Up & Away: A Short Documentary on the 1973 Mountjoy Helicopter Escape

Told through the eyes for four men who were in the prison that day, two Wardens and two Republican prisoners. This documentary illustrates how a 60 second event that took place over 48 years ago is imprinted on the memory of those who witnessed it.

The Helicopter Escape was one of the boldest and most audacious heists that the IRA carried out during the early years of the Troubles. Three senior Republican prisoners were lifted from the exercise yard in Mountjoy Prison on the 31st of October 1973 from a Helicopter hijacked by gunpoint.

The three men; JB O Hagan, Kevin Mallon & Seamus Twomey were all eventually recaptured in an event which was a major embarrassment to the Fine Gael Government of the day.

Nobody was ever charged with hijacking the helicopter.

This documentary touches on early years of the troubles in the Republic; from the establishment of the Special Criminal Court, to the Irish Government's difficulty in housing republican prisoners and of their subsequent transfer to Portlaoise Prison.