacked by loyalists
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: including off-duty police officers in Belfast. Later that night, loyalists
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: rampaged through Bogside and Derry, attacking Catholic homes. And residents
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: actually barricaded the streets to stop police from entering for
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: their own safety, because they were terrified that the police
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: were just going to come in and make it worse.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Later that year, a bunch of electricity and water installations
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: were bombed across the north, leaving much of Belfast without
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: water or power. Now, this was blamed on the IRA,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: but as it turned out, it was actually the handiwork
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: of the UVF. Shit continued. Clashes, you know, attacks. The
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: police stormed innocent people's homes. Catholics were beaten. Innocent men.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Teenage girls. It was like an abuse of power. Like,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: they actually... It was at Devaney's house. They go into this...
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Just this dude happened to be Catholic. He's at home
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: and so are his two teenage daughters. Now, one of
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: them is, like, recovering from surgery and they beat the
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: shit out of her. Right? What the actual fuck? The
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: British army was deployed and Republicans already didn't trust the
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: police so bringing in the fucking army, like British forces
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: with guns, was going to cause some issues. And the
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: IRA exploited the population's fear and doubt of the military.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: And so in the early 70s, violence escalated. And then basically,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: members of the IRA thought other members of the IRA
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: weren't doing enough. And so the IRA splits. So you
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: have the official IRA and the provisional IRA. Now, the
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: provisional IRA was ready for armed warfare against loyalists and
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: British rule. Then bloody Sunday happened. 30th of January 1972.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: British soldiers opened fire on a civil rights march. 14
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: people died, all of them Catholic. Most of the fatalities
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: were of people running away from the soldiers or people
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: trying to help the wounded. Now this, unsurprisingly, was a
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: spark for retaliation. 1,300 bombings, hundreds of British soldiers killed
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: or wounded. and the remainder of 1972. The British government
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: response was Long Kesh. So the Long Kesh Detention Centre
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: opened in 1971, the purpose of which was to house
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: paramilitary prisoners due in the Troubles. It was built nine
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: miles south-west of Belfast, at the site of the former
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Long Kesh Royal Air Force Base. The same year Long
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Kesh opened, there was this passing of a bill of internment.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: And so, also, Operation Demetrius was launched. Okay, basically, the
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: loyalist government in Northern Ireland went to Westminster with a
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: demand to quash the IRA. And so, this was the result.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: On the 5th of August, 1971, Northern Irish minister, Brian
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Faulkner and British Prime Minister Edward Heath, well, they brought
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: in internment without trial. Anyone suspected of being involved in
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the IRA could be arrested. Now, Operation Demetrius was this
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: massive raid. It was a raid at dawn, you know,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and 342 people were arrested. and detained. No evidence needed.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: So with this whole period of internment, these people are
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: in a prison built for them, but like, it's not
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: built really well. Basically, they're in these Nissan huts, which
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: are corrugated iron prefabs from the old base, right? After
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: a while, they demanded better conditions. and political prisoner status
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: because they didn't see themselves as quote, common criminals. So
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: in 1972, a special category status for civil violence crimes, right?
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: So paramilitary prisoners, they had privileges. They got to wear
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: their own clothes. They had extra visits and the right
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: to freely associate with other prisoners. The entailment policy and
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the special category status both ended around the same time,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: so you're like late 75, early 76. And as of
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: the 1st of March 1976, prisoners convicted of terrorist offences
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: were housed in the H blocks. So the prison gets
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: a wee bit of a makeover and is renamed, you know,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: from the long cash. It is Her Majesty's Maze Prison,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: or simply, The Maze. The British government boasted that this
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: facility was the most secure prison in Europe. It was unescapable.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: The prison consisted of eight blocks, each in an H shape,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: so if you were above it, it would look like
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: an H. A Hitch! So, these were contained within like
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: three segments. And each was surrounded by concrete walls connected
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: by large hydraulic gates. So, each H block was a
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: secure unit inside an 18 foot high concrete wall topped
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: with barbed wire. Now, surrounding all of the H block
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: was a 15 foot security fence. And there were security cameras,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: motion sensors, all that jazz. Outside the prison was a
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: British army camp. An active British army camp. So the
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: H blocks were a prison within a prison within an
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: army camp. And it is maximum security.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: And.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, I should have explained. So the H, like the legs...
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: These are secure wings. And the centre, so that we, like,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: little line in the middle of the H, that we dash, right?
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: It was the command centre that controlled each block. Now,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: this was known as, like, the circle. So, with no
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: special category status, prisoners were shoved into the H blocks
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: and they responded rather civilly at first. Because, see, the
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: first person to protest was Kieran Nugent. Kieran Hill was
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: a member of the Provisional IRA. At 15 years old,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: he had been wounded and his best friend killed when
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Ulster loyalists shot them with a submachine gun as they
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: stood on a street corner chatting. Nugent was shot eight times.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: He was 15. Now, at this point, he was 18,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: 19 years old. He's in prison for a bus hijacking
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: incident And he was refusing to wear the prison uniform. Now,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: he does wear it once, only to see his mum
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: because she visited him and he told her that, like,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: she wouldn't see him again for three years because, you know,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: he's not going to wear the uniform and the only
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: way they'll make it do it is they'll have to
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: nail it to his back. And he's not allowed visitation
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: if he's not wearing his uniform. So, what he does
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: instead is he wears... the prison blanket, so the little
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: one that's put in his cell, he drapes it over him.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: And other prisoners soon followed suit and this became the
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: blanket protest. So, how do I put this? There's no
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: easy way. So, IRA members in the prison were willing
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: to die for political status and they believed that those
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: who were willing to keep it from them should be
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: willing to pay the same price. And so, the IRA
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Army Council agreed. And between 1976 and 1989, prison officers
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: were killed. Going to work, returning from mass, driving their cars, etc.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: And the very first was Patrick Dillon in April 1976.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: So this is what was happening on the outside. Now,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: the blanket protest continued for five more years. But it
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: really peaks, it escalates in 1978. Now, it was bad enough. Okay, well, okay,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: so the prison rules were that a prisoner had to
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: wear a uniform when leaving their cells. And so, because
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: they weren't wearing uniforms, they stayed in their cells 24
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: hours a day. Now, the prison governor tried to enforce
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: them wearing a uniform every two weeks. And when they refused,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: they were given three days on the boards. Now, what's
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: on the boards? So all the furniture was removed from
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: their cells and they got a number one diet, which
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: consisted of watery soup, dry bread and black tea. Basically,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: just enough to keep them alive. But, you know, this
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: also led to visitations being cut down. and one censored
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: letter a month was being sent out. So they were
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: really being cut off from the outside world. Now, this
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: wasn't ideal because they wanted to be able to communicate
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: with the outside world. There were reports of abuse of prisoners. Well,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: that's because they were abusing prisoners, actually. Now, In 1978,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: prisoners refused to leave their cells to use the toilets
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: or the showers because they did not want to be
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: attacked by prison officers. They requested showers in their cells
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: or lavatories, but instead they were given a wash basin
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: and a chamber pot. A prisoner is badly beaten by
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: a guard in H Block 6. Now, He ends up
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: being put into solitary after having the absolute bejesus beaten
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: out of him. And because of just how bad this
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: attack is, prisoners respond by smashing the furniture in their cells.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: So the prison authorities emptied the cells, leaving the prisoners
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: just with a blanket, a mattress and their chamber pots. Now,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: in order to empty the chamber pots that were in
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the cells, The prisoners had to leave the cells so
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: that the prison warders could go in and do it.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: But they refused. Enter the dirty protest. Prisoners smeared the content.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: of their chamber pots on the walls of their cells.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: And this smell was putrid. Rancid. Like it would make
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: you sick just to burn your nostrils, you know. And
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: maggots were crawling everywhere. Just because... All of the walls
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: and the floors are covered in shit. Like, this is
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: just the only weapon they have. Warders and prison officers
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: tried to spray disinfectant through the windows or they would
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: remove prisoners temporarily so they could steam hose the walls
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: and floors. But as soon as the prisoners were back
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: in their cells, the dirty protest continued. Now in 1980,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: seven prisoners began a hunger strike for five demands. 1.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: The right to not wear a prison uniform. 2. To
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: not do prison work. 3. Free association with other prisoners
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and be able to organise educational and recreational pursuits. 4.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: The right to one visit, one letter and one parcel
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: per week. And five, full restoration of remission lost through protests.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: After a 53-day hunger strike, Sean McKenna was lapsing in
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: and out of a coma. And the government, the British government,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: appeared to concede. With a 30-page document with the proposed settlement,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: it was in transit to Belfast. when the strike was
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: ended by Brendan Hughes to save McKenna's life. Now, Brendan Hughes,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: if you don't know, was also a big player. He
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: was a major component of the helicopter escape, but we
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: will talk about that another time. So after McKenna's life
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: is saved, nothing happens. And the prisoner stated that they
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: would go on another hunger strike until the British government
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: fulfilled their demands as political prisoners. And nothing happened. So,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: on the 1st of March 1981, the Irish hunger strike
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: began when Bobby Sands refused food. Now, I will have
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: an episode specifically on this in the future, so again,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: this is Cliff Notes. This strike... caught the attention of
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: international media. And Margaret Thatcher refused to reinstate the special
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: category status or recognise them as political prisoners by saying
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: on television, crime is a crime. After 66 days, on
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the 5th of May 1981, 27-year-old Bobby Sands had starved
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: to death. By the 3rd of October, nine more would
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: die before the strike was called off. This led to
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: a surge in IRA recruitment. The IRA prisoners now had
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: a fiery hatred towards both the prison and the British government. Meanwhile,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Margaret Thatcher boasted that the only way anyone would ever
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: leave May's prison... was in a wooden box. So the
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: IRA said, fuck this for a game of soldiers, seeing
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: their men die for political status and name only. And
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: so they wanted to majorly embarrass Thatcher and her government.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: In the aftermath of the 1981 Irish hunger strike, a
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: new playbook emerged. Enter the system in order to destroy it.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: They had a new plan and they were about to
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: play nice. For old school Republicans, this felt like a
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: smack in the face. But there was a plan. A
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: plan to embarrass the absolute fuck out of Margaret Thatcher.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: In November 1982, the paramilitary prisoners presented themselves for work
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: for the very first time. And the Northern Ireland office
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: thought that they had finally, finally broken the resolve of
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: the men that they had conceded. But my oh my,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: they were hoodwinked. Because these men were planning an escape
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: of the unescapable prison. But first, they needed a lay
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: of the land. Now, This had a small hitch in itself. See,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: when vans and buses moved prisoners to the kitchens, to
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the prison hospital, the vegetable gardens, administration and the workshops,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: the windows were blacked out to prevent prisoners from getting
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: their bearings. And yes, this was again an issue. But
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: in early 1983, an escape committee was established. And the
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: person in charge of getting info was Larry Marley, a
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: man known for escaping prisons. And he was in H3,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: so H Block 3. Then you had H Block 7. So,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Brendan Beck McFarlane, who took over from Bobby Sands as
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Officer Commander of the IRA Prisoners, he was in H7
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: with Brendan Brendymead, Tony McAllister, the six foot four Bobby
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Story and Jerry Kelly. So if you're wondering why I
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: felt the need to mention how tall Bobby Story is,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: it comes up quite a lot. Anytime you look him up,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: it's like, he's six foot four. But like, but like,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: it's like one of the Brendons, he's also six foot.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Like a lot of these fellas are big burly men,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: you know. They're imposing figures is what I'm saying. So
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Larry's goal was gaining intelligence. Like, his goal was not
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: to escape because his, I think his sentence was quite short. Like,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: he wasn't in for too much longer anyway. So yeah,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: his goal was all about that info gathering. So when
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: prisoners went on work detail or had court dates or
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: parole hearings, he had them try to just collect information Anything,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: anything that could even be remotely of use. He also
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: had ordnance survey maps and any media photos of the
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: prison smuggled inside. Now, to get more info, they needed
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: the prison officers to see them differently. And so the
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: prisoner started being friendly with the officers, casually using first names, right?
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: They had convos with them. They helped them with a sudoku.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I'm kidding. No one was doing sudoku by then. It
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: was all crosswords, right? All crosswords. Maybe a word search
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: if you're feeling a bit fruity. But yeah, this was
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: a slow process but tensions eased in the prison and
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: officers started to relax. Now, because they were constantly at odds,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: there were protests, there was just this vitriol going on
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: in the prison that you know the guards were always
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: on edge and the prisoners were always on edge and
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: somebody was always ready to beat someone with a baton
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: and this was consistent but now they're starting to chill
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: out because you know they'd banter they'd chat about the
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: football you know and they'd ask you know an innocuous
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: question here or there like oh wow it must take
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: you ages to get off duty when you have to
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: move 200 prisoners at one time and then the officer
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: would like you know just talk about staggered work times
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: or you know the big transfer time and all that
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: and how sometimes they would leave early to avoid the
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: transfer times and like this is info that was just
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: collected in a very typically chatty chatty way so they're
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: collecting timetables officer routines and the like. H block 7,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: the wings were cleaned and so pristine like they started
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: really taking care of the space they were living in.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: So much so that soon the officers had the prisoners
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: cleaning the command centre, the circle. Bick was one of
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: the prisoners who cleaned the circle. So the command centre
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: had a wooden door and a metal grill that was
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: padlocked shut. So to stop the command centre being so stuffy,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: the wooden door was often left open, but the grill
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: was locked. And this is like a double, that's their security. Door, grill.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: So after a few weeks, the grill was unlocked so
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Bick could bring the officers tea and toast. so like
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: they would just like chat through the bars they'd unlock
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: it for him to come in and clean because he
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: would like buff the floors like that was one of
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: his things and then he would just like bring them
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: food like anyway speaking of food the intelligence committee learned
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: that the food lorry travelled all over the prison It
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: delivered food to all of the H blocks, multiple deliveries
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: per day. It travelled in and out of the maze.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: And they discovered that prison officers were often loaned it,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: you know, in case they needed it for personal reasons,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: like moving furniture or deliver booze to a party. And
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: best of all, it wasn't searched between gates. And this
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: is where things get serious. The plan was to take
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: control of the circle. The Security Command Centre. Four points
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: needed to be secured by Bobby, Bick, Brendy, Cherry and Tony,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: who were all orderlies. Once secured, a signal would go
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: out for prisoners to take down the guards that were
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: assigned to each wing. Then they were to escape in
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the food lorry. Simple, right? While once outside, they would
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: also need getaway vehicles. They also required weapons. The plan
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: was smuggled out, approved by the council. And yeah, when
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: it was smuggled out, each part was written in teeny
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: tiny writing on scraps of paper that were folded down
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: into an inch and then smuggled out during visitations. So,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: It was approved to go ahead on the 25th of
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: September 1983. A Sunday. Why a Sunday? Well, I'm glad
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: you asked because I'll tell you. Less guards for a start.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: There were no work drops going on and the only
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: vehicles coming in or out was the food van. Now,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: not everyone was told the plan. It was very much
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: a need-to-know situation. Some people didn't even learn until the
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: day of, like it was a tight ship. Loose lips
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: sink ships, especially in a maximum security prison. Three small calibre.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: 25 automatic pistols and two silencers were smuggled in. Now,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: we actually don't know how they were smuggled in, Like,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: the IRA and no prisoner has ever admitted how they
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: got them in. But we believe, like, logistically, that it
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: was just smuggled in in pieces during visitations. Because, see,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: security was lax. There were no metal detectors, like, either
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: from visitors into the prison or of prisoners into, like,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: back into the sort of blocks, right? Listen, it's no fruitcake,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: but okay. So, in the two months leading up, 37
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: men from H7 had 52 special family visits. Now, this
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: was actually against the rules. They weren't supposed to have
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: these extra visitations, but they got them anyway. And The
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: theory is that that's how they smuggled the stuff in.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Bobby Story was appointed Officer Commander of the Escape. Beck
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: was his right-hand man. Bobby managed to get another pistol
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: from Seamus McElwain, who initially wasn't going to give it
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: because he was like, I want to use it for
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: an escape. And Bobby's like, listen, just join. Join us.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: We're doing it. he let him in on it because
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: he was like listen I guess so the thing is
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: though how they chose people who were going to escape
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: because they thought the more the better right but they
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: had to be like reasonable so it was agreed that
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: prisoners serving four or more years should get to go
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: in the food lorry however anyone that was up for
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: the risk was cleared to go So, certain prisoners were
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: assigned tasks for the day of escape, so they had
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: known for, like, weeks in the lead-up. And then those,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: just for the breakout, some learned just a few hours before. Now,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: they did dry runs, like, in the weeks leading up
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: to the jailbreak, just to make sure everything was going
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: to run smoothly. And the morning of, everything was as normal.
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: That Sunday morning, prisoners had gone to mass, had been
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: eating breakfast, having showers, etc.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: 24 orderlies were doing their work, cleaning and such. By
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: half twelve, all the prisoners were in their cells. Sean
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: McGlinchey and Eddie O'Connor were making ties and ponchos for, well,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: capturing the warders, with pillowcases to cover faces. they told
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: cellmate Kevin Barry Art about the escape like an hour
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: before it was supposed to happen. Now, initially he didn't
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: believe them.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: He was like, you're joking. And they were like, no, no,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: it's true. And also you're coming with us because basically,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: so Kevin Barry Art was actually innocent of the crime
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: that he was jailed for. Like, it's wild. They accused
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: him of doing like a bunch of stuff, but it
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: was actually, he was convicted of murder wrongly. And that's
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: why they were like, you're innocent, you can come with us, right?
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: So he does actually eventually get his conviction overturned. But again,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: another story for another day. So the circle team sprang
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: into action when the cell doors opened at five past two. Rab, Bic, Brendy,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Tony and Gerry and Sean were armed with four pistols,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: two of which had silencers. There were two replica guns
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: that were made out of wood and painted with shoe polish.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: and one of them had a chisel. They flooded the
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: governor's office and the welfare office with liquid polish. They
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: blocked the store with bins and chails. Other prisoners were
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: armed with hammers and chisels from the workshops and hobby rooms,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: and they all moved into position. Men grouped at the
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: alarm buttons in the wings and canteens, you know, talking
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: to each other and just kind of hanging about. Loitering,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: some might say. There were 24 guards on. There were
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: six in the circle. Sixteen were in the wings of
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: H blocks, so you had four pair, like, wing. And
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: then a few other just kind of around. So, the
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: green is for go signal was Beck shouting Bumper. Bumper
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: was the name of the floor polishing machine. Like, that
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: was the thing that he would, that was his job, really,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: his main thing. And so he was like, is the
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: bumper there? And that was, like, the signal. Because just
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: shouting bumper, by the way, a bit weird. Kind of
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: sounds odd. But asking a question sounds very reasonable. So
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: that was the quote. Then a 90-second countdown began. Bobby
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Story and Tony McAllister, like, they walked into the officer's
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: canteen in the Seawing. and ordered them to lie on
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: the floor. Like, the warders, they were just, like, shocked,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: and they didn't move until Bobby cocked his weapon, just like...
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: Jerry Kelly moved into the control room and pointed his
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: pistol at prison officer John Adams, telling him to act
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: normally if central command called, and if he wasn't, he'd
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: blow his head off. Beck shoved his silencer into the
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: ribs of an officer guarding the gate. Once he was
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: on the floor, they got another warder coming out of
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: the toilets and a medical orderly. So it was at
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: this point when they're getting like this other guy that
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: John Adams gets up. Now he tries to close the
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: door of this room because that's the only way to
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: reach the alarm button. Now like he lunges towards it,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: but before he gets to it, Jerry Kelly fired two
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: shots through the door and John Adams took a bullet
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: above his eye and slumped to the ground. He lived,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: by the way. He survived. Brendy had supervising officer Geordie
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Smiley at gunpoint in the principal officer's office. So hearing
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: the shots, Smiley lurched at Brendy and like they exchanged
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: a few punches before Bobby Story breached in and ordered
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: the officer to the floor or he would be shot.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: So Geordie Smiley lay on the ground. So, like, in
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: the area between the C and D wings, Rab pushed
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: the warder on duty to the floor and put a
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: pillowcase on his head. Both wings were seized. You know,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: one warder in D wing put up a fight and
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: got stabbed with a chisel. And I think afterwards he
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: had a heart attack. Now, there was no resistance in
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: C wing. Like one guard got a beating with a
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: hammer in a wing, in sort of a wing. Yeah,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: it was an a wing, he just got hammered. Now
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: the entire H block had been taken over by the
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: prisoners and no alarm had been sounded. Joe Corey and
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Sean McGlinchey stripped two wardens of their uniforms, donned them
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: and then escorted Bick up to the front gate. Now
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: Beck had a brush and a shovel, so basically like
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: a dustpan and brush, but like bigger. And this wasn't
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: unusual because he often swept outside. So no suspicions were raised.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: So the officer at the gate let them through. And
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: then they went over to him, took his keys, took
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: him away from the gate and brought him inside. All
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: the captured warders were taken to the two classrooms. They
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: were all stripped of their uniforms. They had pillowcases on
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: their faces and they put ponchos on them. They were
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: also tied together in pairs. 24 of them all together.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Prisoners who weren't escaping were makeshift balaclavas, basically to prevent
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: them being recognised because they were red guards, they were
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: red guarding. Now, 13 prisoners who were escaping put on
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: uniforms and some even shaved their moustaches off You know
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: it's a big deal when a moustache gets shaved. So
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: the prisoners who were not escaping or redguarding, they were
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: locked up in their cells so they could not be
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: accused of being involved. So like the ones who weren't
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: going anywhere. They were like, we're going to lock you
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: up because at least that way they can't be like, oh,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: you were involved in this. They're like, no, we weren't.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: We were in here. So the blue box food lorry
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: was 20 minutes late. Now, That's the thing. You can prepare,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: you can do everything in the world, but you cannot
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: prevent human error. When it came around, the driver and
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: the orderly were pulled out. Davy McLaughlin, the driver, was
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: told that he had to do as he was told
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: or he was going to be shot in the head.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: And he was like, this is just a job. I'll
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: do what you like. The meals were unloaded and 37
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: men jumped in the back. Gerry lay on the floor
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: with a pistol aimed at Davy. They also told Davy
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: that there was a grenade under his seat. There wasn't,
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: but the threat felt real enough. The lorry was silent.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: It drove through the airlock, which is the space between gates,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: with one singular officer manning it. The lorry then went
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: into the administration area. and drove up to Talley Lodge
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: and the main gate, and it parked near the vanpool.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Nine of the prisoners in officers' uniforms armed with guns
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: and chisels vacated the lorry, entered Talley Lodge and started
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: arresting wardens. Unfortunately, because of the 20-minute delay, they were
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: behind schedule and warders were arriving to get on duty.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: A few of them were stabbed to chisels. One managed
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: to hit the alarm button, but when the emergency control
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: room contacted, he was convinced to say that it was
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: an accident. Whipsay! With the influx of warders, like they
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: realised that they really needed to make a break for
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: it or they would not be able to go, like
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't be able to hold it because just more
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: people are arriving. So as they're getting into the lorry,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: two warders about to like start their duty, right? They
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: clocked what was happening and blocked the gateway with their cars.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Then a warder runs out of Talley Rog and raised
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: the alarm. Like it's funny because like one of the
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: officers actually thought that because they were all in uniform
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: that they were just fighting with one another. Like this
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: was like an internal issue. Like warders were fighting with warders.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: But anyway, this fella runs out, raises the alarm and
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: it's now 12 minutes past four and Bobby's story, he
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: just yanks open the back of the, you know, the
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: back door of the lorry and shouts to his men
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: to go. He's like, the bubbles burst. So officers tried
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: to stop the men streaming out of the lorry. 29
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: men legged it to the barbed wire fence and all
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: but two made it over. Like one fella just, like,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: has a coat or a jacket and he like throws
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: it over. And so they're just all clambering over this jacket. Now,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: they go up this hill and then they go down
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: a 30 foot gully and they zigzag like across a
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: field and they run to this farm. Like there's this
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: farmyard and there were two cars in a van. Now,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: eight men like leap into each car, right? It didn't
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: make sense because you've got two cars and a van.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: So eight men go into each car and then two
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: men go into the van. Now, it's interesting, though, because
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: the two fellows that go into the van, like the
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: van is caught pretty sharpish. And then you have these
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: two cars. In one car, you've got Seamus McElwain, Bick
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: and Jim Clark. And so they get a safe distance away.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: They abandon it. and continue on in foot to a
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: farmhouse in Drumoran County down. Right? So here's the thing
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: about this. This house they get to.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: They get to this house and it's, they're not, it's
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: not a safe house. They're not IRA members. They're just like, listen,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: here's what's happened. And he's like, you know, we need
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: to move on from here. And this family are like, yeah,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: no worries. We get it. We get it. It sucks
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: to be this And so, like, they weren't Republicans by
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: any stretch of the imagination, but they were like, we
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: get it, buddy. We get it. And the thing is,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: as well, is they were like, we're going to take
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: your eldest son with us just to make sure you
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: don't snitch. And they're like, please don't. Please don't take
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: our son. Please, we'll do anything. And they're like, give
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: me your word and swear upon this Bible that you won't, like,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: raise the alarm. And they were like, absolutely. They swore
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: on the Bible. And then the IRA men left. Nobody
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: was harmed, right? So they then make it to Newry.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: So they get to Newry. Now, in the other car,
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: they split. So Tony Kelly, he says that they were
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: struggling to fit. Now, that doesn't surprise me because quite
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of these men were over six foot tall.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: So they pull over into this lay-by and they commandeered
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: a car from these two women They're like, my mum
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: needs the car and they're like, we need it more.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: And so they were like, sure, here's the keys, have fun.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: So these two cars, then they go off in different directions.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: So you have Tony Kelly, Paddy McIntyre, Jim Smith and
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: Joe Corey, right? Now, Paddy McIntyre was a big GAA
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: fan or as we call it, the GAA, right? So
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: he was, they're getting to like Limerick or Leitrim, they're
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: getting their way to Leitrim and Paddy's like, oh, there's
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: a GAA club around here. And they're like, good, we're
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: in the right direction. Because he read a lot of
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: books about the Gaelic Amateur Association in Ireland. So he
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: knew where they were going. So, yeah, they knew they
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: were on the right road. They get to a safe
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: house in Castlewell in County Down.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: Now, So was it Tony and Jim? They managed to
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: make it like over the border. Like they're the first
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: people to like make it safe. Now, Paddy and Joe,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: they get arrested later after the RUC surrounded a safe
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: house and sent a priest in. So they were like,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: we need to surrender and come out because like they've
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: sent a priest. This is for last rites. They're not
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: going to let us survive, right? So they surrender. So
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: back at the... Back at the prison, right? Some of
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: the escapees tried to take officers' cars, like Brendy. He
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: pulled one out of a car and the warder just
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: like fucking chucks his keys, right? And they fight. Brendy
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: gets the keys. and drives off with another prisoner another
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: warder like follows him like he's driving behind him he's
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: flashing his lights he pulls out in front causing the
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: car to crash right so the car crashes the two
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: prisoners leap out and they make a break with their
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: car now Wendy, Paul Kane and, you know, Kevin Barry
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: Art make it to the main road where they steal
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: a passing car. So these guys make it, sorry, and
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: then two prisoners are caught. That's what happens there. So
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: Gary Roberts, like he was picked up by the British
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: army as he was crossing a field and he was
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: handed over at the RUC checkpoint where he was beaten.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: Then he was brought back to the Long Kesh where
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: he was beaten even worse. Harry Murray, like he's running
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: away from a warder who has his gun on him
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: and he shoots him in the leg. And then as
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: he's running, he's also shot in the leg by a
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: soldier in a watchtower. So four more escapees were found
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: hiding in the reeds at the side of the River Lagan,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: which is like a half mile from the prison. Now,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: all prisoners who were taken back to May's prison, to
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: the Long Kesh, were severely beat it. Like, extensively so. Right,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: here's the thing. Almost immediately after the breakout, Bobby Storey,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: Gary Robert, Joseph Simpson, Edward O'Connor, Marcus Murray, Harry Murray,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: Martin McManus, Jim McCann, Sean McGlunchy, William Gorman, James Burns,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: Dennis Cummings, and Peter Hamilton were recaptured. Right, like, again,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: almost immediately. They were stripped, beaten and then dragged along
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: the concrete ground near H Block 7 by prison officers.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: The prison orderly, who was not involved in any way,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: the guy they pulled from the van, he took a
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: baton to the face and lost two teeth. 19 of
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: the escapees made it across the border. Kevin Barryart, Seamus Clark,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: Paul Brennan, Gerard Fries, Dermot Furnicane, Tony McAllister, Gerry Kelly,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: Gerry MacDonald, Jim Smith, Brendan Vic McFarlane, Robert Russell, Terence Kirby,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: Jim Clark, Kieran Fleming, Seamus McIlwain, Dermot McNally, Seamus Campbell,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: Tony Kelly and Poldrick McKierney. Over the years, most returned
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: to prisons on both sides of the border Here's the thing, though.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong. I put two names there that shouldn't be there. Like,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: so-and-so escaped, right? This many people, like, got out and
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: weren't caught immediately. Now, two people I mentioned there, Seamus
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: Campbell and Gerard Fryers, after the escape, neither was seen again. Like,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: hide nor hear, like, over the last however many years,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: nobody has ever heard or seen from them. Now, Did
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: they escape fully? Did they manage to get over the border?
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: Did they start new lives and new passports and were
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: never caught magically? Or did something worse happen? Like, I'm suspicious, right?
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: I'm suspicious that, you know, were they caught by someone?
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: Did they end up in an unfriendly situation? Were they executed?
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: Their bodies destroyed? Because nothing about them has ever shown
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: up anywhere. Anyhow. Over the years, most escapees returned to
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: prisons on both sides of the border. Back at the maze,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: the 88 prisoners in H Block 7 were moved to
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: H8 because it was empty at the time, it wasn't active.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: And they were moved there so that H7 could be
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: investigated by crime scene officers. So while investigations were going on,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: the half-naked and barefoot prisoners, again, the ones who were
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: not involved in the escape, they were forced to run
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: a gauntlet between two lines of prison officers with dogs.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: German Shepherds, or Alsatians if you prefer. They ran between them.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: bitten by the dogs and beaten by the officers. 22
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: of these men would later receive compensation for the abuse.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing about this. The prison governor, he
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: lied under oath. He claimed that this never happened, that
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: this never happened to the prisoners. He later admitted that
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: You know, that he perjured himself. He later admitted to
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: lying under oath in court. And he also very adamantly
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: stated that he was never going to discipline the officers
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: for what they did. He had never any intention of it.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: So this escape from the long cache. This was the
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: largest jailbreak in British penal history. And it was a
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: massive propaganda coup for the IRA. Naturally, an investigation happened
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: to see what the actual fuck went on. How the
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: hell did this happen? The Hennessy Report. An inquiry led
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: by Sir James Hennessy, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: It showed structural design weaknesses, lax security procedures, per management
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: and prison staff failures. They were like, I'm sorry, you
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: unlocked the grill? You were chatting to these people like
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: they were your pals? You gave them information about, like,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: the stuff you did? This led to mass resignations, operational
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: changes and tightened physical security upgrades. As a result of
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: this breakout, 42 prison officers were so traumatised by the incident,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: they did not return to work. Jerry Kelly, however, one
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: of the escapees, made it to the Netherlands. He was
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: extradited back to the north. He served some time and
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: then when he was free, he got into politics. Like
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: so much so, he is like a pretty big player
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: in the Good Friday Agreement. Like it is a big... Deal. Now,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: I always wanted to share that because it is interesting
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: to see where this went. Some of the men would
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: flee the country and then get extradited. There were some
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: who refused to return. There are others who were held
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: south of the border because they just didn't feel that
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: they were going to be safe going north of. Others
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: were killed by the SAS. Others by the UVF. Like,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: there was all these different stories. Like, Larry Marley, sort
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: of the mastermind behind it. Like, he's shot on his
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: front door by UVF members. Like, that just opens the door,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: leaving behind something like, is it five, six kids? Da-da-da-da-da-da.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: But, like, I couldn't. go into the details of every
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: single one of these people because there's just too much information, but...
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: The escape from Long Kesh wasn't just, like, the biggest
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: jailbreak in UK penal history. It was the biggest jailbreak
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: in Europe since the Second World War. Which is impressive,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: you can't deny that, but it also shows you the
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: value of teamwork. In all seriousness, like, the thing about
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: the jailbreak here... The thing about the long cashmere is
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: that nobody's hands are clean here. Like, nobody. I think
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: the closest to clean hands is Kevin Barry Art, who
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: was wrongly convicted of murder. But, like, for the most
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: part on both sides of this, everyone has blood on
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: their hands. Like, there's no black or white in this situation. Like,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: everybody did something, you know? And... At the end of
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: the day, also, Thatcher was a bitch and I'm glad
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: she was made to eat her words. There's a reason
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: that Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead became number one
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: when Thatcher died. It was like the number one song
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: just so everybody knows. And what's interesting about that is
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: that a song that is not new, like if it's
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: an older song, in order for it to top the charts,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: especially things like Spotify, is it has to have like
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: an exponentially... like higher listen rate and higher download rate than, like,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: new tracks would. So it is, it has to do really,
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: really well. Anyhow, with that, that is the story of
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: the escape from Long Kesh, or the maze escape, if
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: you will. Now, some Republicans actually refer to it as
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: The Great Escape. Incidentally, that's... We will be talking about
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: The Great Escape. The actual... No, that's not that.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: That is....
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: No, that is... That's Indiana Jones. And that's it, right? Yeah,
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: there we go.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: That's it. That's it, right? That feels like... It's one
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: of those things. I feel like it's... Listen, I could
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: break into the Superman theme song, but it's just going
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: to continue. Now, that being said, with that, goodness, before
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: I go, I should probably remind you about my tour.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: Buy tickets. Come see me. More news coming soon. Come
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: do that. I'm looking forward to seeing you all over
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: the place. I'm finally going to have the artwork coming
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: soon for the posters. So that's been taking some time.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: And....
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: I haven't announced some of the dates yet, but they
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: will be announced because I have to wait for the
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: venues to announce some of them first. Anyhow, again, I
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: gotta go. So, recommendation time for watching The Gentleman by
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: Guy Ritchie. Listen, I'm enjoying the new season because I
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: love flawed villains and quite enjoy a Guy Ritchie production.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: For reading, Joan. yeah it's non-fiction suck it up so
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: Joan it's the Joel thief I just Joan Harrington I
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: just I like it I like there is going to
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: be a heist month I don't know when that's happening
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: but there is a heist month coming up at some
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: point now for listening listen I've been listening to different
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: versions of like the Rocky Horror Picture Show like the soundtracks.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: I've been listening to, was it the original version, sort
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: of the stage version. The Luke Evans one hasn't been
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: out yet. I haven't heard that yet. But I have
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of opinions on the way men sing Damn
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: It Janet. I have a very particular way that I'd
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: like it to be sung. It's kind of like the
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: same opinions I have, but not the same. I have
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: opinions for the role of Seymour. and Lily Shop of Horrors,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: but that's also another story for another day. But with that,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: I shall bid you good day. My voice is starting
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: to go. Luckily, I have these beautiful sweets from Germany
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: to help me. Thank you, Tersen from Germany, who sent
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: me special throat sweets to stop me going hoarse. But
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: I shall bid you adios. Au revoir. A vous de zem,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: my friends.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: Bye-bye.