Editing HM Prison Armagh

{{Short description|Former prison in County Armagh, Northern Ireland}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}}
{{Use Irish English|date=November 2020}}
[[File:ArmaghPrison.jpg|thumb|right|220px|Armagh Prison]]

'''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 (architect)|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.<ref>Three Gaols: Images of Crumlin Road, Long Kesh and Armagh Prisons; Author: Robert Kerr. Publisher: MSF Press, [2011] {{ISBN|978-0-9568069-0-1}}</ref>

During the period of the [[Operation Demetrius|internment]], 33 republican women were interned in the prison from 1973 to 1975.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Ex-Combatants, Gender and Peace in Northern Ireland: Women, Political Protest and the Prison Experience|last=Wahidin|first=Azrini|publisher=Springer|year=2016|isbn=978-1137363305|pages=32}}</ref> 

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.<ref>{{cite web | title=A Chronology of the Conflict - 1979| work=Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)| url=http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch79.htm| access-date=29 January 2010}}</ref>

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 (HM Prison)|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 abstained from doing prison work. In 1979, several prisoners joined the [[Armagh Prison no-wash protest|no wash protest]] held by IRA prisoners in the Maze. Their tactics 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 would later be [[Operation Flavius|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.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7868499.stm City gaol to become luxury hotel]</ref>

Armagh Prison was the subject of one of the so-called [[black spider memos]] written by [[Charles, Prince of Wales]] to [[Secretary of State for Northern Ireland|the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland]] in 2004.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/427300/NIO_Scanned_Letters.pdf | title=(letter) | author=Secretary of State, Northern Ireland | date=6 September 2004 | access-date=7 November 2020 }}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
*Three Gaols: Images of Crumlin Road, Long Kesh and Armagh Prisons; Author: Robert Kerr. Publisher: MSF Press, [2011] {{ISBN|978-0-9568069-0-1}}

{{Places of Interest in County Armagh}}
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[[Category:Buildings and structures in County Armagh]]
[[Category:Defunct prisons in Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:Grade B+ listed buildings]]
[[Category:Prison museums in Northern Ireland]]
[[Category:Museums in County Armagh]]
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{{UK-prison-stub}}
[[Category:Internment camps during the Troubles (Northern Ireland)]]
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