HM Prison Armagh 1979, Agnes Wallace (40), a prison officer, was shot dead and three colleagues were injured in an Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) gun and grenade attack outside the prison. The prison was the scene of a protest by female Irish republican prisoners demanding the reinstatement of political status, although the numbers involved were much smaller than in the Maze (also known as Long Kesh) men's prison. As all women prisoners in Northern Ireland already had the right to wear their own clothes, they did not stage any sort of blanket protest, but the no wash protest included the smearing of
Portlaoise Prison and the Yellow Lady" and made headlines worldwide. In 1974, nineteen Republican prisoners escaped in one daylight escape. On Friday the 29 December 1974 Provisional IRA prisoners held several prison officers hostage and caused considerable destruction to their wing in a protest for better living conditions inside the jail. Irish Army soldiers were used to regain control & the hostages were freed all of them unharmed. In 1975, during an attempted escape, Tom Smith of the IRA's Dublin Brigade was shot dead by the Irish Defence Forces. The prisoners had blasted their way through a door in the recreation area