Bishop recalls ‘heroic’ role of Guildford Four campaigners

Religious campaigners brought attention of miscarriages of justice

Bishop Edward Daly has voiced his sadness at the passing of Gerry Conlon of the Guildford Four.

Bishop Daly, who, as Bishop of Derry, was linked to the campaign for justice on behalf of the Birmingham Six and who highlighted the case of the Guildford Four said he was “saddened” to learn of the death of Conlon, who died on June 22, aged 60.

In 1975, Conlon, along with Paul Hill, Gerry Armstrong and Carole Richardson were sentenced to life in prison in England following the 1974 Guildford bombings. The four spent 15 years in prison before the British justice system recognised a major miscarriage of justice in relation to their case and that of the Maguire Seven. Conlon’s father, Giuseppe, died in prison as part of that miscarriage.

“They were awful times,” Bishop Daly recalled of the years of suffering endured by entirely innocent people in high security jails in prison. “The loss of ones liberty is terrible, but to be imprisoned with no involvement with the situation, the loneliness and hopelessness must be awful.”

Crediting Fr Raymond Murray and the late Fr Denis Faul with bringing attention to the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four cases when others saw such actions as being those of “fellow travellers” with terrorism, Bishop Daly said the clerics, along with Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich and England’s Cardinal Basil Hume were “heroes” for their campaigning for the innocent of Guidlford and Birmingham.