SISTER SARAH CLARKE: Died in London on February 4, 2002. aged 82: IRISH NUN DUBBED THE JOAN OF ARC OF ENGLISH JAILS: The courageous and unsung heroine of the long and difficult campaign to clear the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six and the Maguire Seven - the notorious miscarriages of justice cases that disgraced the British system of criminal justice and wrecked the lives of so many innocent people. Ronan Bennett, The Guardian, Thursday February 7, 2002: Sister Sarah Clarke, who has died aged 82, was the courageous and unsung heroine of the long and difficult campaign to clear the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six and the Maguire Seven - the notorious miscarriages of justice cases that disgraced the British system of criminal justice and wrecked the lives of so many innocent people. Her involvement began in 1970 when, aged 53 and living in London, she attended her first political meeting. It changed her life. She sought and was granted permission from her order, La Sainte Union, to join the civil rights movement, then agitating against discrimination by the Unionist government in the north of Ireland. She was born in rural Galway, and brought up with her brother in the village of Eyrecourt, where her parents ran a pub, shop and farm. She entered La Sainte Union in Killashee, County Kildare, as a teenager, and trained as a teacher. Until that turning point in 1970, her existence had revolved around her religion and her teaching: she taught from 1941 in Athlone, and later at the La Sainte Union convent schools in Southampton, Herne Bay and Highgate, north London. But her commitment to civil rights opened up a different world. She was, at first - as she acknowledged in her 1995 autobiography, No Faith In The System - naive, believing it would be enough simply to tell people about injustice for things to be put right. She wrote to Catholic MPs like the Conservative John Biggs-Davison about the Northern Ireland situation, but received little encouragement - though she and Biggs-Davison did become friends. Though she never gave up trying to persuade establishment figures, as the title of her autobiography made clear, she didnt have high expectations, and her identification with those she saw as wronged and oppressed intensified. She started to visit the growing number of Irish prisoners in English jails, and became, as Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six put it, the Joan of Arc of the prisons. Her Catholicism was profound and orthodox, but it was sermon on the mount Catholicism, leavened with a profound compassion and a down-to-earth understanding of human frailty. Though she could be scathing - about bigoted judges and corrupt policemen, about former allies who took the establishment shilling - I never once heard her, in more than 25 years, be morally judgmental. When the wife of one long-term prisoner became pregnant, Sister Sarah nodded and said, Well, one pregnancy in eight years isnt so bad, I suppose. The introduction in 1974 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the waves of arrests orchestrated by Special Branch created an atmosphere of fear in the Irish community. Sister Sarah devoted herself to arranging legal representation, visiting prisons, and ferrying confused and traumatised relatives from Ireland between airports and jails in her little silver Honda - she was possibly the most erratic driver in London. In 1988, when she was in her late 60s, the Home Office banned her, on unspecified security grounds, from attending the first marriage of Paul Hill, wrongly convicted for the Guildford bombings, in Long Lartin prison. It was a distinction that irked but also not so secretly tickled her. No case outraged her more than that of Guiseppe Conlon, arrested in 1974 after he came to London to visit his son Gerry, then under interrogation for the Guildford bombings. Guiseppe, a much-respected Belfast working-class family man, was desperately ill and, sentenced to 12 years, a vindictive Home Office ensured that he was to die in prison. Sister Sarah would tell anyone who would listen that Guiseppe and his co-defendants were innocent - in those days solicitor Gareth Peirce, Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Chris Mullin and John McDonnell - now also a Labour MP -were among the very few who would listen, and act. Sister Sarahs love of art was an important counter-balance. In the early 1960s she attended Chelsea Art School and was intrigued by the bohemian world she found there. She formed a lasting friendship with her graphics tutor, Edward Wright, and his family. One of Wrights works hangs in the Camden flat that she moved to after leaving the Highgate convent in the early 1990s. Dogged by ill health for much of her life, she was determined not to be forced into a home. In her last days, her mind turned increasingly back to her family and to her childhood. Shortly before the end she said, I must go up the hill now and meet my mother. Her dying wish was to be buried beside her beloved brother Michael in Galway; her wish is being granted. Sister Sarah Clarke: by Billy Power Birmingham Six Sister Sarah should need no introduction as just about every Irish prisoner up and down the country knew her and were thankful for the support she showed not only the prisoners but also their families. It is a great lost to the Irish community, and in particular those who were on the receiving end of the criminal justice system here in the United Kingdom. The Birmingham Six, The Guildford Four, both republican prisoners and none political prisoners all were on the receiving end of Sister Sarahs generosity and never faltering support all the time they were incarcerated. If a family arrived from Ireland Sister Sarah was there to pick them up from the Airport or Dockside. It was Sister Sarah who found them accommodation and finally escorted them to the Prisons. Nothing could stand in the way of families visiting loved ones if Sister Sarah was with them. We are talking about visits were prisoners were dragged out of the visitors room during a visit by family from Ireland, and being Ghosted to another prison hundreds of miles away straight on to the punishment block, for reason at all, and no details given to the families. Sister Sarah was the thorn in the side of every prison Governor in the country. She was Persona Non Grata in all the Category A prisons simply because she refused to bow down to the terrible regimes that were run within the Prison system in the 1970s and 1980s, and fought for prisoners right during that period. The authorities hated Sister Sarah, for her tremendous work for prisoners right. If Sister Sarah was to be tried for being a Christian, the overwhelming evidence would lead to her conviction. Word can not express the lost we feel at the death of Sister Sarah Source:mojuk.org.uk/bulletins/sarah.html Image: blogotheirish.wordpress indcatholicnews flickr In spite of the fact that not all of Sisters Sarah’s sisters shared her views. A giant has walked among us: may we keep her memory for the time to come.” Sister Sarah supported Giuseppe Conlon, father of Gerry Conlon, who was wrongfully convicted and served 15 years for the Guildford pub bombings in 1974. While in England campaigning for his son, Giuseppe was arrested and falsely convicted together with the Maguire family of involvement with explosives. He received a 12 year sentence, but died after five years in prison. His body was returned to England three times because the authorities in Belfast would not unload it from the plane. Giuseppe Conlons grave Milltown Cemetery Belfast
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 08:19:22 +0000
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