The Maze Prison became the scene for symbolic protests, hunger strikes and a dramatic escape in 1983, which led to it attaining a special status and focal point of the conflict in Northern Ireland, for those on both sides of the political divide.

Known to prisoners as Long Kesh, it played a significant role in the negotiations for ‘the Peace Process’ and was finally closed on 29th September 2000. Northern Visions went back to the prison with an ex-Loyalist and ex-Republican prisoner, to see what life was really like in the Compounds and H-Blocks.