) At the time of the novel’s events in 2007 the situation had reached a point where it appeared that Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party had reached enough accommodation to allow the Assembly to move forward. From 1998 to the present the history of this institution has been a tumultuous one, with the Assembly suspended more often than not in the years 1998-2007. This is again situated in the Parliament Buildings at Stormont hence “Stormont” once again refers to the home rule portion of Northern Ireland’s government. Under the Belfast Agreement of 1998 a Northern Ireland Assembly was established to provide a new home rule institution for Northern Ireland. In 1972 the home rule government was suspended by the British Parliament because of the Troubles, and Westminster assumed direct control of most of Northern Ireland’s governance. “Stormont” evolved to become, in the vernacular of Northern Ireland, the name used to refer to both the Parliament Buildings and to the government of Northern Ireland itself. In 1932 it moved to the newly built Parliament Buildings on the Stormont Estate just east of Belfast. From then until 1932 the Parliament met in various locations within Belfast. In Northern Ireland, this “home rule” Parliament began to function as established by the Act in June of 1921. #ELUCIDATE THESAURUS FREE#(This act led to Southern Ireland instigating the Irish War of Independence, which resulted in the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922.) The Parliament of Northern Ireland was created under the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, by which the government of the U.K partitioned Ireland into North and South. The worst example of this inter-mingling was the murder of Billy “King Rat” Wright, a UVF Loyalist (and a born-again Christian), who was assassinated inside the prison on 27 December 1997 by three INLA inmates. #ELUCIDATE THESAURUS HOW TO#At least this does occur in the novel in the case of Gerry’s friendship with Ronnie Lennox, the Loyalist prisoner who taught him how to do guitar woodwork (chapter 6). While the prisoners of the Catholic/Protestant factions were housed separately in the Maze, there were apparently situations that they could come into contact. Ten Men Dead is a book about the hunger strike. Another nine hunger strikers (members of both the IRA and the INLA) died by the end of August before the hunger strike was called off in October. More than 100,000 people attended Bobby Sands' funeral in Belfast. But the British government was still resisting and on 5 May, after 66 days on hunger strike, Sands died. Outside the prison in a major publicity coup, Sands was nominated for Parliament and won the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election. Bobby Sands, the Officer Commanding of the Provisional IRA prisoners, began a second action on 1 March 1981. However, the government immediately reverted to their previous stance, confident the prisoners would not start another strike. In December the prisoners called off the hunger strike when the government appeared to concede their demands. Thatcher's Conservative government did not initially give in. On 27 October 1980, seven Republican prisoners refused food and demanded political status. The Maze prison event that all people in Northern Ireland, and probably throughout the U.K., remember is the hunger strike that was staged in 1980-81. There is little doubt that in the public mind Maze was a facility housing primarily Republican prisoners, regardless of the percentage of Loyalist paramilitaries that were resident at different times. The article above mentions a figure of 95% Catholics as of a 1975 date. One site mentions a total number over the years of about 10,000 prisoners, with the great majority of these Catholics. The prison’s peak capacity in the 1980s was about 1700.Ĭuriously, I was not able to find definitive statistics on how many prisoners of the various paramilitaries served time in the Maze. Her Majesty’s Prison Maze (also known as The Maze, The H Blocks, and Long Kesh – the latter because that was the name of the former Royal Air Force station where the prison had been built) was the prison, situated southwest of Belfast, that was used to house paramilitary prisoners from 1971 to 2000. The Troubles, continued (view spoiler) [ Maze Prison (view spoiler) [ Her Majesty’s Prison Maze (also known as The Maze, The H Blocks, and Long Kesh – the latter because that was the name of the former Royal Air Force station where the prison had been built) was the prison, situated southwest of Belfast, that was used to The Ghosts of Belfast review, Part II Examples of physical attraction.The Ghosts of Belfast review, Part II Part I.
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