Justice for Judith Ward and Nicky Kelly
The Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four might have been the most famous victims of injustice in recent years, but they certainly weren’t the only ones. In the past month two others who were wrongfully imprisoned, one by the British government and one by the Irish government, had their names cleared.
Judith Ward was freed on May 11 from the British prison system, where she has spent more than 18 years on a life imprisonment conviction for IRA-related bombings.
Her appeal to be turned free was granted, pending an inevitable full quashing of her conviction
Just as in the Birmingham and Guildford cases, the British justice system was forced to admit its wrongdoing. The appeals judges handling the case declared, “We have formed the view that no reliance could properly be placed upon the confessions made by Miss Ward. It follows in our view that we should inevitably find her convictions on all counts unsafe and unsatisfactory.”
Ward was arrested in 1974, at the height of the IRA’s most intense bombing blitz on the British mainland. She was convicted on charges that she took part in three bombing attacks, including one on a British army bus in which 12 were killed.
The only evidence against Ward was her since-renounced confession, which supporters say were beaten out of a young Irish woman who was at the time known to be mentally unstable.
The West Yorkshire police force has apologized for their part in convicting Ward, saying it was “regrettable.” The scientific “evidence” which said that Ward had been handling explosives has been proved faulty, as was Ward’s confession.
Ward’s victory means that, since the Guildford Four’s release in October 1989, at least 38 people have had their convictions quashed in cases stemming from failure of British police work and scientific evidence. Many of these would have been dead long ago if Britain still had legal capital punishment.
Nicky Kelly was not a victim of British injustice towards Irish people, but rather found himself on the wrong side of the Republic of Ireland government due to his own political connections. The Wicklow native was arrested in April, 1976, just days after the robbery of a mail train in Sallins, County Kildare. Irish police suspected the outlawed Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), and immediately started rounding up dozens of members of the INLA’s political wing, the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP), one of whom was Kelly.
After being interrogated and beaten for more than 30 hours, Kelly signed a confession.
Kelly and two other IRSP members were convicted on no evidence other than their own confessions. The IRA made the surprising and unprecedented step of announcing that its members were responsible for the robbery (its policy is to never admit to robberies within the Republic), but the court ignored this.
The other two men had their names cleared in 1980, but Kelly, who was released from custody in 1984 following a 44-day hunger strike, had to wait till May 5 of this year for his formal pardon by Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Albert Reynolds. Just as the many similar cases have embarrassed the British government, the Kelly case has humbled the Irish government, which came under pressure from the likes of Amnesty International, Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn and Congressman Joe Kennedy.
The Irish Move to Florida: 1990 Census Details Released
Details of the 1990 census have been released, showing that the more than 40 million Americans who claim Irish descent have been moving from traditional Irish strongholds in the Northeast to the sunny climates of the South.
Florida in particular has seen a huge rise in the number of Irish; 1.9 million of them now live in the Sunshine State, as opposed to 1.6 million at the time of the last census in 1980.
However, New York State has lost over 170,000 Irish-Americans in the past decade, down to 2.8 million from a 1980 high of 2.97 million. New Jersey has seen a less dramatic loss, at 1.41 million, down from 1.44 million.
Neighboring Connecticut had a slight gain, up to 614,453 from 613,684. Together, the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut has 4.8 million Irish, slightly more than the entire population of Ireland itself. Still, there are 200,000 less Irish-Americans living in the tri-state than in 1980.
Massachusetts, a longtime ‘green state,’ gained slightly, up to 1.57 million from 1.56 million.
Full details of the census have yet to be released, but it’s assumed that the total number of Americans claiming Irish heritage will rise from the 1980’s total of 40.7 million.
Fallout Continues from the Bishop Casey Affair
Opinion polls taken after the shock of the Bishop Eamonn Casey scandal show that 69 percent of the people in Ireland believe that Catholic priests should be allowed to be married. The whopping number of people against the idea of forced celibacy for priests is likely to be just one of the long-term effects of the Casey affair, which has rocked the Catholic church.
As the world now knows, the former Bishop of Galway has admitted that he is the father of 17-year-old Peter Eamon Murphy, a high school student from Ridgefield, Connecticut. Casey admitted only after fleeing Ireland, where the story was broken by the boy’s mother, 43-year-old Annie Murphy, an Irish-American from Connecticut.
Although the Bishop has yet to speak publicly, a written statement was delivered to the press nearly a week after the Bishop resigned, which read: “I acknowledge that Peter Murphy is my son and I have grievously wronged Peter and his mother, Annie Murphy. I have also sinned against God and the Church.” The statement admits that, of the many tens of thousands of pounds in payments made by the Bishop in child support over the years, more than £70,000 (almost $116,000) had been taken from an Irish church account. Casey stated that the money has been repaid to the church since the scandal broke by several anonymous friends.
Casey also stated that the rest of the more-than-$200 monthly payments made over the years, as well as a single payment of $115,000 in the summer of 1990 came from his own pocket.
Casey attempted to make a recent payment of $150,000 towards the boy’s college education, but the boy refused because he felt the money was a “bribe” to shut him up.
Murphy, who said she met the Bishop through a family friend as a young woman, said that she and the Bishop had a torrid love affair after she relocated in April 1973 to Kerry, where Casey was then stationed. She said that when she gave birth in July 1974, the Bishop immediately turned sour on her, pressuring her to give the child up for adoption, which she refused to do. Murphy says that the main reason why she felt she had to go public was for Peter’s sake, whom she said was distraught that his father constantly refused to even speak to him.
The scandal has been especially tough to swallow for Casey’s former followers in Ireland, as Casey was undoubtedly the most famous and best-loved priest in Ireland. Casey made a name for himself for the tremendous work he did on behalf of the Third World, for which he helped raise millions through the organization he founded, Trocaire (Irish for “Care”), and also for the work he did on behalf of the largely Irish homeless population in England. He was a gregarious, jolly man who was also known for his radical beliefs in Liberation Theology, which led him to initiate protests against U.S. policy in El Salvador during President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 visit to Ireland.
Apart from the aforementioned survey, the aftershock of the scandal is continued to be felt in the form of a rash of rumors about other priests in Ireland who are thought to have been skirting their oaths of celibacy. One in particular, Wexford Bishop Brendan Comiskey has lashed out at widely-circulating rumors tying him to a married woman. “Thave been crucified,” said the bishop, who denies ever having broken his oath.
The scandal also brought attention to the collection and distribution of money intended for church charities. Bishop Casey’s “loan” of £70,000 was, according to the Bishop himself, taken without anyone’s knowledge and was not being held accountable for by anything but the Bishop’s own conscience.
The Bishop’s disclosure that he took the money came after the Papal Nuncio for Dublin, Dr. Emmanuel Gerarda, demanded to know where Casey got the money.
At press time Casey’s successor has not been named.
Casey himself is believed to be in Central of South America, where he has said he wants to continue working with the роог.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the June 1992 issue of Irish America. ♦
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