The Fight for Political Status in Portlaoise Prison, 1973–7: Prologue to the H-Blocks Struggle

Between 1973 and 1977, about 100 Provisional republican prisoners staged a series of violent prison protests and hunger strikes in the Republic of Ireland’s high-security prison, Portlaoise. Research on political imprisonment during the Northern Ireland conflict overwhelmingly focuses on the H-Blocks struggle. The Portlaoise Prison protests, thus, remain an under-researched area, largely ignored by academics, commentators, and the public. This article tells the story of these protests in Portlaoise by focussing on three periods: winter 1974/5, winter 1975/6, and spring 1977. The Portlaoise protests ended almost simultaneously with the start of the blanket- and no-wash-protests in the H-Blocks. This article is based on the testimonials of former Irish republican prisoners, statements of the republican movement, and interviews with former Portlaoise inmates.