Brixton Prison IRA escape 1991 Brixton Prison IRA escape 1991 On the 7 July 1991 two Provisional IRA volunteers Pearse McAuley and his cellmate Nessan Quinlivan escaped from HM Prison Brixton using two hand guns smuggled into them and subduing a prison guard. It was one of the most serious IRA escapes from a prison since the 1983 Maze Prison escape During the Troubles, Irish republican prisoners had escaped from custody "en masse" on several occasions. On 17 November 1971, nine prisoners dubbed the "Crumlin Kangaroos" escaped from Crumlin Road Jail when rope ladders were thrown over the wall. Two prisoners were recaptured, but the
Acre Prison blowing a hole in the wall through which 27 Irgun prisoners escaped. 214 Arab prisoners also escaped. Three Irgun men who took part in that attack (Avshalom Haviv, Meir Nakar, and Yaakov Weiss) were captured during that attack and imprisoned and executed there. The prison also contained Jewish prisoners, members of the Hagana, Lehi, and Irgun. One of those prisoners was Eitan Livni (father of Tzipi Livni), the Irgun operations officer. In total, the prison contained 700 Arab prisoners and 90 Jewish prisoners. A room in the prison was occupied for some months by Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í