Provisional Irish Republican Army 1982, reflecting the sequence in which the old leadership of the republican movement were being sidelined. IRA prisoners convicted after March 1976 did not have Special Category Status applied in prison. In response, more than 500 prisoners refused to wear prison clothes. This activity culminated in the 1981 Irish hunger strike, when seven IRA and three Irish National Liberation Army members starved themselves to death in pursuit of political status. The hunger strike leader Bobby Sands and Anti H-Block activist Owen Carron were elected to the British Parliament, and two other protesting prisoners were elected to the Dáil. In addition,
Portlaoise Prison walls, cameras, sensors and acres of tank traps (Czech hedgehog). The prison has a capacity for 399 prisoners, but because of the security sensitive nature of its inmates, it operates below this capacity and its daily average number of resident inmates was only 119 in 2009. There have been various high-profile attempts to spring prisoners from inside the walls. In 1902, the infamous criminal James Lynchehaun, who was in prison for the attempted murder of Agnes McDonnell, escaped unaided over the walls and made his way to America. The method of escape is well documented in the book, "The Playboy