On This Day / August 14, 1971

Summary: On This Day – 14th August 1971, Provo chief Joe Cahill popped up in Belfast to challenge British claims the IRA had been defeated as political tensions continued to escalate. Edited by Éamon Phoenix.

IRA Chief Speaks | On This Day – 14th August 1971

THE chief of the Northern Divisional Command of the Provisional wing of the IRA, Mr Joe Cahill, turned up before a world press conference in Belfast yesterday … right under the noses of British troops in Ballymurphy.

The quiet-spoken Mr Cahill sat at a long wooden table in front of a microphone with Mr Paddy Kennedy, Republican Labour MP for Belfast Central; Mr John Kelly, former chairman of the Citizens’ Defence Committee and Councillor John Flanigan.

Newsmen were taken in secret to the conference in a local school gym after rendezvousing at a butcher’s shop.

Coolly, Mr Cahill refuted claims made by the British Army a few hours earlier that the IRA ‘was virtually beaten’.

He said the Provisionals and Officials were now joining forces to fight the Army. ‘We have plenty of guns and ammunition’ but they had some difficulty getting them into NI.

Army Chief Claims Hardcore of IRA Defeated

THE security forces have ‘virtually defeated’ the hardcore of IRA gunmen in the North, an Army chief claimed yesterday.

Brigadier Marston Tickell, Chief of Staff in NI, said there had been 50 IRA casualties, 20 or 30 of whom had been killed.

One of the unfortunate side-effects had been intimidation which had led to the evacuation of a fair number of families from their homes. Another had been the erection of street barricades.

Faulkner Accuses Lynch

MR BRIAN Faulkner said in Belfast yesterday that it was no longer possible for his government to deal constructively with Mr Lynch’s administration. He accused Mr Lynch of being ‘irresponsible and opportunist’.

The Stormont PM said it was time ‘to expose for what it is the cant and hypocrisy of the attitude of Mr Lynch’s government to the illegal army which is now engaged in murderous battles with British troops – our troops – in a part of the United Kingdom.’

Mr Faulkner said the speech’s ‘general tone and language as used by one government to another in a friendly country are extraordinary’

Brothers Arrested

IT IS understood that two brothers of Mr Frank McManus, MP are among those arrested in Enniskillen. One is Fr Sean McManus, home [from the US] for the MP’s wedding.

(Éamon Phoenix editor’s note: Joe Cahill’s appearance at a press conference in west Belfast was a major propaganda coup for the IRA.

A veteran of the IRA’s wartime campaign, Cahill had been a key figure in the creation of the Provisional IRA in 1969.

In his attack on Lynch, the Stormont PM had the apparent support of Heath who bluntly told the taoiseach that NI was no business of Dublin’s. That view would soon change, however.)

On This Day – 14th August 1971

Further Reading on Irish History:

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