Joe Cahill

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joseph (Joe) Cahill ( Irish : Seosamh Ó Cathail , born May 19, 1920 in Belfast ; † July 23, 2004 ibid) was a member of the IRA for decades and rose to its highest position. From 1972 to 1973 he was their chief of staff .

youth

Joe Cahill grew up in a Catholic neighborhood in Belfast. He was a fierce opponent of the partition of Ireland and joined the IRA at the age of 18. In 1942 he took part in a mock raid in Belfast aimed at diverting the attention of the Royal Ulster Constabulary from illegal marches to commemorate the Easter Rising . The plan failed, instead of withdrawing, the police took action against the attackers. There was an exchange of fire in which a member of the RUC was killed. All involved were charged with murder, found guilty and sentenced to death. Only through international pressure on the authorities in Ulster (not least through the intervention of Pope Pius XII ) were the sentences for 5 of the 6 accused commuted to prison terms. Cahill narrowly escaped the gallows and remained in custody until 1949. He was also actively involved in the IRA's Border Campaign in 1956, but was quickly arrested again, from which he was only released in 1962. Because of the deep disagreement and the turn of the IRA leadership at that time to purely political actions and to Marxist ideology, he bitterly turned his back on the movement.

During the riots

When the unrest in Northern Ireland escalated in 1969, Cahill was a proponent of the armed struggle and drove the division of the IRA. He thus became one of the founding members of the newly established Provisional IRA and its highest body, the Army Council (Armeerat). Commander of the Belfast Brigade from 1971 , he aroused public interest in the same year when he revealed himself to the camera as a member of the IRA. The occasion of this press conference was a wave of arrests of Catholics in the course of a mass internment ( internment without trial ). The underground movement was informed in advance and prepared accordingly. To demonstrate this, Cahill stated on the day of the action that only a few members were caught and the structures of the IRA were intact. The IRA then ordered him to Dublin , as they wanted to prevent the loss of prestige caused by his arrest in Northern Ireland.

From Dublin organized Cahill, and later in the function as Chief of Staff ( Chief of Staff ), the illegal arms shipments. To this end, on the one hand, he activated supporters of Irish origin in the USA, and on the other hand, he was involved in talks with the Libyan head of state Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi . Libya later became the main source of IRA armament. In 1973 the freighter Claudia reached the west coast of Ireland with a load of 5 tons of weapons on board. However, the Irish authorities intercepted the delivery and arrested everyone involved, including Cahill. He was sentenced to several years in prison for membership of a terrorist organization.

controversy

As a veteran of the Republican movement and a member of the Army Council, Cahill had an immense influence on the organization’s decisions. In the recurring dispute within the movement between proponents of military and political means, he always took the position of hardliners willing to use violence. It was not until the mid-1980s, when the progress made by the British intelligence services with their anti-terrorist measures, the IRA's ability to act, that he turned into a proponent of the peace process and a supporter of Gerry Adams . The Republican camp reverently regarded Joe Cahill as their foster father, but for his critics he was one of the main people responsible for the fact that the Northern Ireland conflict was carried out so ruthlessly and bloodily.

literature

Web links