Biography
Kathy Boylan is a longtime peace activist with Jonah House in Baltimore and a member of the Atlantic Life Community. She was one of five members of the Gods of Metal Plowshares affinity group that disarmed a B-52 bomber at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on May 17, 1998. She was held at the Kent County Detention Center in Chestertown, Maryland during the federal proceedings.
On May 17, 1998, five Plowshares activists — Sister Ardeth Platte OP, Sister Carol Gilbert OP, Kathy Boylan, Father Frank Cordaro, and Father Larry Morlan — entered the Andrews Air Force Base flightline in Maryland and disarmed a B-52 bomber with hammers and blood. The action took the name Gods of Metal Plowshares.
The Winter 1998–99 Nukewatch Pathfinder names Kathy Shields Boylan, Carol Gilbert, Ardeth Platte, Frank Cordaro and Larry Morlan as the Gods of Metal Plowshares participants who hammered and poured blood on a B-52 at an Air Force weapons display in May 1998. Their Maryland trial began September 22. The report explicitly states that all five were convicted and jailed before sentencing. January 4 was the announced future sentencing date, and a possible year in prison was exposure rather than completed service. Source: https://www.laka.org/docu/magazines/nukewatch_pathfinder/1998-4-winter.pdf#page=5
Calculated release date for the stay beginning September 28, 2000: September 29, 2000. The recorded overnight detention places release on the next calendar day; it does not assert twenty-four full hours of confinement. This is a calculated date from the recorded admission and duration, not a separately documented physical-discharge date.
Calculated release date
Calculated release date for the stay beginning September 28, 2000: September 29, 2000. The recorded overnight detention places release on the next calendar day; it does not assert twenty-four full hours of confinement. This is a calculated date from the recorded admission and duration, not a separately documented physical-discharge date.
Birth-year sources
- Gods of Metal Plowshares biographies, 1998 — identifies Dorothy Day Catholic Worker Kathy Shields Boylan as 54.
- TRT World, September 2024 — identifies Boylan as 81 while documenting her continuing anti-war activism. The two dated reports support 1943 as her birth year.
- Dorothy Day Catholic Worker biography — independently documents Boylan’s identity and Plowshares activism.
Omitted 1989 custody
Added September 4–5, 1989 overnight detention, separately from the March 6, 1990 sixty-day sentence. Later prison-entry and release dates remain unverified; unrelated 1998 and 2001 cases are preserved.
Source: Arthur J. Laffin's participant chronology.
Earlier Shoreham disposition without five additional days served
Original page 2 identifies Kathleen Boylan with Frederick Pickering, Norman Iehle and Barbara Stern among Shoreham defendants sentenced on October 2 after the late-September trials arising from September 1980 arrests. It explicitly says the four five-day defendants did not serve additional jail time because of prior-time credit and jail policies. The issue does not isolate Boylan’s individual admission, release or actual credited duration. Five days is therefore not entered as completed service or added to an existing unrelated case. The October disposition year is contextual, not separately printed in this item.
National No-Nukes Prison Support Collective newsletter No. 10, January 17, 1982, original pages 1–6.
The October1996 Witness individually identifies the WashingtonDC Catholic Worker participant as Kathy Shields Boylan. This bridges the existing Kathy Boylan/Kathleen Boylan profile, whose middle name Shields is already stored. Add only the explicit full published name variant; the July27 protest is not automatically an incarceration date.
Held overnight. NR206.
The Good News Plowshares chronology names Kathy Boylan, Greg Boertje-Obed and Michele Naar-Obed as the participants taken into Newport News City Jail on April 9, 1993 and actually released on August 24, 1993, after their property-destruction trial. This custody period is separate from the other recorded actions. Source.
The Plowshares movement chronology individually names Kathy Boylan among five participants who entered the USS Gettysburg at Bath Iron Works, Maine, on March 31, 1991, and turned themselves over to security after the action. It reports that all five rejected unsecured bond in court on April 1 and were unconditionally released on April 3 pending a criminal-trespass trial. The state subsequently declined to prosecute. No first jail-admission date or complete numeric custody total is inferred from the security handover or hearing. This is a separate episode from the other recorded cases. Movement chronology, Aegis Plowshares section; Arthur J. Laffin, The Plowshares Disarmament Chronology 1980–2003, printed page47 (retained original PDF page59).
Art Laffin’s March 29, 2024 report identifies this participant among four arrested after blocking a Pentagon entrance during the Good Friday witness. Pentagon police processed and released those arrested. The report gives charges of interfering with government agency functions and disobeying a lawful order. Its June 6 court date was prospective, not a documented hearing outcome. No overnight jail admission or additional imprisonment total is inferred.
Source: The Nuclear Resister, report 0075.
The participant account names Kathy Boylan beside the author during Capitol Police processing after the July 18, 2019 Senate office protest.
Art Laffin’s report individually names Kathy Boylan among eight arrested at the Pentagon’s December 27, 2019 Holy Innocents witness. Pentagon police processed them on two charges and released all within several hours. The announced February 20 court date was prospective, not a completed outcome.
Art Laffin’s account individually names Kathy Boylan among six people arrested at the Pentagon on April 19, 2019. Police took them to the Pentagon Police Center, processed them and physically released them within two hours, charging violation of a lawful order. Brief police processing is not recorded as jail admission or a full prison day. The July 18 court appearance was scheduled, not a reported trial outcome.
The December 2016 report names this activist among sixteen arrested at the Pentagon witness on December 28 for disobeying a lawful order and subsequently released from processing. Cardboard figures of Daniel Berrigan carried at the action were memorial cutouts, not an additional arrestee. The article supplies no measured jail interval. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The October 2016 Catholic Worker account includes this activist among the Creech arrestees taken to Clark County Jail on October 9 for unlawful assembly. The report explicitly lists twelve people released five to seven hours later, distinguishing them from Marcus Page-Collonge’s separate overnight detention. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
The August 2018 anniversary roundup reports that Kathy Boylan was handcuffed at the Pentagon, processed and released, with charges of interfering with agency functions and failure to obey a lawful order. The September 20 hearing mentioned in that account was prospective, not a reported disposition. Contemporary report, The Nuclear Resister.
