When the Irish Republican Army executed Martin Cahill in August, 1994, nobody was happier than the Dublin police.
Known in Ireland as "The General", Martin Cahill was an old style, working-class criminal whose derring-do humiliated authorities and provided plenty of fodder for Irish newspapers looking for comic relief in the dark days of Irish politics.
From dancing around the courthouse in a pair of Mickey Mouse boxer shorts to pulling off heists of priceless art, Cahill was a mysterious figure who rose from petty thief to the top of Dublin's criminal dung heap.
Adding to Cahill's mystique was the fact that few people - save for his two mistresses, their four children and his crime buddies - ever knew what he actually looked like because he always managed to hide his face from the media.
Cahill's lifetime haul from bank robberies, art gallery thefts, and home burgularies was estimated at nearly 60 million pounds. And while he was no Robin Hood, preferring to steal from the rich and gave to himself, he was certainly an interesting character whose life, crimes and loves formed the basis of Director John Boorman's (Deliverance, Excalibur, Beyond Rangoon, Hope and Glory, Point Blank) 1998 film The General.
Shot entirely in black and white, The General tells the true to life story of Cahill, a small time crook who eventually became Dublin's Godfather of Crime. The film looks at Cahill's crime overlordship with a humourous slant, casting him as an anti-authoritarian hero of the marginalized and the oppressed.
In one scene, he appears as a David against the Goliath of urban progress when he makes a last stand at his low-income housing project even though it is literally being torn down around him.
But the film does not sugar coat his penchant for brutality and violence. In another scene, we see how Cahill treats suspected traitors within his crime organization when he nails the crook's hand to a snooker table in a mock crucifixion.
In yet another scene he tries to assasinate a forensic anthropologist, and in another, he threatens a witness who is slated to testify against him.
His prediliction towards violence proves he had little remorse for his victims. And no one knows that better than Director John Boorman, himself one of Cahill's burgulary victims.
That episode is brought to life in the film when Cahill, played by actor Brendan Gleeson, steals a Gold Record during a home burgulary and breaks it in half when he realizes it isn't gold.
That particular Gold Record was for Duelling Banjos, the hit score from Deliverance, one of Boorman's earlier - and most successful - films.
Not everyone loves The General. According to The Republican News, the voice of the IRA, Boorman's characterization of Martin Cahill is a "major disappointment". Among other criticisms, the News cites Boorman's reference to the Concerned Parents Against Drugs movement as insulting to Cahill's victims. In one hilarious scene, Cahill counters the success of the grass roots CPAD by establishing a parallel group called "Concerned Criminals."
Cahill was no ...hero.... He was the ultimate in authoritarianism and individualism, and was an oppressor to people of his own class who he used, abused and brutalised in order to fulfill his own selfish ambitions. Cahill had no altruistic traits. His motive was pure, unadulterated greed.
He despised the collective will of the people and community empowerment and demonstrated this through his actions against the Concerned Parents movement. Faced with the people power of the CPAD Dublin's drug dealers could no longer threaten or intimidate with impunity. Martin Cahill's response was to establish the `Concerned Criminals' group. Gangsters, under Cahill's direction, targeted the homes of anti-drugs activists and threatened people who involved themselves in marches and pickets. Masked gunmen shot an anti-drugs activist, Joey Flynn, in both legs.
In a review by Roger Ebert, of Siskel and Ebert fame, Ebert says that the real reason Cahill was killed by the IRA was because he interfered in the Irish drug trade. Ebert suggests that Boorman wisely avoided mentioning that fact in the film because he intends to keep working in Ireland.
While we may never know the real reason why Cahill was murdered, we can make up our own minds about the man who became Ireland's most controversial criminal by watching the movie, or by reading the book The General by Paul Williams.
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MARTIN CAHILL
(1949 - 1994) criminal
Born Crumlin, Dublin
Known as the 'General'. One of twelve children. At sixteen he was convicted of burglary and sentenced to two years in Daingean industrial school, County Offaly. At twenty he was sentenced to four years in Mountjoy Jail for theft and possession of stolen goods, the longest sentence he ever served. On release he formed a gang and planned a series of armed robberies, culminating in May 1986 in the stealing of paintings worth £30 million from Russborough House, County Wicklow, home of Sir Alfred Beit.
In December 1987 the Garda set up a special unit to deal with Cahill and his gang, who reacted by slashing the tyres of cars and digging up greens at the Garda Golf Club. The surveillance led to the capture and conviction of almost every criminal associate of Cahill’s, but he recruited a new gang of dangerous young criminals, who kidnapped the wife of a bank official in November 1993.
Cahill was called the General because of his meticulous planning of every operation. He avoided dealing in drugs and did not smoke, drink, or gamble. On 18 August 1994 he was shot dead in his car in Ranelagh, Dublin, by a man posing as a council worker who escaped on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice. The IRA admitted responsibility for 'the execution of a crime lord closely involved with a Portadown-based UVF gang responsible for many sectarian murders'.
Source: A Dictionary of Irish Biography, Henry Boylan (ed.), Gill & Macmillan, Dublin, 1998.
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the general was a fucking scumbag. there's no two ways around that. i know some of his victims. he was an evil twisted man. fair enough, he may not be quite as bad as some of the newer breed of dublin criminals, but the man caused misery all over the city he called home. how many people were out of work because of the o'conners heist? ordinary decent criminal my arse
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Does martina cahill have a son named gary? There is a man living near me claiming this identity. I realise the sins of the father are not the sins of the sons but I'd rather like to know if it's bogus or not. Out of curiosity if nothing else
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