In October 1964, during the general election campaign, a photo of McMillen is placed in the window of the election office in Divis Street flanked on one side by the Starry Plough flag and on the other by the tricolour. His campaign draws national attention after Ian Paisley demands that police remove the tricolour from McMillen’s election offices. The RUC raids the premises and confiscates the flag, sparking several days of rioting during which McMillen leads several thousand protesters in defiantly displaying the tricolour. He recalls the IRA gaining a “couple of dozen recruits” following the election, but he finishes at the bottom of the poll with 3,256 votes (6%). Around this time, he succeeds Billy McKee as the Officer commanding (OC) of the Belfast Brigade.
McMillen is keen to work for the unity of Protestant and Catholic workers. Roy Garland recalls that McMillan’s grandfather was master of an Orange lodge in Edinburgh and McMillan knew of that heritage and the meaning of the colours of the Irish flag. He prominently displays in his election offices a verse of a poem by John Frazier, a Presbyterian from County Offaly: “Till then the Orange lily be your badge my patriot brother. The everlasting green for me and we for one and other.”
In 1967, McMillen is involved in the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) and is a member of a three-man committee which draws up the Association’s constitution. The NICRA’s peaceful activities result in violent opposition from many unionists, leading to fears that Catholic areas will come under attack. In May 1969, when asked at an IRA army council meeting by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh how many weapons the Belfast Brigade has for defensive operations, McMillen states they have only one pistol, a machine gun and some ammunition.
By August 14, 1969, serious rioting has broken out in Belfast and Catholic districts come under attack from both civilian unionists and the RUC. McMillen’s IRA command by this point still has only a limited number of weapons because the leadership in Dublin are reluctant to release guns. While he is involved in some armed actions on this day, he is widely blamed by those who established the Provisional IRA for the IRA’s failure to adequately defend Catholic neighbourhoods from Ulster loyalist attack. He is arrested and temporarily detained by the RUC on the morning of August 15 but is released shortly afterward.
McMillen’s role in the 1969 riots is very important within IRA circles, as it is one of the major factors contributing to the split in the movement in late 1969. In a June 1972 lecture organised by Official Sinn Féin in Dublin, he defends his conduct, stating that by 1969 the total membership of the Belfast IRA is approximately 120 men, and their armaments have increased to a grand total of 24 weapons, most of which are short-range pistols.
In September, McMillen calls a meeting of IRA commanders in Belfast. Billy McKee and several other republicans arrive at the meeting armed and demand McMillen’s resignation. He refuses, but many of those unhappy with his leadership break away and refuse to take orders from him or the Dublin IRA leadership. Most of them join the Provisional Irish Republican Army, when this group splits off from the IRA in December 1969. McMillen himself remains loyal to the IRA’s Dublin leadership, which becomes known as the Official IRA. The split rapidly develops into a bitter rivalry between the two groups. In April 1970, he is shot and wounded by Provisional IRA members in the Lower Falls area of Belfast.
In June 1970, McMillen’s Official IRA have their first major confrontation with the British Army, which had been deployed to Belfast in the previous year, in an incident known as the Falls Curfew. The British Army mounts an arms search in the Official IRA stronghold of the Lower Falls, where they are attacked with a grenade by Provisional IRA members. In response, the British flood the area with troops and declare a curfew. This leads to a three-day gun battle between 80 to 90 Official IRA members led by McMillen and up to 3,000 British troops. Five civilians are killed in the fighting and about 60 are wounded. In addition, 35 rifles, 6 machine guns, 14 shotguns, grenades, explosives and 21,000 rounds of ammunition, all belonging to the OIRA, are seized. McMillen blames the Provisionals for instigating the incident and then refusing to help the Officials against the British.
This ill-feeling eventually leads to an all-out feud between the republican factions in Belfast in March 1971. The Provisionals attempt to kill McMillen again, as well as his second-in-command, Jim Sullivan. In retaliation, McMillen has Charlie Hughes, a young PIRA member, killed. Tom Cahill, brother of leading Provisional Joe Cahill, is also shot and wounded. After these deaths, the two IRA factions in Belfast negotiate a ceasefire and direct their attention instead at the British Army.
When the Northern Ireland authorities introduce internment in August 1971, McMillen flees Belfast for Dundalk in the Republic of Ireland, where he remains for several months. During this time, the Official IRA carries out many attacks on the British Army and other targets in Northern Ireland. However, in April 1972, the organisation in Belfast is badly weakened by the death of their commander in the Markets area, Joe McCann. In May of that year, the Dublin leadership of the OIRA calls a ceasefire, a move which McMillen supports. Nevertheless, in the year after the ceasefire, his command kills seven British soldiers in what they term “retaliatory attacks.” McMillen serves on the Ard Chomhairle (leadership council) of Official Sinn Féin.
By 1974, a group of OIRA members around Seamus Costello are unhappy with the ceasefire. In December 1974, they break away from the Official movement, forming the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). Some OIRA members under McMillen’s command, including the entire Divis Flats unit, defect to the new grouping. This provokes another intra-republican feud in Belfast. The feud begins with arms raids on OIRA dumps and beatings of their members by the INLA. McMillen, in response is accused of drawing up a “death list” of IRSP/INLA members and even of handing information on them over to the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).
The first killing comes on February 20, 1975, when the OIRA shoot dead an INLA member named Hugh Ferguson in west Belfast. A spate of shootings follows on both sides.
On April 28, 1975, McMillen is shot dead by INLA member Gerard Steenson, as he is shopping in a hardware shop on Spinner Street with his wife Mary. He is hit in the neck and dies at the scene. His killing is unauthorised and is condemned by INLA/IRSP leader Seamus Costello. Despite this, the OIRA tries to kill Costello on May 9, 1975, and eventually kills him two years later. McMillen’s death is a major blow to the OIRA in Belfast.
McKee joins Fianna Éireann in 1936. He is arrested following a raid on a Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) club in 1938, being imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol for several months. Following his release from prison, he joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1939. During World War II, the IRA carries out a number of armed actions in Northern Ireland known as the Northern Campaign. He is arrested and imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol until 1946 for his role in this campaign. In 1956, the IRA embarks on another armed campaign against partition, known as the Border Campaign. He is again arrested and interned for the duration of the campaign. He is released in 1962.
As the 1960s proceed, McKee drifts away from the IRA. He grows very disillusioned with the organisation’s increasing emphasis on socialism and reformist politics over “armed struggle.” He is a devout Roman Catholic, who attends Mass daily. As a result, he is very uncomfortable with what he feels are “communist” ideas coming into the republican movement.
During the 1969 Northern Ireland riots, severe rioting breaks out in Belfast between Irish Catholicnationalists, Protestantloyalists, and the RUC. McKee is highly critical of the IRA’s failure to defend Catholic areas during these disturbances. On August 14, 1969, McKee, Joe Cahill and a number of other Irish Republican activists occupy houses at Kashmir Street, however, being poorly armed they fail to prevent Irish Catholics in Bombay Street and parts of Cupar Street and Kashmir Street being driven from their homes in the sectarian rioting that engulfs parts of the city. In the aftermath of the riots, he accuses Billy McMillen, the IRA’s Belfast commander, and the Dublin-based IRA leadership, of having failed to direct a clear course of action for the organization in civil disturbances. On September 22, 1969, he and a number of other IRA men arrive with weapons at a meeting called by McMillen and try to oust him as head of the Belfast IRA. They are unsuccessful but announce that they will no longer be taking orders from the IRA leadership in Dublin. In December 1969, the IRA splits into the Provisional IRA which is composed of traditional militarists like McKee, and the Official IRA which is composed of the remnants of the pre-split Marxist leadership and their followers. He sides with the Provisionals and joins the IRA Army Council in September 1970.
McKee becomes the first OC of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade. From the start, there is intermittent feuding between McKee’s men and his former comrades in the Official IRA, as they vie for control of nationalist areas. However, the Provisionals rapidly gain the upper hand, due to their projection of themselves as the most reliable defenders of the Catholic community.
McKee himself contributes greatly to this image by an action he undertakes on June 27, 1970, the Battle of St Matthew’s. Rioting breaks out in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast after an Orange Order parade, and three Protestants are killed in gun battles between the Provisional IRA and loyalists. In response, loyalists prepare to attack the vulnerable Catholic enclave of Short Strand in east Belfast. When McKee hears about this, he drives to Short Strand with some men and weapons and takes up position at St Matthew’s Church. In the ensuing five-hour gun battle, he is wounded and one of his men is killed, along with at least four Protestants.
On April 15, 1971, McKee, along with Proinsias Mac Airt, is arrested by the British Army when found in possession of a handgun. He is charged and convicted for possession of the weapon and imprisoned in Crumlin Road Gaol, and Joe Cahill takes over as OC of the Belfast Brigade.
In 1972, McKee leads a hunger strike protest in an effort to win recognition of IRA prisoners as political prisoners. Republicans who are interned already have special status, but those convicted of crimes do not. On June 19, the 35th day of hunger strike, he is close to death, William Whitelaw concedes Special Category Status (SCS) which, although not officially awarding political status, is tacit recognition of the political nature of the incarceration. Prisoners wear their own clothes, have no prison work, can receive one visit and food parcel per week and unlimited letters.
McKee is released on September 4, 1974, and resumes his position as OC of the Belfast Brigade. At this time the Provisional IRA calls a ceasefire, and he is involved, with Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, in secret peace talks in Derry with the Northern Ireland Office. He is also involved in talks with Protestant clergy in Feakle, County Clare, in December 1974, where he voices his desire to end the violence.
However, in the same period, McKee authorises a number of sectarian attacks on Protestants as well as renewed attacks on rival republicans in the Official IRA. For this he is heavily criticised by a group of Provisional IRA activists grouped around Gerry Adams.
A faction led by Adams manages to get McKee voted off the IRA Army Council in 1977, effectively forcing him out of the leadership of the organisation. His health suffers in this period, and he does not resume his IRA activities. He joins Republican Sinn Féin after a split in Sinn Féin in 1986. At age 89, reflecting on his involvement in the Republican cause he says, “From the time I was 15 until 65 I was in some way involved. I have had plenty of time since to think if I was right or I was wrong. I regret nothing.”
In later years McKee, Brendan Hughes and Tommy McKearney are critical of the Belfast Agreement and of the reformist politics of Sinn Féin. In 2016 he sends a message of support to the launch of the hardline new Republican party Saoradh, reportedly the political wing of the New IRA.
McKee dies in Belfast at the age of 97 on June 11, 2019. His funeral takes place on June 15, 2019, in west Belfast. His coffin is carried on a gun carriage. He is buried in Milltown Cemetery.
Ó Brádaigh is born into a middle-class republican family. His father, Matt Brady, is an IRA volunteer who is severely wounded in an encounter with the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in 1919. His mother, May Caffrey, is a Cumann na mBan volunteer and a 1922 graduate of University College Dublin (UCD). His father dies when he is ten and is given a paramilitary funeral led by his former IRA colleagues. His mother, prominent as the Secretary for the County Longford Board of Health, lives until 1974. He is educated at Melview National School at primary level and attends secondary school at St. Mel’s College, leaving in 1950, and graduates from University College Dublin in 1954. That year he takes a job teaching Irish language at Roscommon Vocational School in Roscommon. He is a deeply religious Catholic who refrains from smoking or drinking.
Ó Brádaigh joins Sinn Féin in 1950. While at university, in 1951, he joins the Irish Republican Army. In September 1951, he marches with the IRA at the unveiling of the Seán Russell monument in Fairview Park, Dublin. A teacher by profession, he is also a Training Officer for the IRA. In 1954, he is appointed to the Military Council of the IRA, a subcommittee set up by the IRA Army Council in 1950 to plan a military campaign against Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) barracks in Northern Ireland.
On August 13, 1955, Ó Brádaigh leads a ten-member IRA group in an arms raid on Hazebrouck Barracks, near Arborfield, Berkshire, England, a depot for the No. 5 Radar Training Battalion of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. It is the biggest IRA arms raid in Britain. Most, if not all, of the weapons are recovered in a relatively short period of time. A van, traveling too fast, is stopped by the police and IRA personnel are arrested. Careful police work leads to weapons that had been transported in a second van and stored in London.
The IRA Border Campaign commences on December 12, 1956. As an IRA General Headquarters Staff (GHQ) officer, Ó Brádaigh is responsible for training the Teeling Column in the west of Ireland. During the Campaign, he serves as second-in-command of the Teeling Column. On December 30, 1956, he partakes in the Teeling Column attack on RUC barracks in Derrylin, County Fermanagh. RUC Constable John Scally is killed in the attack and is the first fatality of the new IRA campaign. Ó Brádaigh and others are arrested by the Garda Síochána across the border in County Cavan the day after the attack. They are tried and jailed for six months in Mountjoy Prison. A leading abstentionist, upon his arrest he refuses to recognize the authority of the Irish government and refuses to renounce violence in exchange for his release.
Upon completing his prison sentence, Ó Brádaigh is immediately interned at the Curragh Camp along with other republicans. On September 27, 1958, he escapes from the camp along with Dáithí Ó Conaill. While a football match is in progress, the pair cuts through a wire fence and escapes from the camp under a camouflage grass blanket. This is an official escape, authorised by the officer commanding (OC) of the IRA internees, Tomás Óg Mac Curtain. He is the first Sinn Féin TD on the run since the 1920s.
In October 1958, Ó Brádaigh becomes the IRA Chief of Staff, a position he holds until May 1959, when Seán Cronin is elected as his replacement. He is arrested in November 1959, refuses to answer questions, and is jailed in Mountjoy Prison under the Offences against the State Act. He is released in May 1960 and, after Cronin is arrested, again becomes Chief of Staff. Although he always emphasises that it is a collective declaration, he is the primary author of the statement ending the IRA Border Campaign in 1962. At the IRA 1962 Convention he indicates that he is not interested in continuing as Chief of Staff.
After Ó Brádaigh’s arrest in December 1956, he takes a leave from teaching at Roscommon Vocational School. He is re-instated and begins teaching again in late 1962, just after he is succeeded by Cathal Goulding in the position of Chief of Staff of the IRA. He remains an active member of Sinn Féin and is also a member of the IRA Army Council throughout the decade.
Ó Brádaigh opposes the decision of the IRA and Sinn Féin to drop abstentionism and to recognise the Westminster parliament in London, the Stormont parliament in Belfast and the Leinster House parliament in 1969/1970. On January 11, 1970, along with Seán Mac Stíofáin, he leads the walkout from the 1970 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis after the majority votes to end the policy of abstentionism, although the vote to change the Sinn Féin constitution fails to receive the required two-thirds majority. The delegates who walk out reconvene at the Kevin Barry Hall in Parnell Square, Dublin, and establish Provisional Sinn Féin.
Ó Brádaigh is voted chairman of the Caretaker Executive of Provisional Sinn Féin. That October, he formally becomes president of the party. He holds this position until 1983. In his presidential address to the 1971 Provisional Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, he says that the first step to achieving a United Ireland is to make Northern Ireland ungovernable. He apparently also serves on the Army Council or the executive of the Provisional Irish Republican Army until he is seriously injured in a car accident on January 1, 1984.
On May 31, 1972, Ó Brádaigh is arrested under the Offences Against the State Act and immediately commences a hunger strike. A fortnight later the charges against him are dropped and he is released. With Dáithí Ó Conaill he develops the Éire Nua policy, which is launched on June 28, 1972. The policy calls for a federal Ireland.
On December 3, 1972, Ó Brádaigh appears on the London Weekend TelevisionWeekend World programme. He is arrested by the Gardaí again on December 29, 1972, and charged in the newly established Special Criminal Court with Provisional IRA membership. In January 1973 he is the first person convicted under the Offences Against the State (Amendment) Act 1972 and is sentenced to six months in the Curragh Camp.
On December 10, 1974, Ó Brádaigh participates in the Feakle talks between the IRA Army Council and Sinn Féin leadership and the leaders of the Protestant churches in Ireland. Although the meeting is raided and broken up by the Gardaí, the Protestant churchmen pass on proposals from the IRA leadership to the British government. These proposals call on the British government to declare a commitment to withdraw, the election of an all-Ireland assembly to draft a new constitution and an amnesty for political prisoners.
The IRA subsequently calls a “total and complete” ceasefire intended to last from December 22, 1974, to January 2, 1975, to allow the British government to respond to proposals. British government officials also hold talks with Ó Brádaigh in his position as president of Sinn Féin from late December to January 17, 1975.
On February 10, 1975, the IRA Army Council, unanimously endorses an open-ended cessation of IRA “hostilities against Crown forces,” which becomes known as the 1975 truce. The IRA Chief of Staff at the time is Seamus Twomey of Belfast. It is reported in some quarters that the IRA leaders mistakenly believe they had persuaded the British Government to withdraw from Ireland and the protracted negotiations between themselves and British officials are the preamble to a public declaration of intent to withdraw. In fact, as British government papers now show, the British entertain talks with the IRA in the hope that this would fragment the movement further and score several intelligence coups during the talks. This bad faith embitters many in the republican movement, and another ceasefire does not happen until 1994.
In late December 1976, along with Joe Cahill, Ó Brádaigh meets two representatives of the Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee (ULCCC), John McKeague and John McClure, at the request of the latter body. Their purpose is to try to find a way to accommodate the ULCCC proposals for an independent Northern Ireland with the Sinn Féin’s Éire Nua programme. It is agreed that if this can be done, a joint Loyalist-Republican approach can then be made to request the British government to leave Ireland. Desmond BoalQC and Seán MacBrideSC are requested and accepted to represent the loyalist and republican positions. For months they have meetings in various places including Paris. The dialogue eventually collapses when Conor Cruise O’Brien, then Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and vociferous opponent of the Provisional IRA, becomes aware of it and condemns it on RTÉ Radio. As the loyalists had insisted on absolute secrecy, they feel unable to continue with the talks as a result.
In the aftermath of the 1975 truce, the Ó Brádaigh/Ó Conaill leadership comes under severe criticism from a younger generation of activists from Northern Ireland, headed by Gerry Adams, who becomes a vice-president of Sinn Féin in 1978. By the early 1980s, Ó Brádaigh’s position as president of Sinn Féin is openly under challenge and the Éire Nua policy is targeted in an effort to oust him. The policy is rejected at the 1981 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis and finally removed from the Sinn Féin constitution at the 1982 Ard Fheis. At the following year’s Ard Fheis, Ó Brádaigh and Ó Conaill resign from their leadership positions, voicing opposition to the dropping of the Éire Nua policy by the party.
On November 2, 1986, the majority of delegates to the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis vote to drop the policy of abstentionism if elected to Dáil Éireann, but not the British House of Commons or the Northern Ireland parliament at Stormont, thus ending the self-imposed ban on Sinn Féin elected representatives from taking seats at Leinster House. Ó Brádaigh and several supporters walk out and immediately assemble at Dublin’s West County Hotel and set up Republican Sinn Féin (RSF). As an ordinary member, he had earlier spoken out against the motion (resolution 162) in an impassioned speech. The Continuity IRA becomes publicly known in 1996. Republican Sinn Féin’s relationship with the Continuity IRA is similar to the relationship between Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA when Ó Brádaigh was Sinn Féin’s president.
Ó Brádaigh believes RSF to be the sole legitimate continuation of the pre-1986 Sinn Féin, arguing that RSF has kept the original Sinn Féin constitution. RSF readopts and enhances his Éire Nua policy. His party has electoral success in only a few local elections.
Ó Brádaigh remains a vociferous opponent of the Good Friday Agreement, viewing it as a programme to copperfasten Irish partition and entrench sectarian divisions in the north. He condemns his erstwhile comrades in Provisional Sinn Féin and the Provisional IRA for decommissioning weapons while British troops remain in the country. In his opinion, “the Provo sell-out is the worst yet – unprecedented in Irish history.” He condemns the Provisional IRA’s decision to seal off a number of its arms dumps as “an overt act of treachery,” “treachery punishable by death” under IRA General Army Order Number 11.
In July 2005, Ó Brádaigh hands over a portion of his personal political papers detailing discussions between Irish Republican leaders and representatives of the British Government during 1974–1975 to the James Hardiman Library, National University of Ireland, Galway.
In September 2009, Ó Brádaigh announces his retirement as leader of Republican Sinn Féin. His successor is Des Dalton. He is also a long-standing member of the Celtic League, an organization which fosters cooperation between the Celtic people and promotes the culture, identity and eventual self-determination for the people, in the form of six sovereign states, for the Celtic nations – Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, Scotland, Isle of Man and Ireland.
After suffering a period of ill-health, Ó Brádaigh dies on June 5, 2013, at Roscommon County Hospital. His funeral is attended by 1,800 mourners including Fine Gael TD Frank Feighan and is policed by the Garda Emergency Response Unit and Gardaí in riot gear, for “operational reasons,” a show of force believed to have been to deter the republican tradition of firing a three-volley salute of shots over the final place of rest during the graveyard oration. As a result, there are some minor scuffles between gardai and mourners.
Twomey is born on November 5, 1919, on Marchioness Street in Belfast, and lives at 6 Sevastopol Street in the Falls district. Known as “Thumper” owing to his short temper and habit of banging his fist on tables, he receives little education and is a bookmaker‘s “runner.” His father is a volunteer in the 1920s. In Belfast he lives comfortably with his wife, Rosie, whom he marries in 1946. Together they have sons and daughters.
Twomey begins his involvement with the Irish Republican Army in the 1930s and is interned in Northern Ireland during the 1940s on the prison ship HMS Al Rawdah and later in Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast. Rosie, his wife, is also held prisoner at the women prison, Armagh Jail, in Northern Ireland. He opposes the left-wing shift of Cathal Goulding in the 1960s, and in 1968, helps set up the breakaway Andersonstown Republican Club, later the Roddy McCorley Society.
In 1969, Twomey is prominent in the establishment of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. By 1972, he is Officer Commanding (OC) of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade when it launches its bomb campaign of the city, including Bloody Friday when nine people are killed. During the 1970s, the leadership of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA is largely in the hands of Twomey and Ivor Bell.
In March 1973, Twomey is first appointed IRA Chief of Staff after the arrest of Joe Cahill. He remains in this position until his arrest in October 1973 by the Garda Síochána. Three weeks later, on October 31, 1973, the IRA organises the helicopter escape of Twomey and his fellow IRA members J. B. O’Hagan and Kevin Mallon, when an active service unit hijacks and forces the pilot at gunpoint to land the helicopter in the training yard of Mountjoy Prison. After his escape, he returns to his membership of IRA Army Council.
By June/July 1974, Twomey is IRA Chief of Staff for a second time. He takes part in the Feakle talks between the IRA and Protestant clergymen in December 1974. In the IRA truce which follows in 1975, he is largely unsupportive and wants to fight on in what he sees as “one big push to finish it once and for all.”
IRA informer Sean O’Callaghan claims that on January 5, 1976, Twomey and Brian Keenan give the go-ahead for the sectarian Kingsmill massacre, when ten unarmed Ulster Protestant workmen are executed by the Provisional IRA in retaliation for a rash of loyalist killings of Catholics in the area. It is Keenan’s view, O’Callaghan claims, that “The only way to knock the nonsense out of the Prods is to be ten times more savage.”
Twomey is dedicated to paramilitarism as a means of incorporating Northern Ireland into the Republic of Ireland. In an interview with French television on July 11, 1977, he declares that although the IRA had waged a campaign for seven years at that point, it can fight on for another 70 against the British state in Northern Ireland and in England. He supports the bombing of wealthy civilian targets, which he justifies on class lines. On October 29, 1977, for example, a no-warning bomb at an Italian restaurant in Mayfair kills one diner and wounds 17 others. Three more people are killed in similar blasts in Chelsea and Mayfair the following month. He says, “By hitting Mayfair restaurants, we were hitting the type of person that could bring pressure to bear on the British government.”
In December 1977, Twomey is captured in Sandycove, Dublin, by the Garda Síochána, who had been tipped off by Belgian police about a concealed arms shipment, to be delivered to a bogus company with an address in the area. They swoop on a house in Martello Terrace to discover Twomey outside in his car, wearing his trademark dark glasses. After a high-speed pursuit, he is recaptured in the centre of Dublin. The Gardaí later find documents in his possession outlining proposals for the structural reorganisation of the IRA according to the cell system. His arrest ends his tenure as IRA chief of staff. In the 1986 split over abstentionism, Twomey sides with the Gerry Adams leadership and remains with the Provisionals.
After a long illness from a heart condition, Twomey dies in Dublin on September 12, 1989. He is buried in the family plot in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast. His funeral is attended by about 2,000 people.
Twomey lives at 6 Sevastopol Street in the Falls district. Known as “Thumper” owing to his short temper and habit of banging his fist on tables, he receives little education and is a bookmaker‘s “runner.” His father is a volunteer in the 1920s. In Belfast he lives comfortably with his wife, Rosie, whom he marries in 1946. Together they have sons and daughters.
Twomey begins his involvement with the Irish Republican Army in the 1930s and is interned in Northern Ireland during the 1940s on the prison ship HMS Al Rawdah and later in Crumlin Road Jail in Belfast. Rosie, his wife, is also held prisoner at the women prison, Armagh Jail, in Northern Ireland. He opposes the left-wing shift of Cathal Goulding in the 1960s, and in 1968, helps set up the breakaway Andersonstown Republican Club, later the Roddy McCorley Society.
In 1969, Twomey is prominent in the establishment of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. By 1972, he is Officer Commanding (OC) of the Provisional IRA Belfast Brigade when it launches its bomb campaign of the city, including Bloody Friday when nine people are killed. During the 1970s, the leadership of the Belfast Brigade of the IRA is largely in the hands of Twomey and Ivor Bell.
In March 1973, Twomey is first appointed IRA Chief of Staff after the arrest of Joe Cahill. He remains in this position until his arrest in October 1973 by the Garda Síochána. Three weeks later, on October 31, 1973, the IRA organises the helicopter escape of Twomey and his fellow IRA members J. B. O’Hagan and Kevin Mallon, when an active service unit hijacks and forces the pilot at gunpoint to land the helicopter in the training yard of Mountjoy Prison. After his escape, he returns to his membership of IRA Army Council.
By June/July 1974, Twomey is IRA Chief of Staff for a second time. He takes part in the Feakle talks between the IRA and Protestant clergymen in December 1974. In the IRA truce which follows in 1975, he is largely unsupportive and wants to fight on in what he sees as “one big push to finish it once and for all.”
IRA informer Sean O’Callaghan claims that on January 5, 1976, Twomey and Brian Keenan give the go-ahead for the sectarian Kingsmill massacre, when ten unarmed Ulster Protestant workmen are executed by the Provisional IRA in retaliation for a rash of loyalist killings of Catholics in the area. It is Keenan’s view, O’Callaghan claims, that “The only way to knock the nonsense out of the Prods is to be ten times more savage.”
Twomey is dedicated to paramilitarism as a means of incorporating Northern Ireland into the Republic of Ireland. In an interview with French television on July 11, 1977, he declares that although the IRA had waged a campaign for seven years at that point, it can fight on for another 70 against the British state in Northern Ireland and in England. He supports the bombing of wealthy civilian targets, which he justifies on class lines. On October 29, 1977, for example, a no-warning bomb at an Italian restaurant in Mayfair kills one diner and wounds 17 others. Three more people are killed in similar blasts in Chelsea and Mayfair the following month. He says, “By hitting Mayfair restaurants, we were hitting the type of person that could bring pressure to bear on the British government.”
In December 1977, Twomey is captured in Sandycove, Dublin, by the Garda Síochána, who had been tipped off by Belgian police about a concealed arms shipment, to be delivered to a bogus company with an address in the area. They swoop on a house in Martello Terrace to discover Twomey outside in his car, wearing his trademark dark glasses. After a high-speed pursuit, he is recaptured in the centre of Dublin. The Gardaí later find documents in his possession outlining proposals for the structural reorganisation of the IRA according to the cell system. His arrest ends his tenure as IRA chief of staff. In the 1986 split over abstentionism, Twomey sides with the Gerry Adams leadership and remains with the Provisionals.
After a long illness from a heart condition, Twomey dies in Dublin on September 12, 1989. He is buried in the family plot in Milltown Cemetery, Belfast. His funeral is attended by about 2,000 people.
Cahill is born in Belfast on May 19, 1920. He is educated at St. Mary’s Christian Brothers’ Grammar School. At age 14 he leaves school to assist in his father’s print shop. Soon after, he joins the Catholic Young Men’s Society, which campaigns on social issues with a focus on eradicating moneylenders from working-class areas of Belfast, as they often charge usurious interest rates. At the age of seventeen, he joins Na Fianna Éireann, a republican-orientated Scouting movement. Na Fianna Eireann is regarded as the “Junior Irish Republican Army.”
Cahill joins the local Clonard-based ‘C’ Company of the Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican Army in 1938. Four years later, during an anniversary march by the IRA for the Easter Rising, he gets into a shootout with five other IRA men against four Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers. Several men are wounded, and Constable Patrick Murphy is killed. Cahill and four of the other men spend time in prison in Belfast. The IRA declares a formal ceasefire in 1945. Afterwards, republican prisoners begin to be released. Cahill is released in October 1949.
The IRA launches a new campaign in 1956. The IRA border campaign attacks ten targets in six counties, damaging bridges, courthouses and border roads. By 1957, three RUC officers and seven republicans have been killed during the campaign. Cahill is arrested and interned in January 1957 with several other republicans. He is released from internment in April 1961. Following his release from prison, he is disappointed at the direction of the IRA and resigns from the organisation around 1962.
In 1969, Cahill is a key figure in the founding of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. During his time in the Provisional IRA, he helps import weapons and raise financial support. He serves as the Chief of Staff in 1972 but is arrested the following year when a ship importing weapons is intercepted.
After his release, Cahill continues to serve on the IRA Army Council and leads all financial dealings for Sinn Féin. In the 1990s, the IRA and Sinn Féin begin to work on seeking peace. Cahill serves on the council that calls a cessation on July 21, 1996. He attends several of the talks that finally lead to the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998. Shortly after the agreement is made, he resigns as treasurer of Sinn Féin. To honour his service, he is made honorary Sinn Féin Vice-President for life. He serves the Republican movement in Ireland all his life, as one of the longest-serving political activists in Ireland of any political party.
Cahill dies at age 84 in Belfast on July 23, 2004. 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 sue the company for their exposure to the dangerous substances but only win minimal compensation.
Cahill is educated at St. Mary’s Christian Brothers’ Grammar School. At age 14 he leaves school to assist in his father’s print shop. Soon after, he joins the Catholic Young Men’s Society, which campaigns on social issues with a focus on eradicating moneylenders from working-class areas of Belfast, as they often charge usurious interest rates. At the age of seventeen, he joins Na Fianna Éireann, a republican-orientated Scouting movement. Na Fianna Eireann is regarded as the “Junior Irish Republican Army.”
Cahill joins the local Clonard-based ‘C’ Company of the Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican Army in 1938. Four years later, during an anniversary march by the IRA for the Easter Rising, he gets into a shootout with five other IRA men against four Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers. Several men are wounded, and Constable Patrick Murphy is killed. Cahill and four of the other men spend time in prison in Belfast. The IRA declares a formal ceasefire in 1945. Afterwards, republican prisoners begin to be released. Cahill is released in October 1949.
The IRA launches a new campaign in 1956. The IRA border campaign attacks ten targets in six counties, damaging bridges, courthouses and border roads. By 1957, three RUC officers and seven republicans have been killed during the campaign. Cahill is arrested and interned in January 1957 with several other republicans. He is released from internment in April 1961. Following his release from prison, he is disappointed at the direction of the IRA and resigns from the organisation around 1962.
In 1969, Cahill is a key figure in the founding of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. During his time in the Provisional IRA, he helps import weapons and raise financial support. He serves as the chief of staff in 1972 but is arrested the following year when a ship importing weapons was intercepted.
After his release, Cahill continues to serve on the IRA Army Council and leads all financial dealings for Sinn Féin. In the 1990s, the IRA and Sinn Féin begin to work on seeking peace. Cahill serves on the council that calls a cessation on July 21, 1996. He attends several of the talks that finally lead to the Good Friday Agreement on April 10, 1998. Shortly after the agreement is made, he resigns as treasurer of Sinn Féin. To honour his service, he is made honorary Sinn Féin Vice-President for life. He serves the Republican movement in Ireland all his life, as one of the longest-serving political activists in Ireland of any political party.
Cahill dies at age 84 in Belfast on July 23, 2004. 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 sue the company for their exposure to the dangerous substances but only win minimal compensation.
McElwaine is born on April 1, 1960, the oldest of eight children, in the townland of Knockacullion, beside the hamlet and townland of Knockatallon, near the village of Scotstown in the north of County Monaghan. At the age of 14, he takes his first steps towards becoming involved in physical force republicanism when he joins Na Fianna Éireann. Two years later he turns down an opportunity to study in the United States and joins the Irish Republican Army (IRA), stating “no one will ever be able to accuse me of running away.”
McElwaine becomes Officer Commanding of the IRA in County Fermanagh by the age of 19. On February 5, 1980, he kills off-duty Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) corporal Aubrey Abercrombie as he drives a tractor in the townland of Drumacabranagher, near Florencecourt. Later that year, on September 23, he kills off-duty Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Reserve Constable Ernest Johnston outside his home in Rosslea. He is suspected of involvement in at least ten other killings.
On March 14, 1981, a detachment of the British Army surrounds a farmhouse near Rosslea, containing McElwaine and three other IRA members. Despite being armed with four rifles, including an Armalite, the IRA members surrender and are arrested. While on remand in Crumlin Road Gaol, McElwaine stands in the February 1982 Irish general election as an independent candidate for Cavan–Monaghan and receives 3,974 votes (6.84% of the vote). In May 1982 he is convicted of murdering the RUC and UDR members, with the judge describing him as a “dangerous killer” and recommending he spend at least 30 years in prison.
On September 25, 1983, McElwaine is involved in the Maze Prison escape, the largest break-out of prisoners in Europe since World War II and in British prison history. Thirty-eight republican prisoners, armed with six handguns, hijack a prison meals lorry and smash their way out of the prison. After the escape McElwaine joins an IRA Active Service Unit operating in the area of the border between Counties Monaghan and Fermanagh. The unit targets police and military patrols with gun and bomb attacks, while sleeping rough in barns and outhouses to avoid capture.
On April 26, 1986, McElwaine and another IRA member, Seán Lynch, are preparing to ambush a British Army patrol near Rosslea, County Fermanagh when they are ambushed themselves by a detachment from the Special Air Service Regiment. Both are wounded but Lynch manages to crawl away. A January 1993 inquest jury returns a verdict that McElwaine had been unlawfully killed. The jury rules the soldiers had opened fire without giving him a chance to surrender, and that he was shot dead five minutes after being wounded. The Director of Public Prosecutions requests a full report on the inquest from the RUC, but no one has been prosecuted for McElwaine’s death.
McElwaine is buried in Scotstown, with his funeral attended by an estimated 3,000 people, including Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. McGuinness gives an oration describing McElwaine as “a brave intelligent soldier, a young man who gave up his youth to fight for the freedom of his country” and “an Irish freedom fighter murdered by British terrorists.”
On April 1, 1990, a monument to McElwaine is erected in Corlat, County Monaghan. The oration is given by a Catholic priest, Father Piaras Ó Dúill, who compares McElwaine to Nelson Mandela, saying they both had the same attitude to oppression, and both refused to denounce principle. The inscription on the monument is a quote from Patrick Pearse: “As long as Ireland is unfree the only honourable attitude for Irishmen and Irishwomen is an attitude of revolt.” A monument to McElwaine and six other republicans is erected in Rosslea in 1998 and unveiled by veteran republican Joe Cahill.
Máiría Cahill is elected to Seanad Éireann on November 13, 2015 after winning a by-election held to fill the seat left vacant after the resignation of the Labour Party‘s Jimmy Harte. She wins 122 of the 188 valid votes cast in an election in which only Teachta Dálas (TDs) and Senators can cast a vote.
Cahill is born in 1981 into a prominent republican extended family in West Belfast. Her great-uncle Joe Cahill is one of the founders and chief of staff of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the 1970s. She is a cousin of both Siobhán O’Hanlon, a prominent republican activist in the IRA and later in Sinn Féin until her death in 2006, and her sister Eilis O’Hanlon, a political commentator for the Irish Independent and critic of both the IRA and Sinn Féin. She also claims her grandfather recruited Gerry Adams into the IRA.
Cahill is elected National Secretary of Ógra Shinn Féin and works for Sinn Féin between 1998 and 2001. She quits Sinn Féin in 2001 when she moves to the United States. She later returns and works on two election campaigns for the party before growing disillusioned at her treatment and leaving for good.
In February 2015, Cahill receives a James Larkin Thirst for Justice award from the Irish Labour Party. In November 2015, she receives a Special Recognition Award in the Irish Tatler‘s Woman of the Year Awards.
In October 2015, Labour Party leader Joan Burton announces Cahill has joined the party and she, along with her deputy Alan Kelly, will put her forward as the party’s nominee in a by-election to Seanad Éireann’s Industrial and Commercial Panel. The by-election has been occasioned by the resignation of Senator Jimmy Harte due to illness. Cahill secures the party’s nomination unopposed and wins the election in November 13 on the first count, with 122 first preferences out of 188 valid votes from Oireachtas members.
Cahill is criticised by Senator David Norris for failing to satisfactorily answer questions on her links to dissident republican groups and for failing to take part in media debates with other candidates. Norris later states that she is “an interesting and vital voice in Seanad Éireann.”
In a March 2016 interview with Catherine Shanahan of the Irish Examiner, Kathleen Lynch, a former Labour party TD and Minister of state, states she has no idea as to why Cahill was chosen as the party’s by-election candidate. Cahill does not contest the 2016 Seanad elections.
Cahill is co-opted into a Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) council seat in Lisburn and Castlereagh council in July 2018. She has to withdraw from the local election campaign in April 2019, due to a law requiring candidates to publish their home addresses. Cahill is unable to do so due to threats made against her. The British Government subsequently apologises.
Williams is born in the Beechmount area of Belfast on May 12, 1923. He is the third child in a family of six. After the death of his mother, he and his brother go to live with their grandmother at 46 Bombay Street in the Clonard area of Belfast. The Williams family has to leave the small Catholic enclave in the Shore Road area of Belfast after their house is attacked and burned.
As a child, Williams suffers from asthma and as a result is often very ill. He attends St. Gall’s Primary School but leaves at an early age to obtain work, which at the time is difficult due to discrimination. His work therefore consists of labouring and as a delivery boy.
As soon as Williams is old enough, he joins Na Fianna Éireann, the republican Scout Organisation founded by Constance Markievicz in 1909, becoming a member of the Con Colbert slua in the Clonard area. Alfie Hannaway, a friend of Williams, is his OC in Na Fianna, and assigns him to the rank of Quartermaster for the company. He takes his role in Na Fianna very seriously and all who came to know him are struck by his dedication and maturity, even at this early age.
At the age of 17, Williams is old enough to become a volunteer and joins C Company of the IRA in the Clonard area where he lives. Due to his “dedication and his remarkable ability” he is appointed to the role of Adjutant of C Company.
At Easter 1942 the government of Northern Ireland bans all parades to commemorate the anniversary of the Easter Rising. An IRA unit of six men and two women stage a diversionary action against the RUC to allow three parades to take place in West Belfast, but in this clash a RUC officer is killed, and the six IRA men are captured. The RUC officer, Constable Patrick Murphy, a father of nine children, from the Falls Road area of Belfast, is one of a minority of Catholics serving in the RUC.
There is debate over the years about who actually fired the fatal shot. The six IRA members are convicted and sentenced to death for murder under the law of common purpose. Five have their sentences commuted. The sentence of Williams, who acknowledges that he is the leader of the IRA unit involved and takes full responsibility for the actions of his men, is not commuted.
Williams is hanged in Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast on the morning of September 2, 1942. The executioner is the official English hangman Thomas Pierrepoint, assisted by his nephew Albert Pierrepoint. Afterwards Williams’ body is interred in unhallowed ground in an unmarked grave within the grounds of the prison. His remains are only released in January 2000 after the closure of the prison in 1996 and a lengthy campaign by the National Graves Association, Belfast.
Williams’s funeral is held on January 19, 2000, and is attended by thousands, with burial at Milltown Cemetery. Joe Cahill, Williams’s cell mate, and John Oliver, sentenced to death with Williams but later reprieved, as well as Madge McConville, who had been arrested with Williams, Greta McGlone, Billy McKee, Eddie Keenan and perhaps least known, Nell Morgan, Williams’s girlfriend at the time of his death, are all present. Six senior Sinn Féin members including Gerry Adams are also present in St. Paul’s Church on the Lower Falls Road for the Mass.
Williams is remembered in a ballad Tom Williams. Various recordings have been made, most notably by the Flying Column and Éire Óg, who preamble their version with the story of the campaign to release his body. The now disbanded, Volunteer Tom Williams Republican Flute Band from Glasgow, Scotland is named in his memory as is the Tom Williams Camogie Club in Belfast.
(Pictured: Tom Williams’ headstone at Milltown Cemetery after being reinterred)
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