Dirty protest

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The dirty protest was part of a dispute (see also Blanket protest) between Irish republican paramilitary prisoners and the prison authorities at the Maze prison ("Long Kesh") and Armagh Women's Prison which ran from September 1976 until October 1981. The people involved were members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Irish National Liberation Army. The prisoners alleged that they had been attacked repeatedly by guards while "slopping out" — that is, emptying their chamber pots of excrement — or going to wash, and they refused to leave their cells. At first, they urinated under the doors and threw their excrement out of the windows. The prison guards quickly blocked up the windows, and used mops to push the urine back into the cells. After that, the prisoners smeared their excrement on the walls of their cells. Many became ill as a result of the protest.

The protest ended when the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike was called off in October 1981^[1].