Northern Ireland’s official museums body has been consulted around a potential role in the future of the former Maze Prison site.
Political disagreement at Stormont around proposals for a peace centre at the site have seen it lay derelict for decades.
The current First Minister Michelle O’Neill indicated in June that she along with deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly were to meet with the Maze Long Kesh Development Corporation.
The body, which was established in 2011, is understood to have met in April with senior officials from National Museums NI (NMNI).
It emerged on Thursday – in a development first reported by the BBC – that there had been discussions with National Museums Northern Ireland around what role it could play in the “interpretation of and access to” the former prison.
The former paramilitary prison only compromises part of the huge 347-acre site near Lisburn that falls under the remit of the corporation.
While there has been some development – most significantly the Royal Ulster Agricultural Society becoming an anchor tenant and moving the annual Balmoral Show to the venue – the wider transformation of the site has been stalled for over a decade.
The Ulster Aviation Society and the Northern Ireland Air Ambulance also operate out of the site.
The full regeneration plan hit the buffers in 2013 when former DUP first minister Peter Robinson blocked efforts to build a peace centre as part of a redevelopment of the sprawling grounds which once housed the high-security jail and were gifted to the Northern Ireland Executive by the UK government.
The prison held paramilitary inmates during the Troubles and was the location for republican hunger strikes in 1981 in which 10 died, including Bobby Sands.
Mr Robinson’s move came amid unionist concerns about the symbolism of building a peace centre on the site of the prison.
A political impasse has continued since. In 2019 the corporation said it was setting aside the plan for the peace centre as it focused on progressing the site’s wider redevelopment.
The corporation has said the site has the potential to generate 5,000 jobs and deliver more than £300 million of investment through social and economic regeneration.
A spokesperson for NMNI said any future role within the site would be an “extension of our relevant work at our museums”.
NMNI runs the Ulster Museum, Ulster Folk and Transport Museums in Belfast and Co Down, as well as the Ulster American Folk Park in Co Tyrone.
“It is our understanding that the Maze Long Kesh Development Corporation has been tasked with exploring options for the future development of the site,” they said.
“Within that context we have discussed what, if any, role we could play in supporting the interpretation of and access to the heritage buildings, including the Second World War hangars and the prison buildings.
“This would be as an extension of our relevant work at our museums. However, any decisions on the future of the site rest solely with Executive Ministers.”
DUP Lagan Valley and Stormont minister Paul Givan the site should not be allowed to become a “shrine”.
Mr Givan, whose father served as a prison officer at the Maze, said he does not see that at the former prison-turned-museum the Crumlin Road Gaol in north Belfast.
“The price that was paid by prison officers and their families is one that is not properly reflected, and I think it’s important that we acknowledge that,” he told the BBC.
“We cannot allow a circumstance where the Maze would become the retelling of some kind of story by republicans in terms of the hero worship. I don’t believe that’s what it would be. I don’t see that at the Crumlin Road Gaol.
“I absolutely want to see investment on the site and for it to be developed, and there has to be a way found to make sure that it isn’t a shrine, never will be a shrine, and I think that we can guarantee that that would be the case.
“I think these things should be worked through and there should be people talking about how we make sure things can be developed in a way whereby that there no revisionism, that there is no celebration of those prisoners but we also reflect the price that was paid by prison officers and the sacrifice that they made.”
