Peace Process
The prisoners also played a significant role in the Northern Ireland peace process. On 9 January 1998, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam, paid a surprise visit to the prison to talk to members of the Ulster Defence Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters (UDA/UFF) including Johnny Adair, Sam McCrory and Michael Stone. They had voted for their political representatives to pull out of talks. Shortly after Mowlam's visit, they changed their minds, allowing their representatives to continue talks that would lead to the Good Friday Agreement of 10 April 1998. Afterwards, the prison was emptied of its paramilitary prisoners as the groups they represented agreed to the ceasefire. In the two years following the agreement, 428 prisoners were released. On 29 September 2000, the remaining four prisoners at Maze were transferred to other establishments in Northern Ireland and the Maze prison was closed.
Read more about this topic: HM Prison Maze
Famous quotes containing the words peace and/or process:
“Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another’s keeping.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“To me, the whole process of being a brushstroke in someone else’s painting is a little difficult.”
—Madonna [Madonna Louise Ciccione] (b. 1959)