The 20,332-capacity Windsor Park in Belfast is currently used for Northern Ireland's international football matches.Work has now started to convert a former prison -infamous during the"troubles" into a 42,000 capacity national stadium where football, rugby union and Irish sports such as Gaelic football and hurling can be played .
It was in the same prison that Bobby Sands, the leader of IRA prisoners in the Maze, died on hunger strike in 1981. Nine other Republicans also died in a vain attempt to force the British government into giving them political prisoner status.The H-shaped prison blocks, where hundreds of paramilitaries from the Catholic Irish Republican Army (IRA) and armed Protestant groups were detained in separate wings, are etched in the memory of many in Northern Ireland.
In addition to the stadium the new construction will also house an international centre for conflict transformation.
More details here.
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