HM Prison Maze name. Republican and loyalist prisoners were housed according to group. They organised themselves along military lines and exercised wide control over their respective H-Blocks. The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader Billy Wright was shot dead in December 1997 by two Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners. The prisoners also played a significant role in the Northern Ireland peace process. On 9 January 1998, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam, paid a surprise visit to the prison to talk to members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) including Johnny Adair, Sam "Skelly" McCrory and Michael Stone. They
Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape thousand members of the Irish Defence Forces and Garda Síochána ensued. Mallon was recaptured at a Gaelic Athletic Association dance in a hotel near Portlaoise on 10 December 1973, and imprisoned in Portlaoise Prison. He escaped from there in a mass break-out on 18 August 1974, when nineteen prisoners escaped after overpowering guards and using gelignite to blast through the gates. He was recaptured in Foxrock in January 1975 and returned to Portlaoise Prison. O'Hagan was recaptured in Dublin in early 1975, and also imprisoned in Portlaoise Prison. After the end of his original twelve-month sentence, he was immediately arrested