The other class of prisoners, who were convicted of terrorist crimes, were treated as ordinary criminals. They were incarcerated in cells in Crumlin Road Jail. The prisoners were not segregated by paramilitary allegiance, were required to wear standard prison uniforms, and were not allowed to associate freely with each other.
Billy McKee, formerly the IRA leader in Belfast, was a prisoner in Crumlin at the time. In 1972, he led a hunger strike with forty other prisoners in order to win the status of prisoners of war. Although the government initially refused to give in to McKee's demands, it soon changed its tune. The government became alarmed at the possibility of McKee's death and the riot that had resulted from the mere rumor of his death. As a result (and also as a condition of the ceasefire deal between the William Whitelow, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, and the IRA), special category status was granted. McKee and the other prisoners were moved to Long Kesh compounds and were given allowed free association, visiting privileges, and the right to wear their own clothing.
The IRA immediately moved to claim this propaganda victory and boast that the British government was recognizing the existence of the IRA as a legitimate entity. The British government moved quickly to change the terms of the game. In 1976, special category status was phased out. Any suspected terrorists were to be dealt with through the criminal courts. Also, the suspected terrorists were convicted in a new kind of court created in 1973, called the Diplock courts. The Diplocks consisted of one judge and no jury. Any convicted terrorists were treated as ordinary criminals and were jailed in the newly-created prison facilities at Long Kesh, renamed Maze Prison, dubbed the H-blocks for their shape. Each leg of the H held twenty-five 8x12 cells, toilet area, and dining and recreation facilities. The central bar of the H held the medical and administration offices. The Government proudly proclaimed the H-blocks to be the most modern and most comprehensive facilities available, ignoring the fact that they were still very much prisons.
The creation of the H-blocks divided Long Kesh into two prisons. One was the original compounds, which held the declining number of prisoners convicted before 1976. The H-blocks held the prisoners convicted since the phasing out of political status.
From the very first, the prisoners protested the new policy of criminalization. Ciaran Nugent, the first prisoner convicted under the new policy, refused to wear the prison uniform, instead covering himself with the blanket in his cell. Several hundred prisoners followed suit, up to between 1/3 and 1/2 of the men arriving at Long Kesh promptly going "on the blanket." The blanket protest was inspired by a tradition dating back to more than 100 years before, when Fenian (Republican) prisoners preferred to go naked rather than wear prison uniforms that would mark them as common criminals.
Immediately, the prison officers retaliated. Those prisoners who refused to conform were subject to a punishment regimen every fourteen days. They were not allowed to leave the cells unless they wore the uniforms, effectively keeping them there 24 hours a day in a tiny concrete box. They were deprived of the three "privileged" visits per month, leaving them one statutory visit which was only permitted if they wore the uniform for the visit. The 50% remission of their sentences was removed, effectively doubling their sentence. The prisoners were not permitted access to radio, TV, books, papers, or any reading materials except the bible; they were also refused writing materials.
Because of this heavy isolation from each other and from outside contacts, the prisoners were forced to resort to extreme measures to communicate. Tiny "comms" were written on toilet paper with smuggled pens and were carried in plastic wrap, secreted in the nostrils, behind the teeth, in the anus or vagina. The comms were flicked under doors and lobbed across hallways, drawn on thread lines between windows. If intended for "outside", they were passed to visitors during the rare visit by means of an open-mouthed kiss or a palm-off, always furtive and with fear of discovery, which would mean severe punishment.
.The blanket protest escalated. The next step was the "no-wash" protest, when prisoners refused to leave their cells to bathe. They had demanded a second towel to use to cover themselves when they washed, since they used the single wash towel to cover themselves when leaving the cells to slop out and the wardens had insisted that this towel be placed on a rack while the prisoners washed, leaving them naked.
The next protest was the "dirty protest." The prisoners were not allowed to leave the cells to use the toilets unless they wore the uniform, and when they were refused buckets to slop-out into in their cells. They broke the windows in their cells and hurled the excrement into the yard; often as not, the wardens threw it back in. When the wardens blocked the windows, they smeared the feces on the wall and ceiling or shoved it under the bottom of the doors to their cells.
During all of these protests, the prisoners were subjected to beatings and humiliations, such as the "mirror search", in which a prisoner was bent over (forcibly, if necessary) and a mirror held under his anus while he was searched.
Finally, the prisoners counted their options. They could end their protest, continue with the dirty protest for an indefinite amount of time, or escalate the protest to the next level. They considered the first unthinkable, and to continue with the dirty protest was unacceptable. They had only one viable option, to their way of thinking - escalate to a hunger strike.