The Protracted Conflict

On the morning of March 9, a milkman named Thomas Cahill, 37 years old and the father of seven children, was making his delivery rounds in the Ballymurphy district of Belfast. He had just got back into the seat of his delivery truck in Dermott Hill Road. Several children were playing alongside. Three men walked up to the truck, and one of them shot Cahill square in the face.

Cahill was a member of the faction of the Irish Republican Army known as the “provisionals,” of which his brother Joe is a well-known leader. The provisionals broke off from the official IRA in 1969 in a Maoist-Guevara-Debray direction. They assert that the “liberation” of Northern Ireland can be achieved only by violence. The official IRA, which has its headquarters in Dublin under Cathal Goulding as Chief of Staff, is itself Marxist in outlook, but has—officially at any rate—favored nonviolent political tactics in relation to Ulster. The IRA “officials,” however, have never applied a nonviolent outlook to dissident comrades.

JB

About the Author

James Burnham

Featured Tags

On the morning of March 9, a milkman named Thomas Cahill, 37 years old and the father of seven children, was making his delivery rounds in the Ballymurphy district of Belfast. He had just got back into the seat of his delivery truck in Dermott Hill Road. Several children were playing alongside. Three men walked up to the truck, and one of them shot Cahill square in the face.

Cahill was a member of the faction of the Irish Republican Army known as the “provisionals,” of which his brother Joe is a well-known leader. The provisionals broke off from the official IRA in 1969 in a Maoist-Guevara-Debray direction. They assert that the “liberation” of Northern Ireland can be achieved only by violence. The official IRA, which has its headquarters in Dublin under Cathal Goulding as Chief of Staff, is itself Marxist in outlook, but has—officially at any rate—favored nonviolent political tactics in relation to Ulster. The IRA “officials,” however, have never applied a nonviolent outlook to dissident comrades.