Joe Cahill - Paramilitary Career

Paramilitary Career

The following year in 1938, at the age of 18, Cahill became a volunteer in the local Clonard-based 'C' Company of the Belfast Brigade of the Irish Republican Army. In the 1940s, he was sentenced to death for killing a police officer during the IRA's Northern Campaign. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, as a result of pressure on the British government by Éire. The Vatican also called on the Northern Ireland government to grant clemency. Of the six men sentenced to death for the murder of Constable Patrick Murphy of Clowney Street, the Falls Road, Belfast, only one was executed. He was Tom Williams, the leader of the IRA unit that killed Murphy. Cahill was released from prison in 1949.

During the 1950s IRA Border Campaign, Cahill was again arrested and interned. He was released in 1962.