Podcast Corner: Carlo Gebler's tale of Maze escape is essential listening
The H-Blocks at the Maze Prison, near Belfast.
The author Carlo Gebler - son of the late Edna O’Brien - taught at the notorious Maze prison complex in Co Down in the mid-1990s, when the IRA ceasefire was announced.
“It’s the most important experience of my life. The Maze is my university, my degree subject - trauma. I’m so bloated by what I hear, I regularly have to sit, eyes closed but awake, to let my psyche digest the bile. The prisoners also have an amazing message for me: The war is over, a deal is coming.”
Gebler is the narrator of Escape from the Maze, a 10-part BBC Radio 4 podcast available on BBC Sounds. Here, he is speaking during the final episode, before he takes a trip to what’s left of the prison complex. There were many plans for it when it was closed after the ceasefire, but as with so much associated with the Troubles, the sides couldn’t come to an agreement and as the episode title suggests, it was mothballed.
“Here in Northern Ireland, it seems we can never escape from the Maze.” He concludes: “We are stuck in a maze, which is THE Maze and we can’t find our way out.”
In the preceding nine episodes of this series from the BBC’s History Podcast, each clocking in at around 15 minutes, Gebler tells the story of the 1983 escape from the Maze of 38 prisoners, a trail of blood left behind and ahead of them. It’s the biggest jailbreak in British penal history and an embarrassment for prime minister Margaret Thatcher - it was supposed to be the highest security prison in western Europe. But it was always a flawed design, as explained in the opening episode.
“In a H-Block, you can only see what’s going on if you… stand in the middle of the two legs and look left and right. A very, very ill conceived idea.”
The series draws on archival interviews with some of the escapees as well as prison officials, detailing what the prison was like in the lead-up to the mid-1980s. The prisoners started acting friendlier towards the guards, a charm offensive on the wings. The escape itself begins in episode four - the week beforehand, one of the key members of the plans was injured playing football in the yard and has to be replaced.
It’s a small detail but emblematic of how well researched and well told the series is. A refrain of Gebler’s during the show is “round and round it goes”. Incidents are disputed by both sides to this day. This series tries to walk the line between the sides, to see the light through the winding routes of the Maze. A brilliant, essential listen.
