HM Prison Armagh, also known as Armagh Gaol, is a former prison in Armagh, Northern Ireland. The construction of the prison began in 1780 to a design of Thomas Cooley and it was extended in the style of Pentonville Prison in the 1840 and 1850s. For most of its working life Armagh Gaol was the primary women's prison in Ulster. Although the prison is often described as Armagh Women's Gaol, at various points in its history, various wings in the prison were used to hold male prisoners.[1]
During the period of the internment, 33 republican women were interned in the prison from 1973 to 1975.[2]
On 19 April 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.[3]
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 menstrual blood on the cell walls. Three women in Armagh took part in the 1980 hunger strike: Mairéad Nugent, Mary Doyle and Mairéad Farrell, who was killed by the Special Air Service (SAS) in Gibraltar in 1988. No Armagh prisoners took part in the 1981 Irish hunger strike.
The prison closed in 1986. In 2009 it was announced that the prison was to become a hotel.[4]
Armagh Prison was the subject of one of the so-called black spider memos written by Charles, Prince of Wales to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in 2004.[5]
^Three Gaols: Images of Crumlin Road, Long Kesh and Armagh Prisons; Author: Robert Kerr. Publisher: MSF Press, [2011] ISBN 978-0-9568069-0-1
^Wahidin, Azrini (2016). Ex-Combatants, Gender and Peace in Northern Ireland: Women, Political Protest and the Prison Experience. Springer. p. 32. ISBN 978-1137363305.
^"A Chronology of the Conflict - 1979". Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN). Retrieved 29 January 2010.
^City gaol to become luxury hotel
^Secretary of State, Northern Ireland (6 September 2004). "(letter)" (PDF). Retrieved 7 November 2020.
The service's primary Prison Officer training facility, the Prison Service College, is based at Hydebank Wood. Also known as Armagh Gaol, this establishment...
downgraded to category B. HMPrison Wormwood Scrubs is an example of a Category B prison. They are the equivalent of a medium security prison in the United States...
54°30′50″N 6°11′10″W / 54.514°N 6.186°W / 54.514; -6.186 HMPrison Maghaberry is a high security prison near Lisburn, Northern Ireland, which opened in 1986...
HMPrison Belfast, also known as Crumlin Road Gaol, is a former prison situated on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, Northern Ireland. Since 1996 it is...
design of Pentonville (HMPrison), is Victorian. For most of its working life it was a women's prison although not exclusively so. Armagh Gaol was the primary...
Maze Prison escape (known to Irish republicans as the Great Escape) took place on 25 September 1983 in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. HMPrison Maze...
The South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) operated during the Troubles in south County Armagh. It was organised into two...
to His Majesty's Prisons is an episcopal post in the Church of England relating to the church's chaplaincy to His Majesty's Prison Service. The bishop...
pistol and a hand grenade. McGinn was released from prison in 1987, and joined the IRA's South Armagh Brigade. Initially viewed as an outsider, within several...
Army (INLA) prisoners held in the Maze Prison (also known as "Long Kesh") and a protest at Armagh Women's Prison in Northern Ireland. In March 1978 some...
in Armagh Women's Prison joined the strike, including Mairéad Farrell, followed by a short-lived hunger strike by several dozen more prisoners in HM Prison...
Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HMPrison Maze in Northern Ireland. Sands helped to plan the 1976 Balmoral Furniture...
Cross Society. Kathleen Blanche Kinahan, Member, Board of Visitors, HMPrison, Armagh. Dennis George King. For services to the conservation and restoration...
Raois, 25 February 1957 – 21 May 1981) was an Irish volunteer in the South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). In 1976, he and...
Women's Land Army. (Leamington Spa). Margaret Mills, Chief Officer, HMPrison, Armagh. John Morris, Head Foreman Riveter, Greenock Dockyard Company Ltd...
County Armagh, but he was raised in The Moy, a village in the south-east of County Tyrone, just across the River Blackwater from County Armagh. He was...
Specials from Tynan shooting dead an unarmed civil rights demonstrator in Armagh on 14 August 1969. While the Northern Ireland cabinet remained supportive...
beaten by interrogators in the Omagh and Armagh police barracks and held in the H Blocks of Long Kesh (HMPrison Maze) until his trial in November 1977...
the only female inmate at HMPrison Maghaberry near Lisburn from May 2011 until she was moved to the hospital wing of HMPrison Hydebank Wood in February...
Global Information