Éamonn O'Doherty (republican)

Éamonn O'Doherty ( b. 1939 in Carrick-on -Suir, Ireland, † October 28, 1999 in Carrick-on -Suir ) was in the 1970s, a leading member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA ). Within the IRA, he rose to the IRA Chief of Staff (Chief of Staff ), the commander of the underground organization on.

O'Doherty joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA ) in 1958 in his home town of Carrick-on -Suir in and participated in the so-called Border Campaign ( 1956-1962 ) of the IRA against Northern Ireland.

As the violence escalated in 1969 in Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland conflict began, the IRA itself split in the political or socialist-oriented Official Irish Republican Army and the first almost purely militaristic Provisional Irish Republican Army. O'Doherty joined after the Provisional IRA in 1970 and went to Northern Ireland to fight in the South Fermanagh Battalion of the IRA against the local British security forces. Later he became commander of the units that operated on the inner Irish border region of Fermanagh, Monaghan and Armagh.

In 1973 he was transferred to the General Headquarters ( GHQ), the General Staff of the IRA, and appointed to the Army Council, the highest governing body of the IRA. After the arrest of the former chief of staff of the underground organization Seamus Twomey by the Irish Police Garda Síochána in September of the same year O'Doherty was determined by the Army Council to the new IRA Chief of Staff. A post he held until his own arrest by the Garda in October 1974.

After his release from prison in Portlaoise, he was readmitted to the GHQ. This sent him with an interim order in the USA, where he was also arrested and sentenced to one year in prison. He then attempted more traveling to various other countries on behalf of the IRA.

When the IRA and Sinn Féin in 1986 under the leadership of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to abstentionism opposite the Dáil Éireann, so take the waiver possible gained seats in the Irish Parliament, duties, some old traditionalist cadres, especially from the Republic of split Ireland came from the Sinn Féin and the IRA from, and formed a new party called Republican Sinn Féin. Among them was Éamonn O'Doherty. A year earlier he had written and published the book The IRA at War.

O'Doherty died on 28 October 1999 in his home town of Carrick -on-Suir.