Republicans want £10m museum built on Maze site

Republicans in the North are calling for a £10m (€14.8m) museum and conflict resolution centre to be built on the site of the former Maze prison.

Sinn Féin denied that the 4,000 square metre facility would be a shrine to the IRA after handing its submission to the British government today.

It wants to see some of the prison walls, watchtowers and H-blocks where prisoners were confined preserved along with the hospital where 10 hunger strikers died in 1981.

Northern Ireland Office Minister David Hanson is deciding what to do with the 360-acre site near Lisburn which has been earmarked for redevelopment.

Lisburn Sinn Féin councillor Paul Butler said: “We repeatedly are on record as saying it should not be a shrine to any of the hunger strikers or any individual.

“The history of republicanism has to be told, their history, the history of imprisonment.

“But nowhere in this document is it proposed that it’s going to be a shrine to anyone.”

He added that the experiences of loyalist inmates and prison officers should be preserved.

Mr Butler, who sits on the Maze/Long Kesh Monitoring Group, said he wanted to create an international conflict transformation centre which would help bring the two communities together.

He wanted to see guided tours carried out by ex-prisoners from both sides and prison officials as well as ex-British soldiers.

Mr Butler added there had been a political compromise between Sinn Féin and unionists, who are opposed to preserving some parts of the prison compound, and said Sinn Féin had backed plans for a 42,000-seater multi-sports stadium on the understanding that part of the Maze would be preserved. He denied unionists enjoyed a veto on the project.