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8 February 2007 Edition

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Remembering the Past

Long Kesh internment camp

Long Kesh internment camp

The first Long Kesh escape

BY ARAN FOLEY
On 7 February 1972, IRA Volunteer Francis McGuigan became the first man to break out of Long Kesh internment camp.
Francis had heeded warnings to stay away from his locality just before the initial internment sweep of 9 August 1971 and had avoided capture, but when the initial swoops had seemed to come to an end he returned to his native Ardoyne to make contact with Belfast Brigade staff.
Unfortunately, he was picked up by a British Army raid on the house he was staying in. His capture was a serious blow to the Belfast IRA and he immediately began plans for an escape, a task which was made all the harder by increased security at the camp following an attempted mass escape the previous November; the escape of Martin Meehan, Martin 'Dutch' Doherty and Hugh McCann from Crumlin Road Jail in December; and, of course, the escape of the 'Magnificent Seven' from the Maidstone prison ship in Belfast Lough on 16 January 1972.
It seemed the British were having trouble holding on to their prisoners and were determined to avoid any further embarrassment. Francis McGuigan, however, had other ideas.
Always looking for a chance to escape, he seized the moment when a group of priests came to visit the internees on 7 February. McGuigan became a priest without ever having seen the inside of Maynooth and dressed himself in black, replete with the clerical collar. He then mingled with the priests as they left and calmly walked to freedom.
Coming so soon after Bloody Sunday in Derry on 30 January 1972, his nonchalant escape was a small but significant morale booster for a republican community still trying to come to terms with the massacre of the civil rights marchers by British paratroopers.
The press were the first to learn of McGuigan's escape, having been informed he was safe and well by his mother, much to the consternation of the Long Kesh camp commandant who at this stage didn't even realise he was missing!
McGuigan was soon across the border and his appearance at a press conference with the Crumlin Road trio enraged the British Government and the Unionist Party regime at Stormont.
In a heated debate at Stormont, Home Affairs Minister John Taylor was forced to admit that it had actually been 18 hours before McGuigan's escape was detected because "it was not possible to have routine head counts without the assistance of the Army as the internees do not co-operate in such exercises".
Later that month, Francis McGuigan gave evidence to the US Sub-Committee of the House of Representatives to outline the republican perspective on the situation in the Six Counties and went on to appear at numerous press conferences across Europe, enraging the Brits but, more importantly, providing an invaluable voice to republicanism and the plight of Northern nationalists internationally.


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