TRIBUTES have been paid to a west Belfast grandmother who spent 30 years trying to clear her family's name in one of the worst ever miscarriages of British justice.Sarah Conlon, 82, was laid to rest on Tuesday after losing a battle to lung cancer.In 1975 Mrs. Conlon's son Gerry was sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted with three others of taking part in an IRA bombing campaign in England. They were dubbed the Guilford Four, and would become one of the most famous miscarriages of British justice.Immediately after her son's arrest Mrs. Conlon's husband Giuseppe went to England to try and clear Gerry's name.However, he was arrested on the day of his arrival and along with his sister Annie Maguire and five other family members was charged with bomb making offenses. He was jailed for 12 years and was sent to the same prison as his son.Giuseppe Conlon suffered from tuberculosis and emphysema throughout his life, but was repeatedly denied medication in prison.His condition deteriorated so badly that he was taken from prison to hospital in December 1979. However, within days police ordered that the 56-year-old be returned to prison claiming that the IRA was planning to help him escape. He died within weeks of being forced back to prison.The IRA had already denied that either Giuseppe Conlon or any of the others arrested were members of its organization.Throughout his years in prison Giuseppe Conlon wrote hundreds of letters to his heartbroken wife Sarah, who was forced to bring up the rest of their children back in Belfast.The often heartbreaking and emotional letters would later be made into one of the most memorable films about the Troubles, Dear Sarah.Despite her husband's death, Sarah Conlon continued to campaign for the release of her son.In 1989 the Guilford Four had their convictions overturned and walked free from prison. The convictions of Giuseppe Conlon and the other six family members were overturned two years later.In 2005 then British Prime Minister Tony Blair made an official apology to the Conlon and Maguire families for the years that they had wrongly spent in prison despite having had no involvement with any bombing campaign.Sarah Conlon was too ill to travel to England in person to hear the apology for the wrongful imprisonment of her husband and son.Speaking after the apology, she revealed how throughout the years of torture with her son and husband in prison she had asked God to "keep bitterness away from me.""If I had bitterness I could never live with myself," she said. "I do not know what bitterness is and I hope I never do."She said she believed that her husband Giuseppe was "smiling down from heaven."Speaking after his mother's death last weekend, Gerry Conlon said, "She was remarkable in the fact that she didn't bear any ill will towards the people who first arrested us and then tortured us and framed us."While I was in prison, every letter ended the same: 'Pray for the ones who told lies against you and pray for the judge who sentenced you. It's them who needs help as well as yourself.'"That was just my mum. She was quiet, reserved, unassuming, but a giant in her own way. Very principled and very caring, and loving as a mother."Recalling Sarah Conlon's redoubtable courage at her funeral on Tuesday, Father Brendan Mulhall said, "The very idea of revenge would have been unthinkable to Sarah. The word revenge just wasn't in her vocabulary because she was full of generosity and forgiveness. That's why she could even pray for those who treated her family in such an appalling manner."She prayed for those people who had done her wrong because she knew that they needed prayers and when that wonderful day finally came, when Sarah's family's name was cleared beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was a happy day for her, a day that she had hoped for and prayed for so long and she said that her beloved Giuseppe was smiling down at her family, as I'm sure he was."