Republican News · Thursday 9 January 1996

[An Phoblacht]

The prisoners' Good Samaritan

Liam O Coileáin reviews the life story of a straightforward, determined fighter for justice

No Faith in the System

By Sister Sarah Clarke

Published by Mercier Press

Price £9.99

Sister Sarah Clarke is a remarkable and deeply religious woman who has devoted her life, most of it spent in England, to justice issues in general and to Irish prisoners in particular. A member of the La Sainte Union order of nuns, this diminutive 87-year-old is described by Albert Reynolds in his introduction to her autobiography, No Faith in the System, as ``one of the most significant and heroic women involved in the Anglo-Irish situation over the past generation''.

Her story is a fascinating account of a free spirit who chose to take orders but retained a fundamental radicalism which she later put to invaluable use to help Irish prisoners and their families in England.

Sr Sarah grew up in Galway and her earliest experiences of nuns seem to have been particularly fortunate. One teaching nun who had an impact on her advised pupils to read Gone With the Wind at a time when other more fundamentalist Catholics were trying to have it banned. As a young girl this nun was reputed to have helped row into Galway a boat load of guns with Liam Mellowes. Another favourite nun was the sister of the only bishop who backed Noel Browne and the Mother and Child Act.

But the Catholic world view of the time was not so liberal. The young Sarah and her fellow pupils were encouraged to support the ``good'' fascist Franco's progress in Spain. Only many years later did she finally realise that Franco was the real villain. ``We were told what Communists did to people who practiced their faith and of children being made to inform on their parents,'' she writes. ``Little did I know that I, too, would encounter the knock at the door and the police,'' a reference to her harassment by the English Special Branch.

Sr Sarah's style of writing is straightforward, opinionated and extremely readable. Her early life, indeed her life up until her 52nd year, is rushed through in the first chapter and all of a sudden we are at Burntollet and reading of a political awakening. Her book's historical references are not couched for revisionists' benefit: ``When Bernadette Devlin was elected to the British parliament she articulated the anger and frustration of the Nationalists who were under attack from security forces and Loyalists. The IRA, recently reborn after many years of dormancy, dug out their old rifles and tried to protect the Nationalist community who were under siege.''

As an expose of the harshness of the English prison system, this book, as the title suggests, is uncompromising. As an example of the difference one person can make in human rights terms, it is an inspiration. Sr Sarah's description of her first prison visit describes ``a terrible place: the awful greyness, stone, cement, grey, harsh.

``I came out and did what I have often seen families doing since. I hung my head and cried standing under the big high grey walls, the old dirty windows, and I could hear the banging and clashing of doors.''

She remembers the 1981 Hunger Strike and the wedding in London of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer, which was celebrated as Kieran Doherty and Kevin Lynch were ``going blind and close to death''. Ken Livingstone and other Hunger Strike protestors demonstrated on the steps of County Hall in London all day. Sr Sarah recalls that all the news was wedding wedding wedding. ``Mrs Reagan was there with five hatboxes and a hairdresser. I felt I should go down and stand with the protestors at County Hall. The prince and princess passed the hunger-strike demonstration and the commentator said that they looked at the demonstrators - let's hope it reminded them that all was not well in a so-called part of the United Kingdom.''

Sr Sarah had a special fondness for the late Giuseppe Conlon, who protested his innocence to the last and who, even on his death bed, was surrounded by screws and police officers.

``Theresa Hynes and I were trying to help Giuseppe every day,'' she recalls. ``Theresa rang The Universe who told her to ring the Catholic Prisoners Welfare Association which she did and spoke to a man who, when he heard it was political, said he would have nothing to do with it. Clean hands like Pilate.''

The photographs which have been chosen to illustrate the book speak volumes. They are not of political leaders or other famous and infamous figures but of the often forgotten and largely anonymous relatives of Irish prisoners, the families of miscarriage of justice victims and POWs. ``It is the families of prisoners who are always uppermost in my mind,'' she says. Her book gives graphic and disturbing details of the harassment and difficulties encountered by relatives desperately trying to keep in touch with their imprisoned loved ones. ``I marvel at the families that have stayed together and the marriages that have lasted in spite of the terrible ordeals faced by the wives travelling to see their husbands in English gaols,'' she says. ``I am amazed at the loyalty and love of mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers, facing all the dangers and humiliations awaiting them as they make their way from Ireland to England, some for 20 years or more.''

The final chapter of her book recalls a particularly frightening experience of her own, when Sr Sarah, then 85 years old, was visited in her home by police officers and questioned about the Whitemoor escape. They took a statement and fingerprinted her but at no stage pointed out that she had the legal right to refuse all that harassment. She emerged from that experience shaken but undeterred from continuing her work, despite her increasingly failing eyesight.

Sr Sarah's years spent visiting prisoners and of helping to ease the burden for families travelling to England, are in Ireland the stuff of legend. Her support is appreciated by families and communities the length and breadth of this country. Her story is one of sacrifice and faith, combined with a sense of justice which has pitted her against the establishments in both England and Ireland. Her impact has been enormous, most importantly in terms of the lives she has touched and helped with no expectation of reward.

``People who have known me,'' she concludes, ``might express my work in the single line from Matthew's Gospel, `I was in prison and you visited me'. That would be the greatest highlight on the canvas of my life.''

 

  • New in Print
    • Contents Page for this Issue
    Reply to: Republican News