Dáithí Ó Conaill
Dáithí Ó Conaill (English: David O'Connell; May 1938 – 1 January 1991) was an Irish republican, a member of the IRA Army Council of the Provisional IRA, and vice-president of Sinn Féin and Republican Sinn Féin. He was also the first chief of staff of the Continuity IRA, from its founding in 1986 until his death in 1991.[1] He is credited with introducing the car bomb to Northern Ireland.[2]
Dáithí Ó Conaill
Joins IRA[edit]
Ó Conaill was born in Cork in 1938. His uncle Michael O'Sullivan, a member of the 1st Cork Brigade of the Irish Republican Army, was killed by the Black and Tans on 23 March 1921 during the Irish War of Independence.[3] After his vocational school education, he trained as a woodwork teacher in a college in County Wexford. He had a wife (Deirdre), a son (Feargal) and two daughters (Ciara and Díóg).
He joined the republican movement at 17 years of age and took part in the IRA Border Campaign. On 1 January 1957 he was second-in-command of the Pearse Column which carried out the raid on Brookeborough Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Barracks in County Fermanagh, in which Seán South and Fergal O'Hanlon were killed. He was arrested by the Garda Síochána and imprisoned in Mountjoy Prison for six months. Upon release, he was interned in the Curragh. On 27 September 1958 he escaped along with Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and went on the run.
With most of the IRA leadership under arrest or interned, Ó Brádaigh (who had been on the Army Council at the start of the campaign) became IRA chief of staff and Ó Conaill became IRA Director of Operations and joined the IRA Army Council.[4]
In an altercation with the RUC and B Specials near Lough Neagh in 1959, he was shot and badly injured and later captured by the RUC. On recovery he received an eight-year sentence and remained in Belfast Prison until he was released unconditionally in September 1963.
In the October 1961 Irish general election, Ó Conaill ran as a Sinn Féin candidate in the Cork Borough constituency. Winning 1,956 first preference votes (a share of 5.24 per cent), he just missed taking the fifth and final seat.[5]
Upon release, Ó Conaill took up residence in Glencolmcille, County Donegal, where he taught. He also married Deirdre Caffrey, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh's cousin. Ó Conaill worked closely with Fr. James McDyer who was active in rural development. During the late 1960s, Ó Conaill played little part in the activities of the IRA or Sinn Féin.
With the outbreak of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s, Ó Conaill would become a prominent spokesperson for the Provisional IRA. He was active in the IRA through the 1960s, and IRA Chief of Staff Cathal Goulding appointed him the Officer Commanding (O/C) of the Donegal unit prior to the IRA's Convention in December 1969; Ó Conaill was also a member of the IRA's Army Council after Goulding expanded that body at the IRA Convention late in 1968. In the autumn of 1969, Ó Conaill, upset with the then IRA leadership, walked out of the "unit convention" and was suspended.[6]
Involvement in Sinn Féin electoral campaigns[edit]
Upon his release from prison, he was active in the Anti H-Block Movement. Contrary to popular opinion, it was Ó Conaill and not Gerry Adams who proposed that Bobby Sands contest the Westminster by-election for Fermanagh and South Tyrone during the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike. This decision was made at the March 1981 Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle meeting.[15]
He was the director of elections in the June 1981 Irish general election in which two prisoners were elected to Dáil Éireann: hunger striker Kieran Doherty in the Cavan–Monaghan constituency and prison protester Paddy Agnew in the Louth constituency.
In 1983, along with Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, he resigned from the position of vice-president of Sinn Féin in opposition to the dropping of the Éire Nua policy.
Joins Republican Sinn Féin[edit]
At the 1986 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis, he opposed the decision to drop abstentionism to Leinster House. He joined in the walk out led by Ó Brádaigh and was chairman of Republican Sinn Féin from 1986 to 1987 and subsequently a vice-president of the party.
Three days before his death he wrote a document entitled Towards a Peaceful Ireland, which offered a traditionalist republican solution to Irish partition.[16]
Death[edit]
On 1 January 1991, his family found him dead at his home in Raheny,[17] Dublin. He had gone to bed complaining of feeling ill.[18] He is buried in Glasnevin Cemetery where a commemoration is held annually.