Armagh Prison in Armagh, Northern Ireland is a former prison. The construction of the prison began in the 1780 and it was extended in the style of Pentonville in the 1840 and 1850s. For most of its working life Armagh Gaol was the primary women's prison in Northern Ireland. Although the prison is often described as Armagh women's Gaol, at various points in its history, various wings in the prison were used to hold male prisoners.[1]
On 19 April 1979, Agnes Wallace (40), a prison officer, was shot dead and three colleagues were injured in a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) gun and grenade attack outside the prison.[2]
The prison was the scene of a protest by female Irish Republican prisoners demanding political status, although the numbers involved were much smaller than in the Maze (also known as Long Kesh) men's prison. As all women prisoners in Northern Ireland already had the right to wear their own clothes, they did not stage any sort of blanket protest, but in their case the dirty protest included smearing their menstrual blood on the cell walls. Three women in Armagh took part in the 1980 hunger strike: Mairéad Nugent, Mary Doyle and Mairéad Farrell, who was shot by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988. No Armagh prisoners took part in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike.
The prison closed in 1986. In 2009 it was announced that the prison was to become a hotel.[3]