I shall put on my hat of neutrality here and give you a cut-and -paste job from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.It's interesting, especiallly, if like me, you get a bit confused about what happened when, if at all, and a good memory jogger for those things one forgets.

Concentration Camps

In the English-speaking world, the term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during the 1899-1902 Second Boer War. Originally conceived as a form of humanitarian aid to the families whose farms had been destroyed in the fighting, the camps were later used to confine and control large numbers of civilians in areas of Boer guerilla activity. Tens of thousands of Boer civilians, and black workers from their farms, died as a result of diseases developed due to overcrowding, inadequate diets and poor sanitation. The term "concentration camp" was coined at this time to signify the "concentration" of a large number of people in one place, and was used to describe both the camps in South Africa (1899-1902) and those established by the Spanish to support a similar anti-insurgency campaign in Cuba (circa 1895-1898)

Long Kesh

Following the introduction of internment in 1971 there was "Operation Demetrius" with raids for 452 suspects on August 9, 1971. The police and army arrested 342 republicans, but key Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) members had been tipped off and many of those arrested were released when it emerged they had no paramilitary connections. Those behind Operation Demetrius were accused of bungling, by arresting many of the wrong people and using out of date information. later, some loyalists were also arrested. By 1972 there were 924 internees.
Initially the internees were housed, with different paramilitary groups separated from each other, in Nissen huts at a disused airfield that became the Long Kesh Detention Centre. The internees and their supporters agitated for improvements in their conditions and status; they saw themselves as political prisoners rather than common criminals. In 1974 William Whitelaw introduced Special Category Status for those sentenced for crimes relating to the civil violence. There were 1,100 Special Category prisoners at that time.

"Special Category" status for convicted paramilitary-linked criminals gave them the same privileges previously available only to internees. These privileges included free association between prisoners, extra visits, food parcels and the right to wear their own clothes rather than prison uniforms (Crawford 1979).
However, Special Category Status was short-lived. As part of the government's policy of "criminalisation", and coinciding with the end of internment, the new Secretary of State, Merlyn Rees, ended Special Category Status from March 1, 1976. Those convicted of terrorist offences after that date were housed in the eight new "H-Blocks" that had been constructed at Long Kesh, now officially HM Prison Maze. Older prisoners remained in separate compounds and retained their Special Category status.

H-Blocks
Republicans convicted of offences after March 1, 1976 were housed in the eight new "H-Blocks" that had been constructed at Long Kesh, now officially HM Prison Maze. The new Special Category status took away all of the rights that prisoners had received prior to 1976 such as civilian clothing and visitation. Prisoners began protesting these chages immediately after they were transeferred to the H-Blocks. Their first act of defiance was to refuse to wear the prison uniforms, stating that convicted criminals wear uniforms, not political prisoners. Not allowed their own clothes, they wrapped themselves in bedsheets. Prisoners participating in the protest were "on the blanket". By 1978 more than 300 men had joined the protest. The British government refused to yield. Prison guards soon refused to let the blanket protestors use the toilets without proper uniforms. The prisoners refused, and instead began to defecate within their own cells, smearing excrement on the walls. This began the "Dirty Blanket Protest." But again the new 1979 government of Margaret Thatcher stood firm.

Hunger strike
Republicans outside the prison took the battle to the media and both sides fought for public support. Inside the prison the prisoners took another step and organized a hunger strike.
On October 27, 1980, seven Republican prisoners refused food and demanded political status. In December they called off the hunger strike when the government appeared to concede their demands. However, the government immediately reverted to their previous stance, confident the prisoners would not start another strike. Bobby Sands, the leader of the Provisional IRA prisoners, and a number of others began a second action on March 1, 1981. Outside the prison in a major publicity coup, Sands was nominated for Parliament and won the Fermanagh & South Tyrone by-election, 1981 (April). But the British government was still resisting and on May 5, after 66 days on hunger strike, Sands died. Another nine hunger strikers died by the end of August. More than 100,000 people attended Bobby Sands's funeral in Belfast.

Breakout
On September 23, 1983, the Maze suffered the largest break-out by prisoners from a British prison. 38 prisoners hijacked a prison meals lorry and smashed their way out. One prison officer, James Ferris, died of a heart attack while being held captive at knifepoint, and another five were injured. Nineteen of the prisoners were soon recaptured, but the remainder escaped. One of the escapees was later involved in the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing.
In March 1997, an IRA escape attempt was foiled when a 40ft underground tunnel was found. The tunnel, which was fitted with electric lighting, led from H-block 7 and was only 80ft short of the perimeter wall.

Organisation
Over the 1980s the British government slowly introduced changes, granting what some would see as political status in all but name. Republican and loyalist prisoners were housed according to group. They organised themselves along military lines and exercised wide control over their respective H-Blocks. The Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) leader Billy Wright was killed in December 1997 by Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners. The LVF wing also saw the only rape in the prison's history.

Peace process
The prisoners also played a significant role in the Northern Ireland peace process. On January 9, 1998, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mo Mowlam, paid a surprise visit to the prison to talk to members of the Ulster Defense Association/Ulster Freedom Fighters (UDA/UFF) including Johnny Adair and Michael Stone. They had voted for their political representatives to pull out of talks. Shortly after Mowlam's visit, they changed their minds, allowing their representatives to continue talks that would lead to the Good Friday Agreement of April 10, 1998. Afterwards, the prison was emptied of its paramilitary prisoners as the groups they represented agreed to the ceasefire. In the two years following the agreement, 428 prisoners were released. On September 29, 2000, the remaining 4 prisoners at Maze were transferred to other establishments in Northern Ireland and the Maze prison was closed.