Upon its release, the film proved controversial for some historical inaccuracies and for fictionalising parts of the story. Jim Sheridan was forced to defend his choices. In 2003, he stated: "I was accused of lying in In the Name of the Father, but the real lie was saying it was a film about the Guildford Four when really it was about a non-violent parent."[15] In the film Gerry and his father Giuseppe (in the closing credits, the name is misspelled "Guiseppe") share a cell, but this never took place; they were usually kept in separate prisons. The real perpetrators of the Guildford pub bombings were the IRA's Balcombe Street Gang, who admitted to the Guildford and Woolwich bombings during their trials, rather than the fictional character of Joe McAndrew. The courtroom scenes featuring Gareth Peirce were also heavily criticised as clearly straying from recorded events and established English legal practices since, as a solicitor and not a barrister, she would not have been able to appear in court at the time. Furthermore, Peirce did not represent Giuseppe Conlon. Investigative journalist David Pallister wrote: "The myriad absurdities in the court scenes, straight out of LA Law, are inexcusable."[16]
In a 1994 radio interview, Anne Maguire, a member of The Maguire Seven who, along with her husband, brother and two young sons, went to prison because of the false confessions of her nephew Gerry Conlon and Paul Hill, revealed her lingering anger and bitterness at the pair for wrongly incriminating them, as well as her dismay at the film for, in her view, depicting Conlon as a hero. (She and her family were all officially exonerated by the British government in 1991.) She also criticized director Jim Sheridan for, as she claims, never reaching out to her or her family for their side of the story, and sharply castigated the film for alleged inaccuracies, including a scene showing Conlon and Hill visiting her prior to their arrests, as she adamantly maintains that Hill never once set foot in her home -- a key point in her defense at trial.[17]
