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 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