This article is from page 70 of the 2006-11-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 70 JPG
A BOOK to be released next week about slain Garda detective, Jerry McCabe, harks back to the East Clare post office raids and the shooting dead of Clarecastle IRA man, Hugh Hehir.
But as two of the McCabe killers begin High Court proceedings for early release, the author of the new book, Dermot Walsh, insists it is “a book about Jerry McCabe and not about his killers.”
The Clare connection concerns Kevin Walsh, one of the four man gang who were convicted of killing the detective garda in a botched postoffice raid in Adare in June 1966.
Journalist Walsh – who wrote the book in co-operation with McCabe’s widow, Ann – traces the possible seeds of the brutal killing back to an event in May of 1988.
That was when Kevin Walsh, the man widely believed to have been the one who opened fire with an automatic weapon on the Garda car in Adare, set out to rob the post office in Caher along with Hugh Hehir.
They hadn’t bargained on the pluck of the post mistress, Mary Kelly, who wrestled a gun from Walsh’s hands.
The raiders turned tail and ran while the postmistress alerted gardaí that they could be on their way to Feakle.
The two were indeed bound for Feakle, where they planned to raid the post office.
They were met en route by a Garda car and Hehir was shot in the head in an exchange of fire between the raiders and the gardaí.
Researching the book, Walsh spoke to many people who believed that the surviving IRA man was shamed at allowing an elderly woman to get his gun and make him run.
They also believe that Kevin Walsh felt responsible for Hehir’s death and that this was the event which spurred him on to being at the forefront of IRA activity.
“To The Honour Of Jerry McCabe” will be published next Monday and its author said he “could never have written this book without the McCabe family.”
Last week, two of the men convicted of the killing, Jeremiah Sheehy and Pearse McAuley began an application to the High Court for early release.
But Walsh stated that the timing of the publication is “a co-incidence, This book is not about them.,”said the author.