A few months afterwards, the British government also referred the Guildford 4 case to the Court of Appeal. Several Irish trade unions passed resolutions on all the miscarriages of justice. Preparations began for a major demonstration in Dublin at the end of 1989.
In October campaigners got a major boost with the freeing of the Guildford 4, by direction of the DPP. The Crown knew it could not trust Lord Lane and his pals after the scandal of the Birmingham 6 referral.
The British state obviously hoped that this decision would restore some credibil-. ity to their system of "justice". They were sadly mistaken. Great credit is due here to the way that Paul Hill and Gerry Conlon of the Guildford 4 relentlessly campaigned on their own case and that of the Birmingham 6. Dublin politicians said their faith was "restored" in British Juscity with an Con continually contradict. 19 ed by Hill and Conlon.
IRELAND / BELGIUM
The British again hoped they could sit tight. But a force had been unleashed that they could not control. The campaign in the 26 Counties spread to areas where it never had before.
A good example is the involvement of a group of artists, musicians and actors called "Parade".
The artists organized a show in the streets of Dublin to dramatize the plight of the Birmingham 6. The parade was led off by a ghoulish "judge" sitting on top of a throne of decomposed rubbish, broken bicycle parts, umbrella sticks and all sorts of garbage.
A massive model of a rat's head stuck out from under this & toot high plattorm. It was pushed along by a contingent of actors dressed as British barristers. Other features of this parade were actors taking the part of well-known Irish radical figures from the past - for example Oscar Wilde, Constance Markievicz, Jim Larkin — even the current Irish football team manager Jack Charlton, who is English, was in his turn "arrested" for being Irish.
All these characters would appear in the middle of the onlooking crowd, only to be arrested by a squad of "police" who dragged them off to a huge circus cage. There they joined actors playing the parts of the Birmingham 6 with grim realism. The legend on the cage was "innocent until proved Irish"
The build-up to this parade sparked off a very significant debate in the Dublin Council of Trade Unions. Throughout 1990 the leadership of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) built up a campaign to oppose the IRA's bombing campaign against the Dublin-Belfast train link. Even Sinn Fein members kept their heads down whenever this issue was raised.
Union bureaucrats organize diversion
The bad faith behind the ICTU leadership campaign became apparent when they organized a "peace train" protest action over the railway line bombings to coincide exactly with the date of the December "Parade of Innocence" organized by the Miscarriages of Justice group in Dublin.
When the Dublin Council of Trade Unions debated the issue it decided to support the Miscarriages of Justice parade. The supporters of the "peace train" denounced the parade as pro-IRA!
On the day the ICTU's protest was very poorly attended, while over 10,000 people marched through Dublin in parade.
The Miscarriages of Justice group also took up the case of the Winchester 3Martina Shanahan, Finbar Cullen, and John McCann. In the climate created by the release of the Guildford 4, there was 20 much m. T pressin oster Bin terr much more pressure on the British govappeal; their campaign forced several Irish politicians to come out in support of their case.
In August 1990 the then British Home Secretary David Waddington referred the Birmingham 6 case to the Court of Appeal for a second time. A dirty game of leaks started up. Hints were dropped that the Birmingham 6 would be