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
Maze Prison escape a soldier in a watch tower, and the other prisoner was captured after falling. The other prisoners escaped over the fence, and by 4:18 pm the main gate was closed and the prison secured, after 35 prisoners had breached the prison perimeter. The escape was the biggest in both British and Irish history, and the biggest in Europe since World War II. Outside the prison the IRA had planned a logistical support operation involving 100 armed members, but due to a miscalculation of five minutes the prisoners found no transport waiting for them and were forced to flee across fields