Iris Bardon, by far the oldest member of the Irish section of Amnesty International and one of the longest-serving, died on April 10th, in her 101st year.
Daughter of James and Alice (nee Rice) Bardon, she was born on July 13th, 1899, in a house built by her grandfather in Dartmouth Square in Dublin. The family moved to Greystones, Co. Wicklow, where her sister and four brothers were born.
Shortly after the Bardons returned to Dublin in 1913, their building business collapsed. On the outbreak of the first World War, Iris Bardon's father joined the Army Service Corps. She completed her schooling at Alexandra College, where she acquired her lifelong love of literature, but much of her time was devoted to helping her family move from house to house in much reduced circumstances. She got a job as quickly as she could, starting in the recruitment office when the early enthusiasm for fighting for King and Empire and/or Little Catholic Belgium was fast dissipating.
Her father, meanwhile, had risen to the rank of captain in charge of army engineering works in Rouen. Iris Bardon saw him once during the war when he returned for the funeral of his brother-in-law, Willie Rice, who had been mistaken for an insurgent and shot dead while keeping the yeast alive in Guinness's brewery. The brewery was where she got another job at the time that the country was plunging into civil war. She stayed with Guinness for the next 33 years - a long time for a total abstainer.
Her father returned to Dublin in 1930 and the family moved to "Glenaros" on Dartry Road. There, in front of a blazing fire, stoked with logs lifted from a massive, brass German howitzer shell-case brought back from the Western front, James Bardon regaled visitors with tales of imperial adventure, or shook his Irish Times in vehement disapproval when his grandchildren ventured to express thoughts he considered extreme. Often the most radical opinions were those expressed by his daughter, Iris Bardon, in her soft, genteel and determined way. Her mother, to whom she was devoted, died in 1952 but it was not until after the death of her father in 1960 that she felt she could throw herself into voluntary work. She began with the Irish Save the Children Fund, distributing eggs and milk to needy children in Dublin.
Amnesty International Irish Section was founded in 1962 and soon after she became a member. The early meetings were in Sean MacBride's house in Clonskeagh but not long afterwards Iris Bardon's house in Dartry Road became the nerve centre of the fast-growing organisation. Though she hated the limelight, she agreed to become assistant honorary secretary and for almost two decades the lion's share of the paper work was her responsibility.
She was the principal conduit between Amnesty's International Secretariat and the Irish section. The surviving files reveal a stream of appeals made to governments to obtain the release of political prisoners; the launch of the first international campaign against torture; the application of pressure on the UN to lay down minimum standards for the treatment of political prisoners; and sheaves of letters on the condition of individual prisoners in many countries.
Iris Bardon worked for Amnesty until frailty prevented her from doing so. Members recall her courtesy, her elegantly composed correspondence, her self-effacing dedication and her kindness.
Up to two years ago she was writing letters in a beautiful script to her many nieces and nephews, their children and their children's children. They all loved her, shared secrets with her and delighted in her occasional bouts of uncontrollable giggling. She outlived her sister Maud and her brothers Harold, Eric, Maurice and Desmond, though all survived to their 80s and 90s.
Iris Bardon: born 1899; died April, 2000