Sarah Conlon
Encyclopedia
Sarah Conlon was a Northern Irish
housewife and a prominent campaigner in one of the most high-profile miscarriage of justice cases in British legal history. She spent decades campaigning to have the names of her husband Giuseppe and son Gerry cleared over the Provisional Irish Republican Army
(IRA) pub bombings at Guildford
and Woolwich
, and helped secure an apology from former British prime minister
Tony Blair
in 2005 for their wrongful imprisonment.
. This was due to an extensive inquiry carried out by Avon and Somerset Police into the original police investigation. The inquiry found that the way the confessions of the four were noted were seriously flawed, concluding that the notes taken were not written up immediately and that officers may have colluded in the wording of the statements.
Giuseppe Conlon, Sarah's husband, was convicted in 1976 along with six members of the Maguire family (the seven being dubbed the Maguire Seven) of running an IRA bomb factory in North London
, on the basis of forensic evidence. Each was sentenced to up to 14 years in jail, served their sentences, and with the exception of Giuseppe Conlon who died in 1980, were released. The Maguire Seven's first appeal, in 1977, was turned down, but a later appeal, prompted by the release of the Guildford Four, found that test kits used to detect traces of explosives had been contaminated. In 1991, the Court of Appeal quashed their convictions after it was ruled the original evidence against them was unsafe. On 9 February 2005, then Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a public apology to the Maguire Seven and the Guildford Four for the miscarriages of justice they had suffered, saying that he was "very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and such an injustice", and that "they deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated."
Father McKinley, a priest who noticed Sarah crying after the 1977 appeal was turned down, and others helped her begin a campaign to free her husband, son and other members of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven. She took to lobbying dignitaries, church leaders and the media, in addition to writing to numerous Irish politicians, including the Social Democratic and Labour Party
(SDLP) members of parliament Joe Hendron
and John Hume
, to ask for their support. At one stage she travelled to London to meet Cardinal
Basil Hume to ask for his assistance. Her campaigning led to the start of the aforementioned inquiry, announced in 1989 by the home secretary
Douglas Hurd
, into the Guildford bomb cases, which led to Gerry's release. News of her husband's death reached Sarah just after she received a message from home secretary Willie Whitelaw stating that her husband was about to be released on compassionate grounds.
Twenty-five years after her husband's death, Sarah Conlon and her family decided to fight for a public apology for the miscarriage of justice on her family. Once again she led the campaign, lobbying church leaders and politicians, among them the Irish Taoiseach
Bertie Ahern, who pledged his support, which culminated in Tony Blair's apology to the Conlon family. Ill, she was unable to make the trip to London to hear the apology, but her children spoke to her by telephone from the House of Commons. After securing the apology, she mentioned that she no longer had to worry about dying and what it means.
SDLP leader and Foyle
member of parliament Mark Durkan
described Sarah as "a true heroine of our age" and "shining example to us all", saying that she had the "patience of a saint" and "huge reserves of faith, fortitude and remarkable forgiveness", and that "her story is an inspiration of faith, hope and love".
faith" who was protective of her son Gerry, and who held the family together with her hard work, wanting their life to be respectable, holy, and quiet. She spent years working at a scrapyard sorting old clothes, and later worked long hours for low pay in the kitchens of the Royal Victoria Hospital, serving food to patients and mopping the floors. Her husband, Giuseppe, was a pacifist who evaded the draft during World War II
. He once worked at Harland & Wolf painting the hulls of ships, where the lead in the paint damaged his lungs. His condition was worsened by the humidity and condensation in the house, and he subsequently developed tuberculosis
and emphysema
.
Sarah Conlon died of lung cancer
in July 2008, aged 82.
and directed by Jim Sheridan
, is based on the Conlon family's story. Northern Irish actress Marie Jones
played Sarah Conlon. The movie was adapted from Gerry Conlon’s autobiography Proved Innocent, later published as In the Name of the Father.
The 1990 made-for-television film Dear Sarah
is based on the letters Giuseppe Conlon wrote to his wife while in prison. The film was produced by Raidió Teilifís Éireann
, directed by Frank Cvitanovich
and written by Tom McGurk
. It featured Stella McCusker as Sarah Conlon.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
housewife and a prominent campaigner in one of the most high-profile miscarriage of justice cases in British legal history. She spent decades campaigning to have the names of her husband Giuseppe and son Gerry cleared over the Provisional Irish Republican Army
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
(IRA) pub bombings at Guildford
Guildford
Guildford is the county town of Surrey. England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the administrative headquarters of the South East England region...
and Woolwich
Woolwich
Woolwich is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.Woolwich formed part of Kent until 1889 when the County of London was created...
, and helped secure an apology from former British prime minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
in 2005 for their wrongful imprisonment.
Guildford pub bombings
The Guildford pub bombings occurred in 1974, when an IRA unit planted bombs in two pubs in Guildford, Surrey, and the resulting explosions killed four soldiers and one civilian, and injured 50 others. The investigation into the bombings led to the arrest and conviction of Gerard Conlon, Patrick Armstrong, Paul Hill and Carole Richardson, an Englishwoman; dubbed as "the Guildford Four". The four were jailed for life in 1975 for the bombings, and each served 15 years in jail before their convictions were quashed by the Court of AppealCourt of Appeal of England and Wales
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales is the second most senior court in the English legal system, with only the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom above it...
. This was due to an extensive inquiry carried out by Avon and Somerset Police into the original police investigation. The inquiry found that the way the confessions of the four were noted were seriously flawed, concluding that the notes taken were not written up immediately and that officers may have colluded in the wording of the statements.
Giuseppe Conlon, Sarah's husband, was convicted in 1976 along with six members of the Maguire family (the seven being dubbed the Maguire Seven) of running an IRA bomb factory in North London
North London
North London is the northern part of London, England. It is an imprecise description and the area it covers is defined differently for a range of purposes. Common to these definitions is that it includes districts located north of the River Thames and is used in comparison with South...
, on the basis of forensic evidence. Each was sentenced to up to 14 years in jail, served their sentences, and with the exception of Giuseppe Conlon who died in 1980, were released. The Maguire Seven's first appeal, in 1977, was turned down, but a later appeal, prompted by the release of the Guildford Four, found that test kits used to detect traces of explosives had been contaminated. In 1991, the Court of Appeal quashed their convictions after it was ruled the original evidence against them was unsafe. On 9 February 2005, then Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a public apology to the Maguire Seven and the Guildford Four for the miscarriages of justice they had suffered, saying that he was "very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and such an injustice", and that "they deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated."
Role in the sentences and appeals
Sarah Conlon won huge admiration in Ireland for her quiet dignity and refusal to feel bitterness. During the years that her husband and son were in jail, she sent weekly parcels of cigarettes, sweets, and Irish newspaper clippings to them, and saved up her prison visits for the two weeks of her annual holiday. Her regular letters to them always ended the same way: "Pray for them ones who told lies against you... It's them who needs help as well as yourself."Father McKinley, a priest who noticed Sarah crying after the 1977 appeal was turned down, and others helped her begin a campaign to free her husband, son and other members of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven. She took to lobbying dignitaries, church leaders and the media, in addition to writing to numerous Irish politicians, including the Social Democratic and Labour Party
Social Democratic and Labour Party
The Social Democratic and Labour Party is a social-democratic, Irish nationalist political party in Northern Ireland. Its basic party platform advocates Irish reunification, and the further devolution of powers while Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom...
(SDLP) members of parliament Joe Hendron
Joe Hendron
Joseph Gerard Hendron is a Northern Ireland politician, a member of the moderate Irish nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party ....
and John Hume
John Hume
John Hume is a former Irish politician from Derry, Northern Ireland. He was a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and was co-recipient of the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize, with David Trimble....
, to ask for their support. At one stage she travelled to London to meet Cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
Basil Hume to ask for his assistance. Her campaigning led to the start of the aforementioned inquiry, announced in 1989 by the home secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
Douglas Hurd
Douglas Hurd
Douglas Richard Hurd, Baron Hurd of Westwell, CH, CBE, PC , is a British Conservative politician and novelist, who served in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major between 1979 and his retirement in 1995....
, into the Guildford bomb cases, which led to Gerry's release. News of her husband's death reached Sarah just after she received a message from home secretary Willie Whitelaw stating that her husband was about to be released on compassionate grounds.
Twenty-five years after her husband's death, Sarah Conlon and her family decided to fight for a public apology for the miscarriage of justice on her family. Once again she led the campaign, lobbying church leaders and politicians, among them the Irish Taoiseach
Taoiseach
The Taoiseach is the head of government or prime minister of Ireland. The Taoiseach is appointed by the President upon the nomination of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas , and must, in order to remain in office, retain the support of a majority in the Dáil.The current Taoiseach is...
Bertie Ahern, who pledged his support, which culminated in Tony Blair's apology to the Conlon family. Ill, she was unable to make the trip to London to hear the apology, but her children spoke to her by telephone from the House of Commons. After securing the apology, she mentioned that she no longer had to worry about dying and what it means.
SDLP leader and Foyle
Foyle (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency)
Foyle was a single member constituency in the Parliament of Northern Ireland. It was created in 1929 as one of the five single-member constituencies replacing the former five-member Londonderry constituency...
member of parliament Mark Durkan
Mark Durkan
Mark Durkan is an Irish nationalist politician in Northern Ireland who was leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party from 2001 to 2010.-Early life:...
described Sarah as "a true heroine of our age" and "shining example to us all", saying that she had the "patience of a saint" and "huge reserves of faith, fortitude and remarkable forgiveness", and that "her story is an inspiration of faith, hope and love".
Personal life
She was described as a woman of "immense CatholicCatholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
faith" who was protective of her son Gerry, and who held the family together with her hard work, wanting their life to be respectable, holy, and quiet. She spent years working at a scrapyard sorting old clothes, and later worked long hours for low pay in the kitchens of the Royal Victoria Hospital, serving food to patients and mopping the floors. Her husband, Giuseppe, was a pacifist who evaded the draft during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He once worked at Harland & Wolf painting the hulls of ships, where the lead in the paint damaged his lungs. His condition was worsened by the humidity and condensation in the house, and he subsequently developed tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
and emphysema
Emphysema
Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...
.
Sarah Conlon died of lung cancer
Lung cancer
Lung cancer is a disease characterized by uncontrolled cell growth in tissues of the lung. If left untreated, this growth can spread beyond the lung in a process called metastasis into nearby tissue and, eventually, into other parts of the body. Most cancers that start in lung, known as primary...
in July 2008, aged 82.
In popular culture
The Hollywood movie In The Name of the Father, starring Daniel Day-LewisDaniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is an English actor with both British and Irish citizenship. His portrayals of Christy Brown in My Left Foot and Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood won Academy and BAFTA Awards for Best Actor, and Screen Actors Guild as well as Golden Globe Awards for the latter...
and directed by Jim Sheridan
Jim Sheridan
Jim Sheridan is an Irish film director. A six-time Academy Award nominee, Sheridan is perhaps best known for his films My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, Get Rich or Die Tryin and In America.-Life and career:...
, is based on the Conlon family's story. Northern Irish actress Marie Jones
Marie Jones
Sarah Marie Jones is a Belfast-based actress and playwright. Born into a working class family, Jones was an actress for several years before turning her hand to writing.-Charabanc/DubbelJoint:...
played Sarah Conlon. The movie was adapted from Gerry Conlon’s autobiography Proved Innocent, later published as In the Name of the Father.
The 1990 made-for-television film Dear Sarah
Dear Sarah (film)
Dear Sarah is a 1990 made-for-television film about Giuseppe Conlon who was sentenced to twelve years imprisonment after being implicated as one of the Maguire Seven during the 1970s. The film was produced by Raidió Teilifís Éireann, directed by Frank Cvitanovich and written by Tom McGurk...
is based on the letters Giuseppe Conlon wrote to his wife while in prison. The film was produced by Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Raidió Teilifís Éireann
Raidió Teilifís Éireann is a semi-state company and the public service broadcaster of Ireland. It both produces programmes and broadcasts them on television, radio and the Internet. The radio service began on January 1, 1926, while regular television broadcasts began on December 31, 1961, making...
, directed by Frank Cvitanovich
Frank Cvitanovich
Frank Cvitanovich was a Canadian documentary film maker, who made much of his best work for British television.-Early years:Cvitanovich was born in Vancouver, the son of a Yugoslavian immigrant...
and written by Tom McGurk
Tom McGurk
Tom McGurk is an Irish poet, journalist, radio presenter and sportscaster from Brockagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland.From 1983 to 1996 he was married to the broadcaster Miriam O'Callaghan...
. It featured Stella McCusker as Sarah Conlon.