#OTD in 1976 – The Maguire Seven: Guilty in Law, innocent in Fact.

04/03/2019.Reading time 3 minutes.

‘Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail.’ Forced (beaten) confessions, contaminated forensic kits, a rush to justice following IRA atrocities in Britain and sloppy police practices ensures that Anne Maguire, her husband Patrick, sons Vincent 17, Patrick 14, brother, brother-in-law and a family friend are found guilty of […]

#OTD in 1974 – IRA Coach Bomb Conviction of Judith Ward. Her conviction was quashed in 1992 and she was subsequently released.

04/11/2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

Judith Ward is unjustly convicted for the 1972 IRA coach bombing on the M62 motorway in northern England. She was handed 12 life sentences for the 9 soldiers, one civilian adult and two children killed in the bombing. Many more were injured. The English-born, Ward, had spent some years in Ireland. Following the explosion, the […]

#OTD in Irish History – 19 October:

19/10/2018.Reading time 15 minutes.

1610 – Birth of James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond; royalist soldier; and three times Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 1649 – New Ross town, Co Wexford, surrenders to Oliver Cromwell. 1680 – Birth of minister and church leader, John Abernethy, in Coleraine, Co Derry. 1745 – Death of Jonathan Swift. He was an Irish satirist, […]

#OTD in 2014 – Author and activist, Gerry Conlon dies of cancer, aged 60.

21/06/2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

“I have been in prison for something I did not do. I am totally innocent. The Maguire Seven are innocent. Let’s hope the Birmingham Six are freed.” Gerry Conlon, was one of the so-called Guildford Four, convicted on fabricated evidence of the Guildford pub bombings in 1974 which killed five people and injured dozens more; […]

#OTD in 1994 – Northern Ireland Lord Chief Justice, Sir Brian Hutton, quashed the conviction of Paul Hill for the murder of a former British soldier in 1974. Hutton declared that the conviction was ‘unsafe and unsatisfactory’.

21/04/2018.Reading time 5 minutes.

An appeals court overturned a 19-year-old murder conviction against Paul Hill, who spent nearly 15 years in prison for two IRA attacks that he insisted he never committed. The decision was the latest rebuke to the British police for mishandling high-profile terrorist cases in which innocent people have gone to jail. The court ruled that […]