McGirl, John Joe

McGirl, John Joe (1921–88), republican, was born 25 March 1921 in Drumany, Aughnasheelin, Co. Leitrim, son of Joseph McGirl, farmer, and Bridget McGirl (née Gallagher). He joined the IRA in 1937, and in 1938 attended as a delegate at its army convention, where plans for a new bombing campaign in England were sanctioned. Also in 1938 he was arrested and imprisoned for twelve months for IRA membership. Rearrested in June 1940 and interned with other IRA prisoners in the Curragh till 1945, he spent some time in the ‘glasshouse’ for his part in a riot. Involved in efforts to reorganise the IRA after the second world war, on 9 March 1946 he was one of twelve prominent republicans, including Cathal Goulding (qv), who were arrested in the Ardee bar in Dublin and imprisoned for nine months for possessing incriminating documents. As a member of the IRA army council in the 1950s, and chief-of-staff for a brief period in 1958, he was involved in planning the border campaign (1956–62). Imprisoned again in 1957, while in prison he topped the poll for Sinn Féin in Sligo–Leitrim in the general election. After his release he refused to take his seat in Dáil Éireann, in line with Sinn Féin's abstentionist policy. He served another prison term in 1961–2 for possessing ammunition. He was defeated in the 1961 general election, receiving just 2,487 first-preference votes, and was also unsuccessful in the general elections of February 1982 and 1987. Siding with the Provisional wing after the republican split in 1969, he was arrested (on the mistaken belief that he was IRA chief-of-staff Seamus Twomey (qv)) in 1974 while attending a republican commemoration in Milltown cemetery, Belfast, and was interned in Long Kesh, where he was badly injured during a riot. In November 1979 his nephew, Francis McGirl, was acquitted of the charge of murdering Earl Mountbatten. Active in the 1981 H-block hunger-strike campaign, at Sinn Féin's 1986 ard-fheis he seconded the successful motion for an end to the party's policy of abstention from Dáil Éireann, believing that it was necessary ‘to make changes if we are not going to hand down this struggle to another generation’ (An Phoblacht, 15 Dec. 1988), and remained in Provisional Sinn Féin after the breakaway of Republican Sinn Féin in protest at the decision. Active in local politics as a member (1960–64, 1974–89) and chairman (1980–81) of Leitrim county council, he was also a member of Leitrim vocational education committee, Leitrim county committee of agriculture, the county development committee, library committee, health advisory committee, and Ballinamore old-age-pensioners committee. He lived at Main St, Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim, where he ran a shop and public house. He died 8 December 1988 at his home, survived by his wife Bridget, two daughters and two sons. In the oration at his funeral he was described by Provisional Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams as ‘an unbroken and unbreakable Fenian’ (An Phoblacht, 15 Dec. 1988).