Meehan, senior IRA veteran

DUBLIN – Martin Meehan, a one-time Irish Republican Army commander who spurred IRA members toward compromise and peace, died Saturday of an apparent heart attack in his Belfast home, the Sinn Fein party said.

He was 62. Meehan spent 18 years in prison for a wide range of offences – and, in typically candid interviews, would talk animatedly about his early 1970s heyday organising sniper attacks and other ambushes on British forces in Belfast.”In those days we actually believed we were just one big heave away from beating the Brits militarily,” he told The Associated Press in a January 2007 interview, when IRA veterans like himself voted overwhelmingly at a Sinn Fein conference to begin supporting Northern Ireland’s police force.”We were as determined as we were foolish on that score,” he said.”With hindsight you can see all we ever stood to achieve was an honourable draw.”He became a prominent activist for the IRA-linked Sinn Fein after winning parole from prison in 1994, the year the IRA called its first lengthy cease-fire.Meehan’s support for laying down arms helped persuade younger IRA members to do likewise.Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams – who, like Meehan, joined the IRA in 1966 and was interned in prison with him in the 1970s – praised Meehan as “a dedicated IRA volunteer, political activist and elected representative.”Meehan was among the first IRA members arrested in August 1969, the month Britain deployed its army as would-be peacekeepers amidst Protestant-Catholic rioting.When the IRA split at the end of that year, he joined the breakaway Provisional IRA, which became the dominant faction.As IRA commander in Ardoyne, a tough Catholic enclave in north Belfast, he directed deadly sniper attacks against British foot patrols.A news photograph from the day captures him aiming an Armalite assault rifle while wearing military fatigues and a black beret.He escaped from a Belfast prison in December 1971 – smearing his skin with butter to insulate himself from the cold and hiding in a sewer tunnel for hours – and fled across the border to the Republic of Ireland.But Irish police arrested him a month later following a four-hour gun battle between IRA members and British soldiers along the border.”We pasted ’em,” Meehan boasted afterward.He was interned without trial from August 1972 to December 1975, when Britain ended its practice of treating IRA inmates as prisoners of war and began processing their cases through criminal courts instead.Meehan was convicted in 1980 of leading the torture of a 17-year-old Belfast boy suspected of being an informer.Meehan, insisting he was not involved, pursued a 66-day hunger strike that ended only with intervention from Catholic Church leaders.Soon after his 1985 parole, he was put behind bars again for kidnapping, torturing and preparing to execute a British soldier, who was saved by a British army raid on an IRA hideaway.Following his parole, Meehan became a prominent speaker at Sinn Fein events, valued because of his tough reputation and his steadfast backing for Adams.He also fronted a satirical drama group that did political skits and other humour-tinged protests during periods in the peace process when Britain barred Sinn Fein from negotiations.He became chairman of Saoirse, a pressure group that lobbied for early paroles for IRA convicts, which happened as part of Northern Ireland’s Good Friday peace accord of 1998.And when the central goal of the Good Friday deal – a Catholic-Protestant administration that would govern Northern Ireland in compromise – kept repeatedly breaking down because of the IRA’s refusal to disarm, Meehan proved surprisingly pragmatic on the point, suggesting that the IRA would need to renounce violence fully and disarm.”The war, in my opinion, has been over for a long time,” Meehan told the AP in 2002, shortly after power-sharing collapsed.He said some Catholics clung to the IRA as “a last line of defence – but it’s more psychological than reality.”Meehan was a Sinn Fein candidate in several elections, narrowly failing to win a seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2003.To the end, Meehan defended his support for the peace process in no uncertain terms.Earlier this year, when an IRA dissident confronted him in a Belfast garage and accused him of being a sell-out, Meehan decked the guy.Nampa-APMeehan spent 18 years in prison for a wide range of offences – and, in typically candid interviews, would talk animatedly about his early 1970s heyday organising sniper attacks and other ambushes on British forces in Belfast.”In those days we actually believed we were just one big heave away from beating the Brits militarily,” he told The Associated Press in a January 2007 interview, when IRA veterans like himself voted overwhelmingly at a Sinn Fein conference to begin supporting Northern Ireland’s police force.”We were as determined as we were foolish on that score,” he said.”With hindsight you can see all we ever stood to achieve was an honourable draw.”He became a prominent activist for the IRA-linked Sinn Fein after winning parole from prison in 1994, the year the IRA called its first lengthy cease-fire.Meehan’s support for laying down arms helped persuade younger IRA members to do likewise.Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams – who, like Meehan, joined the IRA in 1966 and was interned in prison with him in the 1970s – praised Meehan as “a dedicated IRA volunteer, political activist and elected representative.”Meehan was among the first IRA members arrested in August 1969, the month Britain deployed its army as would-be peacekeepers amidst Protestant-Catholic rioting.When the IRA split at the end of that year, he joined the breakaway Provisional IRA, which became the dominant faction.As IRA commander in Ardoyne, a tough Catholic enclave in north Belfast, he directed deadly sniper attacks against British foot patrols.A news photograph from the day captures him aiming an Armalite assault rifle while wearing military fatigues and a black beret.He escaped from a Belfast prison in December 1971 – smearing his skin with butter to insulate himself from the cold and hiding in a sewer tunnel for hours – and fled across the border to the Republic of Ireland.But Irish police arrested him a month later following a four-hour gun battle between IRA members and British soldiers along the border.”We pasted ’em,” Meehan boasted afterward.He was interned without trial from August 1972 to December 1975, when Britain ended its practice of treating IRA inmates as prisoners of war and began processing their cases through criminal courts instead.Meehan was convicted in 1980 of leading the torture of a 17-year-old Belfast boy suspected of being an informer.Meehan, insisting he was not involved, pursued a 66-day hunger strike that ended only with intervention from Catholic Church leaders.Soon after his 1985 parole, he was put behind bars again for kidnapping, torturing and preparing to execute a British soldier, who was saved by a British army raid on an IRA hideaway.Following his parole, Meehan became a prominent speaker at Sinn Fein events, valued because of his tough reputation and his steadfast backing for Adams.He also fronted a satirical drama group that did political skits and other humour-tinged protests during periods in the peace process when Britain barred Sinn Fein from negotiations.He became chairman of Saoirse, a pressure group that lobbied for early paroles for IRA convicts, which happened as part of Northern Ireland’s Good Friday peace accord of 1998.And when the central goal of the Good Friday deal – a Catholic-Protestant administration that would govern Northern Ireland in compromise – kept repeatedly breaking down because of the IRA’s refusal to disarm, Meehan proved surprisingly pragmatic on the point, suggesting that the IRA would need to renounce violence fully and disarm.”The war, in my opinion, has been over for a long time,” Meehan told the AP in 2002, shortly after power-sharing collapsed.He said some Catholics clung to the IRA as “a last line of defence – but it’s more psychological than reality.”Meehan was a Sinn Fein candidate in several e
lections, narrowly failing to win a seat in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2003.To the end, Meehan defended his support for the peace process in no uncertain terms.Earlier this year, when an IRA dissident confronted him in a Belfast garage and accused him of being a sell-out, Meehan decked the guy.Nampa-AP