HM Prison Maze (Long Kesh) in Lisburn, Northern Ireland

According to Atlas Obscura, the Maze Prison—also called Long Kesh or the H-Blocks—opened in nineteen seventy-one on the site of a former Royal Air Force base in Northern Ireland. During the Troubles, it held both republican and loyalist paramilitary prisoners and became the setting for pivotal moments: the Blanket Protest, Bobby Sands's nineteen eighty-one hunger strike, and a dramatic nineteen eighty-three escape of thirty-eight Irish Republican Army prisoners—the largest prison break in British Isles history. These events transformed the Maze into an international symbol of political conflict. Most of the complex was demolished in the two-thousands, though significant structures like H-Block five and the prison hospital were preserved. Today, while not publicly accessible, the site remains a powerful reminder of the Troubles and a destination for those studying Northern Ireland's turbulent past.

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