The Five Demands

State papers: Thatcher asked to make ‘gesture of clemency’ in Guildford Four case (Belfast Telegraph)

Toaiseach Charles Haughey privately pleaded with the UK Government for “some generous gesture” such as clemency over the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four and other cases.

Mr Haughey raised the issue with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at a meeting in Brussels in February 1988 after he had received a personal plea for help from Guildford Four member Gerry Conlon.

Mr Conlon and three others – Paul Hill, Carole Richardson and Paddy Armstrong – were sentenced to life sentences for the attacks in Guildford, Surrey, which killed five people and injured 65. Their convictions were overturned in 1989.

The Birmingham Six also had their convictions for the murders of 21 people in two pub bombings in 1974 quashed.

Mr Conlon, in a letter to Mr Haughey from prison, begged for Irish Government help.

“We spent nearly 14 years in English prisons for something I not only did not do but did not even know anything about,” he wrote.

“Mr Haughey, my father died in an English prison after years of neglect and ill treatment, he died an innocent man. I ask you to speak out on our behalf and on behalf of the Maguire family and the Birmingham Six.

“I ask you and your Government to take our case to the European Court of Human Rights.”

Mr Haughey raised the issue with Mrs Thatcher.

“I know your feelings on these subjects but I must press you. If you were to make some generous gesture,” he said to her.

“I must emphasise to you the very keen sense of injustice rampant in Ireland at present. If there any possible movement or any gesture you can make? A small move would go a long way. Could I ask you to look at the question of clemency? What I am concerned with is clemency – not pardon but clemency.”

Mrs Thatcher warned she could not interfere.

Mr Conlon also claimed a letter he tried to send to the Irish Embassy complaining about discrimination in prison was suppressed and was the reason behind his transfer to another prison.

Mr Conlon was told in early 1988 by the prison’s governor he was being moved from HMP Long Lartin after seven years to Full Sutton Prison in York after the letter of complaint was seen by prison officials.

A private letter dated May 11, 1988 sent to the Department of Foreign Affairs, said Mr Conlon appealed for the Irish Government’s help to be transferred back.

Breifne O’Reilly, the third secretary, wrote to Ray Bassettsaying: “After submitting the letter to the censors, Conlon claims he was summoned to the Governor’s office that afternoon and was told he would be transferred.”

Mr Conlon died in 2014.