Maze Prison escape the prison walls using knotted sheets. A guard was shot and wounded during the escape, and the prisoners were captured after being chased across fields by guards and the police. In March 1997 a tunnel was discovered in H7 at the Maze Prison. The tunnel was fitted with electric lights, and was from the outside wall, having already breached the block's perimeter wall. On 10 December 1997 IRA prisoner Liam Averill, serving a life sentence after being convicted of the murder of two Protestants, escaped from the Maze dressed as a woman. Averill mingled with a group of prisoners' families
Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape The Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape occurred on 31 October 1973 when three Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteers escaped from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, Ireland, aboard a hijacked Alouette II helicopter, which briefly landed in the prison's exercise yard. The escape made headlines around the world and was an embarrassment to the Irish coalition government of the time, led by Fine Gael's Liam Cosgrave, which was criticised by opposition party Fianna Fáil. A manhunt involving twenty thousand members of the Irish Defence Forces and Garda Síochána was launched for the escapees, one of whom, Seamus Twomey,