Cahill Martin - The general: the godfather of crime

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Contents

Dedicated to my friend

The Sheriff

Acknowledgments

This story could not have been told without the help of a great many people, from all walks of life, who generously endured long, exhausting hours of interviews. The kind advice, support and encouragement of many others also gave me the impetus to complete this difficult book.

I would like to thank the large number of Garda of all ranks who generously gave me their time and information. The members of the Dublin underworld were equally generous and gave the other side of the extraordinary man they called the General. To both groups I would like to express my deepest gratitude. For professional and other reasons they wish to remain anonymous. I respect that.

I would also like to thank journalist Padraig Yeates of the Irish Times and co-author of the book Smack for his invaluable assistance and first-hand knowledge of the man himself. Thanks also to Brendan OBrien of RTE and Neil McCormick of GQ magazine in London; retired detectives Ned Ryan and Frank Madden; journalists Stephen Rae, Evening Herald , Jim Cusack, Irish Times , Feargal Keane, RTE, Tom McPhail and Diarmuid McDermott of the Ireland International News-Feature Agency; the library and photographic staff of the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Tribune, Star, Sunday World and Irish Press .

My gratitude is also due to my editor at the Sunday World , Colm MacGinty, for giving me the space and the time to complete this project. My special thanks also goes to barrister Hugh Mohan.

Thanks to my parents, Bernard and Patricia, for putting up with me for the first time since Leaving Cert; my close friend and confidant Gay Prior; computer genius Sharon Donnelly.

My gratitude and congratulations to an English gentleman called John Boorman who did me the honour of using this book as the basis for his controversial award-winning movie The General . John has scripted, directed and produced a powerful interpretation of the life of Martin Cahill. My thanks also to Kieran Corrigan, John Boormans partner at Merlin Films, one of the most important men in the Irish film industry who too often is forgotten when the bouquets are thrown.

Most importantly of all, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my partner Anne Sweeney, the woman who sacrificed so much so that I could fulfill my obsession, and to Jake and Irena for their love.

Paul Williams, April 1998

PROLOGUE

Tango One is down Tango One is down. The message crackled frantically across the Garda radio network. Control, can you repeat that last message? asked a disbelieving voice over the wailing of a squad car siren. The Number One man is down. Get everyone down here All other alarm calls to be put on hold. Priority for Tango One. It was 3:20 on the afternoon of 18 August, 1994, and Irelands most notorious gangster, Martin Cahill, the General, had just been shot dead.

Less than six minutes earlier the forty-five-year-old gangstercode-named Tango One by the Garda he had eluded during two decades of organised and brutal crimehad become the last victim of the Provisional IRA. Soon the IRA would announce their historic cease-fire, but before they set out on the road to peace there had been some unfinished business to be taken care of. And it wasnt an outstanding debt which an enemysome British agent or Loyalist killerhad incurred during the Long War. The business involved an enigmatic Dublin criminal of little consequence to events in the North. The IRA had bestowed upon the General the dubious honour of being its last victim. In death, as in life, Martin Cahill had made his mark on history.

The assassin had waited beside the Stop sign at the junction of Oxford Road and Charleston Road in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh for most of that sun-drenched Thursday afternoon. The people out soaking up the rare spell of sunshine on the steps of the Georgian houses along Charleston Road took no notice of the hitman as he watched for his victim. Dressed as a Corporation worker, he pretended to conduct a traffic census with a clipboard in his hand. His accomplice was on a motorcycle, posing as a courier. He drove up and down Oxford Road for most of the afternoon, stalking Cahill. At regular intervals he turned into Swan Grove, the small cluster of Corporation houses where Cahill lived by night.

At 3:10 P.M. Martin Cahill finally emerged into the sunlight. He had a busy afternoon planned. First he had to leave a videotape back to the storea Robert De Niro movie called Bronx Tale about a New York fathers attempts to keep his kid out of the clutches of the local mobsters. Then he was due to meet his associates to discuss plans for another major crime and a possible shooting to sort out an ongoing problem with a former paramilitary. Tango One, a master of countersurveillance, may have noticed the courier consulting a map at the end of the cul de sac when he climbed into his black Renault 5. He probably assumed it was just another Garda stakeout. There had been a team watching his house earlier that day and it wasnt unusual to see replacements arriving by motorbike. After all the police had been watching Martin Cahill for the past twenty years, waiting for him to step out of line. No doubt he would have felt lonely without his Garda watchers around to play his favourite game of cat and mouse. He probably chuckled to himself at the thought of yet another ambitious cop hoping to make his name by nabbing the big bad General. A lot of grey-haired detectives had once shared the same aspiration. Anyway he would lose them on the way to his conference. Before Cahill turned the ignition key the courier had vanished.

Less than five hundred yards away the hitman braced himself for the kill as his accomplice on the motorbike raced down Oxford Road, turned onto Charleston Road and stopped. That was the signal the hitman had waited for so patientlythe target was on his way. The modest car drove at no more than fifteen miles per hour as it cruised the short distance between Swan Grove and the Stop sign. As the General slowed down to stop at the junction the hitman dropped the clipboard and stepped over to the drivers door of the car. He reached into his jacket and produced a Dirty Harry .357 silver-plated Magnum revolverone of the deadliest and most powerful handguns in the world.

For a split second Cahill stared into his killers eyes. Then the window exploded into a thousand tiny shards as the lethal weapon was fired once at point-blank range. The large bullet ripped through Cahills shoulder and head, smashing bone and tearing tissue. The force of the blast pushed the General to one side. His car chugged across Charleston Road as if he had it in gear but was unable to put his foot on the accelerator. The hitman ran alongside and pumped another three shots into his victim. The car collided with the railings at the gateway to No. 45, beneath a large horse chestnut tree.