Blanket protest

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The blanket protest was part of a dispute involving Provisional IRA and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners held in the Maze prison ("Long Kesh") in Northern Ireland. The republican prisoner's status as political prisoners, the Special Category Status, had begun to be phased out in 1976. Among other things, this meant that they would now be required to wear prison uniforms like ordinary convicts. The prisoners refused to accept that they were ordinary criminals and refused to wear the prison uniform.

The first republican prisoner to refuse to wear the prison uniform or conform to prison rules was Kieran Nugent. Instead, they wore only prison blankets. The blanket protest was combined with the dirty protest. Both protests were eventually abandoned after the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike which ended on 3 October 1981.

Two days later, the incoming Northern Ireland Secretary, James Prior, announced a number of changes in prison policy, including that from then on all paramilitary prisoners would be allowed to wear their own clothes at all times ^[1]. Prior also announced other changes; free association would be allowed in neighbouring wings of each H-Block, in the exercise areas and in recreation rooms; an increase in the number of visits each prisoner would be entitled to; and up to 50 per cent of lost remission would be restored [1].