Joe McCann

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Joe McCann (1947 - 15 April 1972) was an Irish Republican Army and later Official Irish Republican Army volunteer from Belfast. He was active in politics from the early 1960s and participated, as an Official IRA volunteer, in the early years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. He was killed in a confrontation with British soldiers in 1972.

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[edit] Early life

McCann was born in the Lower Falls area of Belfast, and spent most of his life there and in the nearby Markets area of the city. His mother died when he was four years old and he and his siblings were brought up by his father and grandmother. He was educated in the Christian Brothers school on Barracks Street in Belfast, where he developed an interest in the Irish language. A brick-layer by trade, he joined the Fianna at age 14 and the IRA in the early 1960s. In 1964 he was involved in a riot on Divis street in Belfast in opposition to the threat of loyalist leader Ian Paisley to march on the area to remove an Irish tricolour flying over the election office of Billy McMillen. In 1965 he was arrested for the possession of bayonets with five other men. The five refused to answer questions in custody or to speak in court and were sentenced to a year in prison. In prison, McCann became quite religious and at the time of his death was a lay brother of the Third Order of Saint Francis.

In 1969 after sectarian rioting in Belfast, the IRA split into two factions; the Provisional Irish Republican Army, traditionalist militarists, and the Official IRA, Marxist oriented socialists. McCann sided with the Officials as he felt they had a better political analysis. His brother Dennis and his two half brothers Patrick and Brian also joined the OIRA.

McCann married Anne McKnight who hailed from a strong republican family in the Markets area in Belfast. Anne's older brother Bobby McKnight was leader of the IRA in Belfast in the 1950s, and was jailed during IRA's Border Campaign. McKnight fought alongside Sean South when they were caught in an ambush and South was killed alongside Fergal O'Hanlon. Another of Anne's brothers is Sean McKnight a former Sinn Féin councillor for south Belfast. Joe and Anne McCann had four children, Feargal, Aine, Fionnuala and Ciaran.

[edit] Armed activities

McCann was appointed commander of the OIRA's Third Belfast Battalion By 1970, violence in Northern Ireland had escalated to the point where British soldiers were deployed there in large numbers. From 3–5 July 1970, McCann was involved in gun battles during the Falls Curfew between the Official IRA and up to 3,000 British soldiers in the Lower Falls area that left four civilians dead and 60 injured. On 22 May 1971, McCann's unit ambushed a British patrol, killing one soldier. His most famous act came on 9 August 1971 when his unit took over the Inglis bakery in the Markets area and fortified it after the introduction of internment without trial by the Northern Ireland authorities (see Operation Demetrius). They defended it throughout the night from an incursion by 600 British soldiers, looking to arrest paramilitary suspects. The action allowed other IRA members to slip out of the area and avoid arrest. He was photographed during the incident, holding an M1 carbine, against the background of a burning building and the Starry Plough flag; one of the most striking early images of The Troubles. In early February 1972, he was involved in the attempted assassination of Ulster Unionist politician and Northern Ireland Minister for Home Affairs. John Taylor in Armagh. McCann and another gunman fired on Taylor's car with Thompson submachine guns, hitting him five times in the neck and head, but he survived, though badly injured.

McCann is suspected of being behind the deaths of up to 15 British soldiers.

[edit] Death

Joe McCann was killed on 15 April 1972 in a confrontation with British soldiers. Although ordered by the Official IRA leadership to stay in Dublin, McCann returned home to Belfast and the Markets area. He was spotted there by an Royal Ulster Constabulary officer, who reported his whereabouts to the British Parachute Regiment, who were stationed in the Lower Falls. McCann was unarmed and tried to run to safety when confronted by the soldiers. However he was shot dead on Joy street after a chase on foot through the Markets. Ten cartridge cases were found close to his body, indicating that he had been shot repeatedly at close range. McCann was the leader of the most militant of the OIRA's members in Belfast and was much more enthusiastic about the use of "armed struggle" in Northern Ireland than the OIRA leadership. His killing was closely followed by the organisation calling a ceasefire. It was rumoured that the reason that McCann was unarmed when he was killed was that the Official leadership had confiscated his personal weapon, a .38 pistol. Some former OIRA members have even alleged that McCann's killing was set up by their Dublin leadership. The OIRA shot five British soldiers, killing three, in revenge for McCann's killing, in different incidents the following day in Belfast, Derry and Newry.

[edit] Funeral and tributes

McCann's funeral on 18 April 1972 was one of the largest Republican funerals of modern times. Between 6,000 and 20,000 mourners attended it. A guard of honour was provided by 20 OIRA volunteers and a further 200 women followed carrying flowers and wreaths. Cathal Goulding the Official IRA Chief of Staff, provided the graveside oration in Milltown Cemetery. Goulding said;

"By shooting Joe McCann [the British Government] their Whitlaws and their Heaths and their Tuzos have shown the colour of their so called peace initiatives. They have re-declared war on the people...We have given notice, by action that no words can now efface, that those who are responsible for the terrorism that is Britain's age old reaction to Irish demands will be the victim of that terrorism, paying richly in their own red blood for their crimes and the crimes of their imperial masters".

In spite of this hardline rhetoric, however, Goulding called a ceasefire just six weeks later, on 29 May 1972.

One of the more surprising tributes to McCann came from Gusty Spence, leader of the Ulster Volunteer Force loyalist group. Spence wrote a letter of sympathy to McCann's widow, expressing his, "deepest and profoundest sympathy" on the death of her husband. "He was a soldier of the Republic and I a Volunteer of Ulster and we made no apology for being what we were or are...Joe once did me a good turn indirectly and I never forgot him for his humanity". This is thought to refer to an incident in which two UVF men wandered into the Lower Falls, were captured by OIRA men, but were released unharmed on McCann's orders.

In 1997, a plaque was unveiled at the spot on Joy street in the Markets where McCann was killed. Members of the various republican factions, the Workers Party of Ireland (ex Official IRA), Sinn Féin (political wing of the Provisional IRA) and the Irish Republican Socialist Party (a splinter, along with the Irish National Liberation Army from the Official republican movement in 1974) were all in attendance.

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