In 1981 Hamilton began work on a trilogy of paintings based on the conflict in Northern Ireland after watching a television documentary about the "Blanket" protest organized by IRA prisoners in Long Kesh Prison, officially known as The Maze. "The citizen" (1981–1983) shows IRA prisoner Hugh Rooney portrayed as Jesus, with long flowing hair and a beard. Republican prisoners had refused to wear prison uniforms, claiming that they were political prisoners. Prison officers refused to let "the blanket protesters" use the toilets unless they wore prison uniforms. The republican prisoners refused, and instead smeared the excrement on the wall of their cells. Hamilton explained (in the catalogue to his Tate Gallery exhibition, 1992), that he saw the image of "the blanket man as a public relations contrivance of enormous efficacy. It had the moral conviction of a religious icon and the persuasiveness of the advertising man's dream soap commercial - yet it was a present reality". "The subject" (1988–89) shows an Orangeman, a member of an order dedicated to preserve Unionism in Northern Ireland. "The state" (1993) shows a British soldier on a "foot" patrol on a street. "The citizen" was shown as part of "A Cellular Maze", a 1983 joint exhibition with Donagh.