The 1980–1981 Armagh Prison Dirty Protest occurred at the all-women Armagh Prison in Northern Ireland, where prisoners refused to bathe, use the lavatory, empty chamber pots, or clean their cells. This resulted in unsanitary conditions and increased abuse at the hands of the prison guards. The protest borrowed tactics previously used by male Irish republican prisoners in Long Kesh Prison (informally known as the Maze Prison), that had started in 1978.
Special Category Status
Since a hunger strike of 40 IRA prisoners in 1972, prisoners convicted as members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) had been given Special Category Status by the British government. This Special Category Status, which classified them as political prisoners rather than as members of the general population, entitled them to certain privileges.
These benefits, including the right to wear one's own clothes, to be exempt from prison work, and to gather with other political prisoners for free discourse, allowed the IRA and other paramilitary groups to distinguish themselves from other prisoners and to maintain their command structure in prison. Beginning in 1976, however, the British government introduced its policy of "criminalization”, which aimed to portray the prisoners as criminals rather than political activists. As part of this policy the Special Category Status was rescinded for all prisoners convicted after 1 March 1976. This withdrawal of special treatment for IRA prisoners caused an uproar both inside and outside the prison system, who now found themselves forced to wear prison uniforms, engage in prison labour, restrict their visits both with fellow prisoners and with visitors from the outside, and deal with prison authorities individually rather than through their command structure. As a result, violence between prisoners and prison officials escalated, tensions within the prison rose, and a long string of protests aiming at a reinstatement of Special Category Status began.
Blanket protests
The first in a long line of Long Kesh prison protests, the blanket protest was begun on 14 September 1976 by a prisoner named Kieran Nugent. Nugent was the first political prisoner to be convicted after the removal of Special Category Status. Upon entrance to prison, he refused to wear the standard uniform and instead chose to wear his blanket as a garment and, at times, go naked. During this protest, members of the IRA and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) followed suit, donning blankets rather than wearing prison uniform and thus protesting their treatment.
This protest resulted in further punishment. The prison rules stated that prisoners had to be clothed in a uniform for all visits with family members and friends and that, if one wanted to leave his cell at any point in time, he was to be wearing his prisoner's outfit. As a result of their refusal to wear any issued prison clothing, those prisoners who protested "on the blanket" forfeited their four monthly visits with the outside world, were confined to their cells 24 hours a day, were forced to sleep in rooms with no furniture, and were fed insufficient food. Throughout this protest, tension between prisoners and wardens/guards continued to increase, resulting in the targeted assassinations of prison guards by members of the IRA.
Long Kesh dirty protests
As tensions grew within the prison between guards and prisoners, the number of attacks by guards increased, especially during the prisoners' daily trips to the lavatory or showers. In March 1978, these attacks eventually led to prisoners refusing to leave their cells for fear of being brutally beaten, yet being refused basins to wash themselves in. A few months later, a brutal attack on a fellow prisoner led to a mass revolt within Long Kesh, as prisoners destroyed their cells and furniture, refusing to leave after the damage was done. Unable to clear the cells, wardens left the prisoners trapped in the small rooms and, as a result, what had previously been only a blanket protest morphed into the first of the dirty protests.
In the dirty protests, prisoners who were suddenly unable to empty their chamber pots began smearing their own excrement on the walls of their cells (to mitigate the build-up of vermin) and dumping their urine down cracks in the floor and out windows. Prison officials cleaned the cells sporadically after temporarily removing the protesting prisoners. After a few months, the numbers of prisoners involved in the dirty protest was between 250 and 300.
After two years of protest, the prisoners decided to issue what they called the "Five Demands". These demands, were: