The Birmingham Six were six Northern Irishmen who were each sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 following their false convictions for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and quashed by the Court of Appeal on 14 March 1991. The six men were later awarded financial compensation ranging from £840,000 to £1.2 million.
Robert Michael Oldfield Havers, Baron Havers,, was a British barrister and Conservative politician. He was knighted in 1972 and appointed a life peer in 1987.
The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were two groups of people, mostly Northern Irish, who were wrongly convicted in English courts in 1975 and 1976 for the Guildford pub bombings of 5 October 1974, and the Woolwich pub bombing of 7 November 1974. All the convictions were eventually quashed after long campaigns for justice, and the cases, along with those of the Birmingham Six, diminished public confidence in the integrity of the English criminal justice system.
Gerard Patrick Conlon was a Northern Irish man known for being one of the Guildford Four who spent 15 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of being a Provisional IRA bomber.
Jim Sheridan is an Irish playwright and filmmaker. Between 1989 and 1993, Sheridan directed three critically acclaimed films set in Ireland, My Left Foot (1989), The Field (1990), and In the Name of the Father (1993), and later directed the films The Boxer (1997), In America (2003), and Brothers (2009). Sheridan has received six Academy Award nominations for his work.
The Conlon family is an Irish noble family, the original Gaelic spelling being Ó Connalláin. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, the O'Conalláin were Princes of Ui Laeghari, an extensive territory in the counties of Meath and Westmeath, where the High King of Ireland historically derived his seat at the Hill of Tara. The O'Conlons were chiefs of Crioch Tullach, in County Tyrone and branches of this family in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries settled in the counties of Roscommon, Galway and Mayo. As a sept of the Northern Uí Néill, they claim descent from Niall of the Nine Hostages and his son Conall Gulban, both High Kings of Ireland.
Robert Storey was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Prior to an 18-year conviction for possessing a rifle, he also spent time on remand for a variety of charges and in total served 20 years in prison. He also played a key role in the Maze Prison escape, the biggest prison break in British penal history.
The Guildford pub bombings occurred on 5 October 1974 when the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) detonated two 6-pound (2.7-kilogram) gelignite bombs at two pubs in Guildford, Surrey, England. The pubs were targeted because they were popular with British Army personnel stationed at Pirbright barracks. Four soldiers and one civilian were killed. Sixty-five people were wounded.
Terence George is an Irish screenwriter and director. Much of his film work involves "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland.
The Boxer is a 1997 Irish sports drama film written and directed by Jim Sheridan and co-written by Terry George. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Emily Watson, and Brian Cox, the film centres on the life of a boxer and former Provisional IRA volunteer Danny Flynn, played by Day-Lewis, who is trying to "go straight" after his release from prison. The film is the third collaboration between Sheridan and Day-Lewis and portrays the increase of splinter groups within the IRA. In preparation for the role, Daniel Day-Lewis trained as a boxer in Ireland for a year.
David Pallister was a British investigative journalist. He worked on The Guardian for many years, specialising in miscarriages of justice, the arms trade, corruption in international business, and British and international politics, terrorism and terrorist financing, mercenaries, race relations and Africa. For ten years from 1983 he was The Guardian's London-based correspondent for Nigeria; he also covered the Lebanese Civil War, the Ethiopian famine and the Sri Lankan civil war. He changed his name to avoid confusion with another journalist with the same name who was a co-founder of The Leveller magazine.
Gerard Kelly is an Irish republican politician and former Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer who played a leading role in the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998. He is currently a member of Sinn Féin's Ard Chomhairle and a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for North Belfast.
Tom McGurk is an Irish poet, journalist, radio presenter and sportscaster from Brockagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. He attended Portadown College. He studied English and Philosophy at Queen's University Belfast. He was involved in the Civil Rights demonstrations while at Queen's.
Sarah Conlon 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.
Events during the year 2011 in Northern Ireland.
Dear Sarah is a 1990 made-for-television film about Giuseppe Conlon who was wrongfully 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. It starred Stella McCusker, Barry McGovern and Paddy Rocks, and was aired in 1990 by RTÉ in Ireland and on the ITV Network in the United Kingdom.
Alzira Handforth Peirce Albaugh was an American artist.
Martin Joseph O'Connell, better known as Joe, is an Irish republican and a former volunteer in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). He is most noted for having been a member of the Balcombe Street gang.
Gareth Peirce is a British solicitor and human rights activist. She has worked on a number of high-profile cases involving allegations of human rights injustices. Her work with Gerry Conlon and the Guildford Four – wrongly convicted of bombings carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army – was chronicled in the film In the Name of the Father (1993), in which she was portrayed by Emma Thompson.
Sister Sarah Clarke was an Irish nun and civil rights campaigner known for her work on prisoner's rights. She began campaigning in 1970, when she joined efforts to free Irish republican prisoners. Over the next three decades she became well known for her activism, particularly after her involvement in high-profile cases like 1973 Old Bailey bombing, the Birmingham Six or the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven.
