Sarah Conlon

Sarah Conlon ( Maguire; 20 January 1926 – 19 July 2008) was an Irish housewife and a prominent campaigner in one of the most high-profile miscarriage of justice cases in British legal history. She spent decades clearing the names of her husband Giuseppe and son Gerry 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.

Guildford pub bombings

In 1974, an IRA unit planted bombs in two pubs in Guildford, Surrey, killing four soldiers and one civilian, and injured 50 others. Gerard Conlon, Patrick Armstrong, Paul Hill and Carole Richardson, dubbed as "the Guildford Four", were arrested, convicted, and jailed for life in 1975, with each serving 15 years in jail before their convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal, after 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 was 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, dubbed as the Maguire Seven, of running an IRA bomb factory in North London, on the basis of what turned out to be faulty 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, 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."

Conlon's husband, Patrick "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.

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.