The funeral procession, flanked by a republican guard of honor and led by a piper, took several hours to make its way down the Falls Road in the nationalist area of West Belfast and back to the Milltown cemetery. Much of the leadership of Sinn Fein joined Cahill’s family, friends, and comrades for the procession. Many came from across Ireland. Others came from Britain and the United States.

“Joe’s generation was beaten off the streets of this city for decades,” said Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams in a graveside speech. “In his younger days even Easter commemorations were outlawed.” He was referring to Cahill’s role in a 1942 attempt, when he was 21, to defy the ban on marches to commemorate the 1916 Easter uprising in Dublin against British colonial rule. Cahill’s IRA unit had fired shots at a police patrol to divert attention from the planned Easter commemoration march. Cahill and five other republicans were captured, accused of the murder of a policeman, and sentenced to death. A campaign for their reprieve overturned the death sentence for all but Tom Williams, the 19-year-old leader of that IRA unit, whom London executed.

Cahill had been at the center of the modern republican movement. In 1969, London deployed troops to the British-run north. Within months their guns were turned toward those fighting for civil rights in the Catholic ghettos. Encouraged by London’s move, rightist pro-British gangs continued their pogroms in the Catholic areas. Cahill and others led a split in the republican forces to form the Provisional IRA. One of their purposes was to organize armed self-defense of their neighborhoods. As a result of London’s repression, Cahill ended up in prison several more times.

In 1994 the IRA signed a cease-fire with London. Four years later, republicans, pro-British Unionists, Dublin, and London signed the Good Friday Agreement. The accord included the establishment of an assembly in northern Ireland elected by proportional representation; a north/south ministerial council, to be made up of representatives from the government of the Republic of Ireland and the assembly in the north; and a two-year time frame for the release of political prisoners. It did not set a time frame for the withdrawal of British troops.

“Joe was a physical force republican,” Adams said. “He made no apologies for that. But like all sensible people who resort to armed struggle because they feel there is no other alternative, he was prepared to defend, support, and promote other options when these were available. Without doubt there would not be a peace process today without Joe Cahill.”

Despite these gains, Adams said, Cahill believed London was failing this process. Cahill was “not surprised at the explosion of nationalist anger in Ardoyne in recent weeks,” Adams continued.

This Catholic enclave in north Belfast had seen a pro-British Orange Order parade, protected by armed police, routed through the area. When nationalist youth confronted the rightist march, British paratroopers were deployed against them. The Daily Telegraph noted that in Belfast “British troops are still deployed in greater numbers than Iraq.” The rightist Orange Order parades have been largely pushed back from going into Catholic areas, through countermobilizations in recent years.

Adams concluded his speech by saying that Cahill’s “vision of a new Ireland, a free Ireland, outlives him.” He urged those gathered to “continue our struggle and to carry on until that certain day.”
 
 
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New York event pays tribute to Joe Cahill
Cahill: ‘A lifelong revolutionary who enjoyed struggle’  
 
 
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