In the Name of the Father

About Ireland

Because I have seen the movie "In the Name of the Father" before I choose to write about it.

In the early 1970s, Gerry Conlon went to London from Belfast to pursue a different life and later on he found work there. In 1974, along with friends and family, he was arrested and later accused of the Guilford Bombing.

Conlon was to spend fifteen years in jail for something he had never done. His father, Giuseppe Conlon was also imprisoned and years later died in jail due to ill health and improper prison medical care. Gerry Conlon was transferred from prison to prison and he fought for clearing his and his father's names. Throughout the initial interrogations he was heavily abused by the British police.

With the relentless efforts of his lawyer Gareth Peirce, finally, after fifteen years, the verdicts were quashed.

The film is about one man's journey fighting against one of the most shocking miscarriages of justice in British history and undeservedly tortured innocent civilians. This is a moving, powerful story well told.

This film damns the British Justice system in a way rarely seen before on film. It does not in any way glamorise the IRA or is it "out to get" the British Government or the Crown Prosecution Service. It simply tells the story of people who where in the wrong place at the wrong time. These people had their lives destroyed just so the police could say that they had caught the Guilford bombers - who where never found.