Who Are We and our Patrons?
Sallins Inquiry Now is a campaign directed by members of the family of Osgur Breatnach.
The campaign aims are supported by Nicky Kelly and Brian McNally, who were tortured and framed alongside Osgur.
Above are only some of the broad international spectrum of legal, political, human rights, trade unionists, religious figures, artists and personalities concerned about the case….
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Campaign Patrons
We would like to thank the following for consenting to act as patrons for the campaign:
Alastair Logan OBE, Retired Solicitor, Human Rights Lawyer, Chair of the Solicitors International Human Rights Group and a Researcher of Human Right issues. He has acted for ‘the Guildford Four’ and ‘the Maguire Seven’ for 51 years and is still working to get the truth told about how their convictions were arranged and to get the release of papers in the case which the Home Office has locked away until the end of the present century.
Professor Marie Breen-Smith, is an author, teacher and researcher from Northern Ireland. She has published on topics such as the Northern Ireland conflict, particularly the human impact, trauma, victim politics, children and armed conflict, research ethics and methods, religion and conflict, and issues to do with political violence in Southern Africa, Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland.
Honor Heffernan, singer (Chasing the Moon/ Fire & Ice/ The Other Side) activist/ film and TV actor: Angel/ Glenroe/ No Justice/ Mia, Liebe meines Lebens/ Family
Seán Crowe TD for Dublin South-West Constituency
Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC) Irish: Ionaid Chomhairle Dlí Saor in Aisce) is a non-profit human rights organisation that provide pro bono publico assistance via a network of legal advice clinics throughout the Republic of Ireland. They have been involved in a number of notable law cases including Airey v. Ireland.
Stephen Rea is an Irish actor. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he began his career as a member of Dublin’s Focus Theatre, and played many roles on the stage and on Irish television. He came to the attention of international film audiences in Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan’s 1992 film The Crying Game, and subsequently starred in many more of Jordan’s films, including Interview with the Vampire (1994), Michael Collins (1996), Breakfast on Pluto (2005), and Greta (2018). He also played a starring role in the Hugo Blick 2011 TV series The Shadow Line.
As a stage actor, he is known for his performances at The Gate and Abbey theatres in Dublin, and the Royal Court Theatre in London. He is a co-founder of the Field Day Theatre Company with Brian Friel. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for The Crying Game (1992), and won a BAFTA Award for his role in The Honourable Woman in 2015. In 2020, The Irish Times ranked Rea the 13th greatest Irish film actor of all time.
John Brady, TD, Sinn Féin Justice spokesperson.
Richard Boyd Barrett TD, People Before Profit
Robert Ballagh, is an Irish artist, painter and designer. Ballagh’s initial painting style was strongly influenced by pop art. He is also known for his hyper realistic renderings of Irish literary, historical and establishment figures,or designing more than 70 Irish postage stamps and a series of banknotes, and for work on theatrical sets, including for works by Samuel Beckett and Oscar Wilde, and for Riverdance in multiple locations. Ballagh’s work has been exhibited at many solo and group shows since 1967, in Dublin, Cork, Brussels, Moscow, Sofia, Florence, Lund and others, as well as touring in Ireland and the US. His work is held in a range of museum and gallery collections. He was chosen to represent Ireland at the 1969 Biennale de Paris.
He is a member of Ireland’s academy of artists, Aosdána He became the founding chairperson of the Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation. He has received a number of awards, including an honorary doctorate from UCD. He has published a book of photography of Dublin, and a volume of memoirs.
Dr Mark Coen, Associate Professor, Sutherland School of Law, University College Dublin. He holds the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law from the University of Oxford, where he was a member of Magdalen College and specialised in criminal justice subjects. His research interests are in public law, especially in contemporary and historical criminal justice and the Law of Evidence.
Mark has a particular interest in trial by jury. His doctorate, awarded by Trinity College Dublin in 2012, theorised the approach of appellate judges to allegations of jury irregularities. With Dr Niamh Howlin of the Sutherland School of Law, Mark leads the ‘Judge-Jury Relations in Ireland’ project, funded by the Fitzpatrick Family Foundation. This empirical study is the first to examine the relationship between judges and juries in Irish criminal trials, investigating issues such as how judges approach and prepare for the summing up and the extent to which they deliver internet warnings and provide written materials to jurors. A report based on the project, entitled Judges and Juries in Ireland: An Empirical Study (UCD 2020) was launched by the then Chief Justice in March 2020. A second phase of the project was begun in September 2024 and is ongoing.
Mark is an expert on the history of Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry. His research disproves several findings of the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries (2013) in relation to that institution. He is co-editor (with Professor Katherine O’Donnell and Dr Maeve O’Rourke) of A Dublin Magdalene Laundry: Donnybrook and Church-State Power in Ireland (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023). In 2024 he was joint winner (with Professor O’Donnell) of the inaugural UCD Engaged Research Impact Prize for his work on the Donnybrook project.
Mark’s research has been published in prestigious international journals including Legal Studies, the Criminal Law Review, the International Journal of Evidence and Proof, the Journal of Law and Society, the Human Rights Law Review, the American Journal of Legal History and the Law and History Review. He is sole editor of ‘The Offences Against the State Act at 80: A Model Counter-Terrorism Act?’ (Hart, 2021). He has been a visiting scholar at Victoria University of Wellington (2018), St Catherine’s College Oxford (2021) and the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies (2021).
Mark has a Professional Certificate in University Teaching and Learning. He was President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers from November 2017 to November 2018. In December 2020 he was awarded a College of Social
Donncha O’Connell, Professor of Law at Galway University teaching European Human Rights, Administrative Law and Advocacy, Activism and Public Interest Law. He served two terms as a commissioner of the Law Reform Commission.
Jane Clarke, poet. AWARDS: Yeats International Poetry Competition 2014/ Listowel Writers’ Week Poetry Collection Prize / 2014 Trocaire/ Poetry Ireland Poetry Competition/ 2016 Hennessy Literary Award for Emerging Poetry / 2016 Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Poem of the Year Award / 2017 Arts Council of Ireland Literature Bursary / 2021 Forward Book of Poetry: Highly Commended/ 2023 Forward Prize for Best Collection
Denis J Halliday. Ex- UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq. Ex- UN Deputy Resident Representative to Singapore for UN Development Programme. Economics, Geography and Public Administration MA. Recipient Gandhi International Peace Award.
Christy Moore. Singer, musician, songwriter.
Peter Murtagh, journalist
Cormac Ó Dulacháin. Senior Counsel. B.Ed, BL, ACIArb, MII, Mediation (Harvard).
Donal Lunny, musician, producer, actor, writer, playwright.
Donal O’Kelly. Award winning actor, playwright.
James MacGuill SC, practising solicitor.
Dr. Clare O’Grady Walshe PhD, activist
Judge Pat McCartan. Ex- Circuit Court judge, ex- politician, solicitor in Sallins Case.
Keith Donald. Musician, playwright, writer.
Leila Doolan. Film Director, Producer, ex- Director Abbey Theatre, founder Director Galway Film Fleadh, ex-chairperson of the Irish Film Board.
Paul Murphy TD.
Michael Farrell. Solicitor. Member Irish Council of State. Member European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance. Ex- internee, ex- Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, ex-chair Irish Counsel for Civil Liberties, ex-member Irish Human Rights Commission.
Dr Brian Kennedy, GP, Wexford
Paddy Hayes. Producer, Director, Multimedia Masters Degree, BA Communications, MsC multimedia Systems, Magamedia.
Paula Meehan. Poet, playwright, Master of Fine Arts, ex- Ireland Professor of Poetry.
Prof Dermot PJ Walsh.LLB. Lawyer, author, University Lecturer. Professor of Law at Kent University. Member of the Royal Irish Academy. Former President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers. Specialises in policing, criminal procedure and EU criminal law.
Raymond Keane. Award- winning actor, writer, director, playright, Irish National Opera, Theatre Co. director.
