Ann Conlon was the youngest of three children born to Patrick “Giuseppe” Conlon, who worked in a bookmakers, and his wife Sarah, née Maguire, who worked in the kitchens of the Royal Victoria Hospital. She was educated at primary school locally, then at St Louise’s College. She was 15 when her brother was arrested in an army raid on the family home at a time when army raids on homes in West Belfast were common. Events became traumatic when he was taken to England and charged with the murder of five people in the bombing of a pub in Guildford, Surrey. Despite being in poor health, her father travelled to London to help his son. Then her father was arrested, with her uncle’s family, and all were charged and wrongly imprisoned, convictions which were later quashed. After her brother and father were arrested, she left school to help her mother. They saved to raise the money to visit her brother and father in English prisons. As she got older, she became more involved in campaigning, writing letters to any who could possibly help. After her father’s death in prison in 1980, she also campaigned to exonerate him. After her brother’s release she juggled the difficult tasks of helping him in his campaigning work while supporting him as he wrestled with his major difficulties in coping with life. After his death she continued his campaigning to bring out the truth of the Guildford bombing, working with a soldier injured in the bombing to seek a new inquest and the release of over 700 closed files from an inquiry into the Guildford case, held in the British National Archives. She and her brother believed the Guildford families deserved justice just as much as the Conlon family, and did not want what happened to her family to happen to any other family. Before her death she handed that campaign over to her older sister, Bridie.