Joe Cahill

Cahill was born above his father's small printing shop at 60 Divis Street on 19 May 1920 in West Belfast. Cahill was the first child of eleven siblings born to Joseph and Josephine Cahill. Both of his parents supported republicanism. Cahill spoke of his family's interest in Irish culture and history: "I was always taught to attend to things that were Irish. For instance, do Irish dancing. Do Irish things, a lot. In the house there would be lots of Irish history books. You wouldn't be forced to read them, but because they were in the house you would naturally read them. I suppose from that point of view there was a certain amount of indoctrination." His father was involved with the Irish National Volunteers and would print republican material at his print shop. Joseph Senior applied to be a part of the Irish Republican Army but was asked to remain in the print business as his way of assisting the republican movement. He was arrested in 1932 for printing illegal material, but was acquitted for any crimes. Cahill's childhood was marked by hardship and his family was very poor. Cahill's grandparents were neighbours of the Scottish-born Irish socialist and Easter Rising leader James Connolly, who co-founded the Irish Citizens Army. Cahill was educated at St. Mary's Christian Brothers' School, then located on Barrack Street. At age 14 he left school to assist in the print shop. Soon after, he joined the Catholic Young Men's Society, which campaigned on social issues with a focus on eradicating moneylenders from working-class areas of Belfast, as they often charged usurious interest rates. At the age of seventeen, Cahill then joined Na Fianna Eireann, a republican-orientated Scouting movement. Na Fianna Eireann was regarded as the "Junior Irish Republican Army". ==Early paramilitary career==

The following year, 1938, at the age of 18, Cahill joined the local Clonard-based 'C' Company of the Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican Army. By 1942, Cahill was serving as second in command. That year, during an anniversary march by the IRA for the Easter Rising, Cahill got into a shootout with five other IRA men against four Royal Ulster Constabulary Officers. Cahill and four of the other men spent time in prison in Belfast, where they were interrogated daily. Tom Williams, the sixth IRA man to be charged, spent time in the Royal Victoria Hospital due to his injuries. It was there that he made a statement taking full responsibility for killing Constable Patrick Murphy. All six men were found guilty and sentenced to death in August 1942. The men's legal team managed to suspend the execution date after the verdict. An appeal campaign began and 207,000 signatures were collected. The United States State Department and the Vatican also supported the campaign. As a result, the men's sentences were changed to life in prison, except for Tom Williams who was executed. The IRA declared a formal ceasefire in 1945. Afterwards, republican prisoners began to be released. Cahill, Perry, Oliver, Cordner and Simpson, who had all been sentenced to life in prison, became free men in October 1949. Following his release from prison, Cahill got a job at the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast. It was at the shipyards where he was said to have contracted the disease asbestosis, one of the causes of his death many years later. In 1953, Cahill had an accident on the job when he was hit on the head by scaffolding. He subsequently spent time recovering in a convalescent home. After he recovered, he travelled to Leixlip near Dublin to visit his aunt. It was there that he met Annie Magee. Joe and Annie were married on 2 April 1956 in St John's Church on the Falls Road in Belfast. Together they had seven children. ==Founding the Provisional IRA==

Following his release from prison, Cahill was disappointed at the direction of the IRA. They had given up armed struggle, and desired seats in elections. Failed campaigns led to the IRA becoming weak and disorganised. Cahill resigned from the IRA around 1962. were elected to serve as the Provisional Army Council. Cahill also served as the second-in-command to Billy McKee, OC of the Belfast Battalion. ==Provisional IRA activities==

In April 1971, after the arrest and imprisonment of Billy McKee, Cahill became the commander of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. He held this post until the introduction of internment in August of that year. It was during this period that the Provisional IRA campaign got off the ground in the city. Cahill authorised the beginning of the IRA's bombing campaign as well as attacks on British troops and the RUC. He based himself in a house in Andersonstown and toured the city, co-ordinating IRA activity. The day after the British Army mounted Operation Demetrius, designed to arrest the IRA's leaders, Cahill held a press conference in a school in Ballymurphy and stated that the operation had been a failure. He said, "we have lost one brigade officer, one battalion officer and the rest are volunteers, or as they say in the British Army, privates". To avoid the propaganda defeat that his capture would then have entailed, Cahill fled to the Republic of Ireland, temporarily relinquishing his command of the Belfast Brigade. Cahill was sentenced to three years imprisonment by the Irish Special Criminal Court. Cahill stated at his trial that, "If I am guilty of any crime, it is that I did not succeed in getting the contents of the Claudia into the hands of the freedom fighters in this country". Upon his release, Cahill again was put in charge of arms importation and to this end went to the United States. He was deported from the United States in 1984 for illegal entry (see Provisional IRA arms importation). He served on the IRA Army Council as late as the 1990s. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he argued against proposals for Sinn Féin to stand in elections. However, in 1985, he spoke at the party's Ard Fheis in favour of republicans contesting elections and taking seats in the Dublin parliament, the Dáil. ==Peace process==

In his later years as honorary life vice-president of Sinn Féin, Cahill was a strong supporter of Gerry Adams and the Good Friday Agreement. In 1994, a controversial but central aspect of the IRA's ceasefire was the granting of a limited visa by then United States President Bill Clinton to Cahill, in the face of opposition by John Major's government, for the purpose of trying to win support for the new Sinn Féin peace strategy from Irish American IRA supporters. In 1998 he stood in North Antrim in the elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, but was unsuccessful, coming tenth with 4.07% of the people's votes. ==Death==

, Belfast Cahill died at age 84 in Belfast. He had been diagnosed with asbestosis, which he probably developed while working at the Harland & Wolff shipyards in his twenties. He and several other former shipyard workers later sued the company for their exposure to the dangerous substances but only won minimal compensation. An Irish republican flute band in Glasgow is named after Cahill. ==References==