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Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. | Portlaoise Prison is a maximum security prison located in Portlaoise, Co. Laois, Ireland. It should not be confused with the Midlands Prison, which is a newer, medium security prison situated directly beside it. Image File history File links Question_book-3. ...
WGS-84 (GPS) Coordinates: , Irish Grid Reference S465986 Statistics Province: Leinster County: Elevation: 139m (459ft) Population (2006) 14,275 Portlaoise (older spelling Portlaoighise; former name Maryborough), is the county town of County Laois (formerly Queens County) in the midlands of the Republic of Ireland. ...
Laois (pronounced Leash), also spelt Laoighis or Leix, is a county in the midlands of Ireland. ...
The prison was built in the 1830s, making it one of the oldest in the Irish prison system -- it still operates to this day. It is noted as the prison in which people convicted of membership of the IRA and other illegal paramilitary organisations are usually detained. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Irish: Óglaigh na hÉireann) (IRA; also referred to as the PIRA, the Provos, or by some of its supporters as the Army or the RA.[2]) is an Irish Republican, left wing[3] paramilitary organisation that, until the Belfast Agreement, sought to end Northern...
The prison has a capacity for 203 prisoners, but because of the security sensitive nature of its inmates, it operates below this capacity. A large number of well armed Irish Defence Forces soldiers are guarding the prison 24 hours a day, making it one of the most secure prisons in Europe.[citation needed] The Irish Defence Forces encompass the army, navy, air force and reserve forces of the Republic of Ireland. ...
The security features include a detachment of a hundred and twenty troops, armed with rifles and anti-aircraft machine guns, who patrol the perimeter, the rooftops and man the watch towers. An air exclusion zone operates over the entire complex. The perimeter consists of high walls, cameras, sensors and acres of tank traps.
Through the years there have been various high profile attempts to spring prisoners from inside the walls. In 1974 nineteen prisoners escaped in one daring day light escape.
In November 1985 an IRA mass breakout failed when the bomb, which had been assembled within the prison itself, failed to detonate at the prison gates. [1] Look up IRA in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Notable inmates
Angelo Fusco (b. ...
Dessie OHare (born 26 October 1956[1]), also known as The Border Fox, is an Irish republican paramilitary, who was once the most wanted man in Ireland. ...
Italic textThis article pretains to an Irish murder suspect; for the former Ohio Governor, go to John J. Gilligan. ...
Michael McKevitt (b. ...
Paul Dingus Magee (born 30 January 1948 in Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a former volunteer in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who escaped during his 1981 trial for killing a member of the Special Air Service (SAS) in 1980. ...
External links - Irish Prison Service: Portlaoise Prison
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