The beginning of the "blanket protest" and the segregation of paramilitary prisoners in the Maze and other jails in the North is chronicled in confidential cabinet files from 1977, just released in Belfast.
In the files, the official designation of paramilitary prisoners as "Protestant" and "Roman Catholic" is striking. This dispute was to be the forerunner of the 1981 H-Block hunger strikes in which 10 men died.
A situation report dated January 5th, 1977, noted that in Belfast Prison, with 760 inmates, the situation was tense. "In A Wing the self-imposed segregation by a number of Protestants continues. In C Wing all untried prisoners are still locked in their cells and 124 RCs continue to refuse prison food but are eating their food parcels."
The report continues: "This morning an officer overheard a conversation between two top Provos in A Wing, stating that "trouble was to start today".
In Magilligan Prison, Co Derry, (with 457 prisoners), a search in one compound led to the discovery of a gallon of poitín.
Meanwhile in the Maze Prison, Co Antrim, (with 1180 inmates), four UVF prisoners ended their protest and agreed to wear prison clothes. The total number of prisoners refusing to wear prison clothes was now 41, the report noted. In Armagh jail, four women were refusing to work.
By January 6th, 1977 trouble had broken out at Belfast Prison between loyalists and republicans in the dining hall, as part of an orchestrated campaign for segregation. By January 12th, 1977, 42 prisoners in H2 Block at the Maze were refusing to wear prison clothes. Among those protesting was Kieran Nugent of the Provisional IRA, the first person to "go on the blanket" following the ending of special category status in 1976. Also protesting was Maireád Farrell, sentenced to 15 years in Armagh jail for causing an explosion in 1976. (She was later shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988).
Protests against the ending of special category status continued to rise during the year. According to a report dated January 28th, 1977, prisoners refused to co- operate in selective strip-searching in one compound at the Maze. As a result, scuffles broke out and a number of prison staff were assaulted. By March 1977, the report noted: "There are still 63 'strippers' in the H Blocks." It was reported that on March 9th, after a prison officer was threatened by two UVF inmates at the Maze, the governor decided that the two men should be brought out for adjudication. When talks with UVF spokesmen failed, 240 prison staff, with a back-up of 125 military personnel, took up position at compound 21. By this time the UVF prisoners had barricaded the entrance gates, "showing every sign of armed resistance", according to the report. The use of an armoured vehicle to break down the barricades was being considered when the two prisoners voluntarily gave themselves up.
On March 15th, 1977, a report states that a proxy bomb, estimated at 50-60 lbs, exploded outside the prison. As a result of recent events, there was "a great blow to staff morale".
By March 21st, 1977, a report noted that "there are now 69 streakers in the H Blocks at the Maze". By June this figure had risen to 122.
According to a note in the file, the position of the "Blanketmen" was raised at Westminster on June 16th, 1977, by the independent Nationalist MP, Frank Maguire. He claimed that three prisoners had been "in a state of nakedness since early May . . . and are punished by three days' solitary confinement every fortnight". Replying, the secretary of state, Roy Mason, said the prison rules required convicted prisoners to wear prison clothes. "They have chosen not to wear it as a form of protest against the ending of special category status." As a result, he said, disciplinary proceedings had been taken against the protesters.