Martin Cahill

Martin Cahill (May 23 1949 – August 18 1994) was a prominent Irish criminal from Dublin.

Cahill generated a certain notoriety in the media, which referred to him by the sobriquet "The General". The name was also used by the media in order to discuss Cahill's activities while avoiding legal problems with libel. During his lifetime, Cahill took particular care to hide his face from the media—he would spread the fingers of one of his hands and cover his face with that hand.

Early life

He was born in a slum district on Dublin's South Side. His parents were Patrick Cahill, a lighthouse keeper, and Agnes Sheehan. By the time he was in national school, Martin and his older brother John were stealing food to supplement the family's income. In 1960, the family was moved to 210 Captains Road Crumlin as part of the Dublin slum clearances. Martin was sent to a Christian Brothers School (CBS) on the same road where he lived but was soon playing truant and committing frequent burglaries with his brothers. At 15, he attempted to join the Royal Navy, but was rejected, allegedly after offering to break into houses for them and because he had a criminal record.^[1]

At the age of 16, he was convicted of two burglaries and sentenced to an industrial school run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate at Daingean, County Offaly. After his release, he returned to his family, which had been moved by the Dublin Corporation after they could not pay the rent on the house. They were moved to Hollyfield Buildings, a dilapidated tenement in Rathmines. Shortly thereafter, he met and married Frances Lawless, a girl from the neighborhood. With his brothers, he continued to commit multiple burglaries in the affluent neighborhoods nearby, at one point even robbing the Garda Síochána depot for confiscated firearms. The Cahill brothers soon turned to armed robbery.

Rise to prominence

In 1978, the Dublin Corporation began preparing to demolish Hollyfield Buildings. Martin, then serving a four-year prison sentence, fought through the courts to prevent his neighborhood's destruction. Even after the tenements were demolished, he continued to live in a pitched tent on the site. Finally, Ben Briscoe, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, paid a visit to his tent and persuaded him to move into a new house in a more upscale district of Rathmines.^[2]

Cahill and his gang famously stole gold and diamonds with a value of over IR£2 million (€2.55 million) from O'Connor's jewellers in Harolds Cross. The jewellers was subsequently forced to close, with the loss of more than one hundred jobs. In addition, he was involved in stealing some of the world's most valuable paintings from Russborough House^[3] and shaking down restaurants and hot dog vendors in Dublin's night club district.^[4]

Death

On August 18, 1994, Cahill was fatally shot at a road junction near his home in Rathmines. The gunman was armed with a .357 Magnum revolver.

There are a number of theories about who killed Cahill.

According to one, the killer was an operative of the Provisional IRA. The IRA claimed they killed Cahill in response to his alleged involvement with a Portadown unit of the Ulster Volunteer Force paramilitary group that had attempted a bomb attack on a Dublin pub that was hosting a Sinn Féin Prisoner of War Department fund-raising function on the 21 May 1994. The UVF operatives were halted by the doorman Martin Doherty. In the ensuing struggle, Doherty, who the IRA subsequently announced was a Volunteer in the IRA's Dublin Brigade, was shot dead.^[5][6] The IRA alleged Cahill had been involved in selling stolen paintings to the UVF gang led by Billy Wright (later assassinated by the Irish National Liberation Army).^[7]. The UVF then fenced the paintings for money, which they used to buy guns from South Africa. This act supposedly sealed Cahill's fate, and put him at the top of an IRA hit list.^[8] In a statement claiming responsibility for the killing, the IRA said that it was Cahill's involvement with and assistance to pro-British death squads which forced us to act. ^[9]

Another theory surfaced after the publication of Paul Williams's The General, which claims to have insights from the Garda officers who investigated Cahill's murder. Reputedly, two of Cahill's underlings, John Gilligan and John Traynor, had put together a massive drug trafficking ring. When Cahill demanded his cut, police believe that Traynor and Gilligan approached the IRA and suggested that Cahill was importing heroin, a drug that the IRA despised and were trying to curtail the distribution of. Reputedly, this, and Cahill's past dealings with the Loyalists, gave the IRA reason to order his assassination. This theory is put forward in Paul Williams's recent bestseller Evil Empire. Additionally, Martin Cahill, My Father, a 2007 book written by Cahill's daughter, Frances, alleges he detested and steered clear of the drug trade.

Another theory claims that John Gilligan was ultimately responsible for the murder. Depicted in the film Veronica Guerin, this theory is outlined by journalist Henry McDonald goes like this:

"In 1993 Gilligan gets out jail and borrows IR£400,000 from Cahill, which the General had raised from the proceeds of his daring theft of the Beit Dutch masters paintings. Gilligan then uses the loan to finance the importation of tonnes of cannabis from Holland into the Irish Republic. When Cahill demands IR£1.5 million in return for his loan, Gilligan decides to rid himself of the troublesome crime boss. Gilligan ... goes to the so-called commanding officer of the Irish National Liberation Army in Dublin and asks him to shoot Cahill. In return, Gilligan offers the INLA killer IR£26,000. Gilligan then bribes a senior member of the IRA in Dublin, who also controls a security firm in the city, to claim responsibility for the shooting. When Cahill is gunned down in Rathmines, the IRA figure with links to organised crime manages to convince the Provo leadership that his unit carried out the assassination. The IRA then admits responsibility for the murder."^[10]

McDonald cites an unamed Garda officer involved in the investigation as saying that the film "showed the true picture of what happened, not only to [Veronica Guerin] but also to Cahill".^[10]

The unnamed officer continued: "In the Boorman film, the Provos are depicted as the ones who dispatch the General because he is working with the UVF. The fact is Cahill had no direct links with the UVF, only indirect ones through a criminal fence who managed to get rid of some of the stolen Beit paintings ... I'm glad this new film shatters the myth that the IRA killed Cahill for some sort of noble reason."^[10]

McDonald also quotes Jimmy Guerin, the murdered journalist's brother, as saying: "The film shows Gilligan procuring the murder of Cahill and that as far as everyone involved in both investigations knows is the real version of events."^[10]

Burial

After a Roman Catholic requiem mass, Cahill was buried at Mount Jerome Cemetery. In 2001, his gravestone was vandalised and broken in two.^[11]

In popular culture

In 1998 John Boorman directed a biopic titled The General, starring Brendan Gleeson as Cahill. The movie won best director award at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie was based on the book by Irish crime journalist, Paul Williams, who is also the crime editor of the Irish tabloid the Sunday World. Boorman himself once had his home burgled by Cahill, who stole the gold record which Boorman had won for the Deliverance soundtrack. This incident is alluded to in the film.^[12]

The 2003 film Veronica Guerin, implies that John Gilligan ordered Cahill's murder. In the film Gilligan and Traynor are not portrayed as Cahill's subordinates. Instead, Gilligan appears as a rival mob boss, and Traynor as a lower level associate.

The film Ordinary Decent Criminal, starring Kevin Spacey, is loosely inspired by the General.

In 2004, a book written by Matthew Hart was released entitled The Irish Game: A True Story of Crime and Art, which depicted the story of the Russborough House heist in 1986 and Cahill's involvement.

Quotes

• "Reform school was my primary school, St. Patrick's Institution my secondary school, and Mountjoy my university—they taught me everything I know."^[13]

• "Whatever it is you say I am, I am not. Whatever it is you want from me, I will give. Whatever it is you take from me, you can take. What is it you can do to me? The worst thing you can do is kill me, after that I won't care, I am still free."^[14]

Footnotes

External links

• Martin Cahill at Find-A-Grave