State Papers: Maze tunnel was 'therapy' as leaders never intended escape to happen

The Republican leadership in the prison did not want the tunnel plot to work over fears “hard-line Republican prisoners” could escape and attempt to derail negotiations for a renewed IRA ceasefire

Briege Gadd of the Northern Ireland Probation Board also ridiculed the inquiry being conducted by the Northern Ireland Office into the tunnel and also castigated the relaxed prison regime at the Maze.

IRA leaders in the Maze prison outside Belfast allowed inmates to work on an escape tunnel they knew would not be successful in 1997 on the basis it would act as a form of “occupational therapy” to keep prisoners away from drugs.

Details of the bizarre, doomed escape plot by Republican prisoners in the Maze prison are contained in a confidential note forwarded to the Department of Foreign Affairs in April 1997.

It revealed that the Republican leadership in the prison did not want the tunnel plot to work over fears that “hard-line Republican prisoners” opposed to the proposal to decommission IRA arms could escape and attempt to derail negotiations for a renewed IRA ceasefire at a sensitive stage of the Northern Ireland peace process.

The memo was based on a conversation between an official of the Anglo-Irish Secretariat in Belfast and Briege Gadd of the Northern Ireland Probation Board.

The note, which was shown to Taoiseach, John Bruton, contained a handwritten message that Ms Gadd was “well-placed and well-informed” and “by no means an IRA or SF fellow traveller.” 

Ms Gadd criticised the complacency of the British government’s reaction to the escape bid and suggested it would have precipitated a major political furore and the resignation of ministers in any other jurisdiction.

She ridiculed the inquiry being conducted by the Northern Ireland Office into the tunnel and also castigated the relaxed prison regime at the Maze.

Ms Gadd told the Irish official that it should have been possible to conduct random checks on all wings of the prison at regular intervals notwithstanding the fact that prisoner officers may be vulnerable because of pressure from paramilitaries.

She also claimed the prison authorities in Northern Ireland had no understanding of the Republican mentality.

“She advocated a frank dialogue between them and the paramilitary command structure in the prison which would make clear the consequences of escape bids in terms of loss of privileges etc,” the office noted.

Ms Gadd said the minimal contact between prison staff and paramilitary wings had created the situation which led to the tunnel escape bid.

From her own contacts with inmates, Ms Gadd she did not believe the plot constituted “a serious escape bid”. While the building of the tunnel had been approved by the Republican leadership in the Maze, she said it had no intention of allowing it to be completed “for various reasons.”

Ms Gadd said:

The project would have had value as a form of occupational therapy, to keep prisoners occupied and away from drugs.

She pointed out that any prisoners who might have escaped via the tunnel were likely to have been re-arrested and would probably find themselves back in prison with an additional sentence, while their fellow inmates would be getting out of jail in the event of a renewed ceasefire.

According to Ms Gadd, IRA leaders in the prison, who supported Sinn Féin’s approach to the peace process, were worried that hard-line prisoners who wanted a full-scale return to IRA violence would “stir up trouble” if they managed to escape from the Maze.

She understood the Republic leadership in the prison always intended intervening to halt the escape shortly before the tunnel was finished. Ms Gadd acknowledged that they would also have been conscious of propaganda value, even of a failed jail break.

She said it was unimportant whether the prison authorities were tipped off about the tunnel or had come across some detail of the plot. “One way or another, they were going to abort the operation,” said Ms Gadd.

She expressed her view that the Republican leadership was preparing for peace which was not just based on its handling of the Maze prison escape bid but by the number of recent tip-offs to the security forces about prospective IRA operations by more militant members.