Cahill once held the post of chief of staff of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which organized armed self-defense of the Catholic minority in northern Ireland and fought to end the British occupation and unify the republic.

In 1994, Cahill endorsed the IRA cease-fire. He was instrumental in persuading Irish and other groups in the United States to back the Good Friday Agreement four years later between Sinn Fein, the British loyalists in the north, London, and Dublin, as well as the political efforts of Sinn Fein to implement it. The agreement registered the continued weakening of British rule over the northern six counties of Ireland, including the decline of pro-British groups such as the Orange Order.

Cahill was seen by the Irish republican leadership as one of their most effective international spokespersons because of his unbroken history in the struggle, which included numerous prison terms. He was able to convince many IRA supporters in the United States and elsewhere that the cease-fire and Sinn Fein’s participation in the institution of limited self-rule, established as part of the Good Friday Agreement, did not mean betrayal of the struggle for a free and united Ireland. “Never confuse principles with tactics,” Cahill would often say.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, a Sinn Fein member of the Irish parliament, paid tribute to Cahill at the memorial meeting here. “The name Joe Cahill is a byword for absolute commitment,” he said. “He was born in 1920, the year before partition and he spent every day of his life thinking, planning, and working for the end of the partition.”

Ireland was divided after years of bloody battles and civil war in 1921, when the southern 26 counties became the Irish Free State while six counties in the northeast remained under British rule.

“Joe Cahill epitomized the enduring bond of friendship and solidarity between the people of Ireland and our exiles of every generation,” Ó Caoláin noted. “With others in this country, Joe founded Irish Northern Aid and I know he would want me to pay tribute to them and to all the other organizations and individuals who for the past 34 years have worked in solidarity with the Irish people in this, the last phase of our long struggle for national self-determination.”  
 
Early influences
Even though he was just 12 years old in 1932, the Outdoor Relief Workers protests at the time made a big impact on Cahill. The actions to protest the pittance given to the unemployed brought thousands of Catholic and Protestant workers together in common action and caused Cahill to question for the first time the causes of division imposed upon the Irish people by British imperialism. Just months before his death, Cahill cited the memory of that solidarity as crucial to his political perspective throughout his life.

Joe Cahill joined the IRA in his teens. When he was barely 20, he was assigned to work with a special IRA unit composed solely of those with Protestant backgrounds, who, working completely undercover, were able to avoid detection by the state forces.

In 1942, Cahill, Tom Williams, and four other IRA volunteers were arrested, convicted, and condemned to hang for the murder of a policeman. All but Williams won a last-minute reprieve. The British troops dumped Williams’s body in an unmarked grave. Cahill spearheaded a 58-year-long effort to find the grave and move the remains to the Republican cemetery in Belfast. This was finally accomplished in the year 2000.

During the 1950s, Cahill worked as a Sinn Fein organizer. In 1956, when Westminster introduced internment without trial for opponents of British rule, Cahill was one of the first to be rounded up. He had the honor, he said, of being the last to be released from prison.

The 1970s saw Cahill arrested again, and convicted on charges of attempting to smuggle weapons from Libya. While in the Mountjoy prison, Cahill and other republican inmates went on hunger strike demanding special status as political prisoners. They won that after 21 days.

Cahill traveled around the world building solidarity with the Irish freedom struggle, with a particular focus on the United States. Denied legal entry to the country due to the “terrorist” and “convicted murderer” label Washington and London had affixed on him, Cahill, who always considered himself secular when it came to religion, slipped across the border several times dressed as a Catholic priest.
 
 
Related articles:
Belfast: thousands honor Irish republican Joe Cahill
Cahill: ‘A lifelong revolutionary who enjoyed struggle’  
 
 
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