Northern Ireland: The I.R.A.'s Great Escape

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Britain is embarrassed as 38 terrorists break out of the Maze

The arrival of the food van at Northern Ireland's Maze Prison on Sunday afternoon was routine enough. It was carrying the 4:30 meal (corned beef, pork, eggs, cheese, bread and tea) for the prison's inmates, many of them convicted terrorists of the Irish Republican Army. Passing through two security gates, the van pulled up in front of No. 7 H-block of the prison, site of dramatic I.R.A. hunger strikes two years ago. There the routine came to a violent stop. Prisoners armed with smuggled guns and homemade knives had already overpowered their guards; now they commandeered the vehicle. Thirty-eight men, who had been waiting for the van for more than an hour, piled inside; one of them pointed a gun at the driver's stomach. The van gingerly retraced its path toward the prison's main gate. There the escaping inmates outnumbered the guards 4 to 1. A prison officer, who realized what was happening, swerved his car across the entrance. Another, James Ferris, 43, struggled with the prisoners who had streamed out of the van. Finally, the escapees ran off, leaving behind them Ferris, fatally stabbed, and six other guards, wounded.

Thus began what jubilant I.R.A. supporters quickly dubbed the "Great Escape." The 38 men—convicted killers, bomb experts and kidnapers from the I.R.A.'s militant Provisional wing—had broken out of the compound considered until then to be perhaps the most escape proof in Europe. The biggest prison break in British history triggered one of the largest manhunts ever seen on either side of the Irish border. In Dublin, Irish authorities ordered increased surveillance of the rugged border area to prevent fugitives from reaching traditional sanctuaries in the counties of Sligo, Donegal, Monaghan, Leitrim and Louth. In Ulster, security forces threw a tight five-mile cordon around the prison, while thousands of soldiers and police blocked roads, combed fields and searched houses throughout the week. It was, said one police officer involved in the search, "like trying to corner a pack of wolves."

By week's end the dragnet had yielded 19 fugitives, 15 by Sunday night, two more on each of the following two days. Many of those were merely sacrificial pawns, analysts believe, willing to be recaptured to cover the escape of some of the I.R.A.'s most notorious terrorists. Among those still at large: Brendan McFarlane, 31 Jailed for life for a bombing attack that killed five civilians in a Belfast bar; Kevin Artt, 24, jailed in August for the 1978 murder of Albert Miles, a deputy governor of Maze Prison; and six others with life sentences for murders. The dragnet's major find was Hugh Corey, 27, who was serving a life sentence for murder. Corey and Patrick Mclntyre, 25, were captured in an isolated farmhouse 25 miles south of Belfast after a two-hour siege. Corey is believed to have been the I.R.A. commander in Londonderry.