ABSTRACT
During the period of conflict the majority of prisoners were paramilitaries, and over this time the site also acquired a deeply contested – and heavily symbolic – significance both within the communities that prisoners were drawn from and beyond. As Peter Shirlow and Kieran McEvoy estimate approximately 20,000 to 25,000 people passed through the prison system in Northern Ireland at one point or another during the years of conflict. This represents a large cross-section of the population whose lives were affected in some way. In 2000, two years after the GFA signalled the success of the peace process in Northern Ireland, the last prisoners left HMP Maze. For almost 30 years the prison played a major role in the experience of the Troubles, initially holding republican paramilitaries after the introduction of internment without trial in 1971.
