In the Name of the Son. A book review of the new Gerry Conlon biography by Richard O’Rawe…

Gerry Conlon, arguably the most well-known of the Guildford Four, published his autobiography ‘Proved Innocent’ in 1990. It made an enormous impression on me in my early twenties, so it didn’t take much to get me to Merrion Press’s launch of Richard O’Rawe’s ‘In the Name of the Son’ in Belfast at the start of October. The forward by Johnny Depp might raise a few eyebrows, and does indicate the kind of circles Conlon moved in after his release from …

Read more…

“We on the outside finessed…”

In today’s Belfast Telegraph, Liam Clarke observes Danny Morrison’s admission that “we on the outside finessed the sequence of events for the sake of morale” at the end of the 1980 hunger strike. This is a major admission, as it changes the whole narrative that had been pushed for years, and also removes the main defence that the Morrison narrative had employed as to why O’Rawe’s version of events was wrong. Previously, it had been argued that the reason why Thatcher’s July 1981 offer was not accepted was because of British duplicity over the deal secured during the 1980 hunger strike. With Morrison’s admission that no such deal existed, and that the British reneging was a false claim, that argument falls apart.

Read more…

The “Top Secret” Press Release

One has to admire the sheer chutzpah of Brendan McFarlane. He was in Saturday’s Irish News trying to pass off a 1981 press release as a secret comm reflecting the personal viewpoint of Richard O’Rawe. Mr McFarlane said yesterday he would break five years of silence by producing secret IRA comms written by Mr O’Rawe during the Hunger Strike in which he accused the British government of trying to prolong it. The first first two lines of the original comm read: …

Read more…