Martin Cahill

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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 and was rarely photographed.

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[edit] Early life

He was born in a slum district on Dublin's North Side. His parents were Patrick Cahill, an alcoholic 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.[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.

[edit] Rise to Prominence

In 1978, the Dublin Corporation began preparing to demolish Hollyfield Buildings. Martin, then serving a four year prison stretch, 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, 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. 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]

[edit] Death

Cahill was shot dead at a road junction near his home in Rathmines on August 18, 1994 by gunmen believed to be operatives of the IRA. The IRA claimed they killed Cahill in response to his alleged involvement with a loyalist paramilitary group. Cahill had allegedly been involved in selling stolen paintings to the Ulster Volunteer Force. 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, according to the book The General, by author Paul Williams.[5]

However, since the publication of Williams's The General, a new theory has surfaced among those Garda officers investigating 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. Reputedly, this, and Cahill's past dealings with the Loyalists, gave the IRA reason to order his execution. This theory is put forward in Paul Williams's recent bestseller Evil Empire. However, a book written by Cahill's daughter Frances (Martin Cahill, My Father, published 2007) claims that he detested the drug scene and steered clear of it.

[edit] In Popular Culture

In 1998 John Boorman directed a movie about him called 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 broken into by Cahill, an event alluded to in the film. [6]

The 2003 film Veronica Guerin, about the journalist of the same name, implies that John Gilligan ordered the killing of Cahill. In the film Gilligan and Traynor are not portrayed as "Cahill's underlings"; indeed, Gilligan appears as a separate crimelord, and Traynor as a lower level associate.

The film Ordinary Decent Criminal, starring Kevin Spacey, is loosely based on the General.

[edit] Quotes

"Reform school was my primary school, St. Patrick's Institution my secondary school, and Mountjoy my university - they taught me everything I know."[7]

"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."[8]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Paul Williams, "The General," page 21
  2. ^ Paul Williams, "The General," pages 35-37
  3. ^ Paul Williams, "The General," pages 95-116
  4. ^ Paul Williams, "The General," pages 201-210.
  5. ^ Paul Williams, "The General," pages 11-14, 273-280
  6. ^ Salon.com. Safe Haven.
  7. ^ "The General" by Paul Williams.
  8. ^ Martin Cahill My Father. Frances Cahill

[edit] External links