Bulldozers on Monday began demolishing Northern Ireland's notorious Maze prison which once housed the most dangerous guerrillas from both sides of the province's three-decade sectarian conflict, according to Reuters. The prison has been empty since 2000 following the release of most guerrilla prisoners under the Good Friday Agreement, which ushered relative peace into the British province after 30 years of fighting in which 3,600 people died. Once home to some of the most dangerous men in Europe, a new multi-sports stadium, equestrian centre, hotel, shopping and leisure complex is proposed on the 360-acre site, located on the main road to Dublin from Belfast in County Antrim. The redevelopment has sparked fierce controversy in Northern Ireland, where politicians are struggling to agree a deal on self-rule that would see pro-British and pro-Irish enemies share power in a local assembly. The plan proposes turning some of the former prison buildings, including the hospital where 10 prisoners died on hunger strike in 1981 and one of eight so-called "H-Block" cell complexes, into an international centre for conflict study. Many pro-British unionists fear the "Conflict Transformation Centre" will be turned into a shrine to the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which waged a lengthy armed campaign against British rule in an effort to unite the province with Ireland. Demolition work started with 50-year-old Nissen huts, which date from the site's use as an airfield by the Royal Air Force and which were later used to hold hundreds of suspects without trial as the Northern Ireland conflict worsened in the 1970s. The prison witnessed riots, a mass breakout and assassinations during the "troubles", the local name for the conflict which raged between republicans bent on ending British rule and loyalists determined to maintain it. More than 1,000 prison officers guarded hundreds of inmates from Catholic republican and Protestant loyalist paramilitary groups. Most famous of all were the 10 Irish nationalist hunger strikers who starved themselves to death in a grim battle of wills with then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher over their right to be treated as political prisoners. Under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, hundreds of Maze prisoners were released early and the final four inmates transferred in September 2000. It has since stood empty, although "in cold storage" in case the conflict re-ignited.
