Early Life
He was born in a slum district on Dublin's North Side, the second of twelve surviving children of Patrick Cahill, a lighthouse keeper and alcoholic, 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.
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“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
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