Obituary: Cormac Mac Airt, Belfast Irish Republican.

Cormac Mac Airt

Below is a personal memoir by Jim Gibney of Belfast Irish Republican Cormac Mac Airt, who died recently aged 56. Mac Airt is survived by his partner Cathy, sons Cormac, Séamus, Dermot and Micheál and daughter Joanne.

Cormac Mac Airt joined the Republican Movement at the beginning of the 'troubles', he was interned in Long Kesh in the early 1970s.  On release he reported back to Óglaigh na hÉireann (IRA) and was active until he was again arrested by the forces of occupation in 1976. In all he spent 13 years in the Kesh/Maze and Crumlin Road prison. 

He was said to be an inspiration to his fellow POWs in jail and was on the ‘No wash’ and ‘Blanket’ protests. He also played a central role in the 1983 mass breakout from the Maze prison, when 38 PIRA volunteers escaped from the H-blocks. At the request of the organizing group he agreed to work as an orderly so as to be enabled to convey messages between the various prison wings. A member of this group Bobby Storey said at Mac Airt's funeral “He was feared by the screws – they wouldn’t mess with Cormac, his ‘devilish’ sense of humor was especially welcome as it helped him lull the screws suspicions during the planning stages of the breakout." 

Cormac loved music and would often be heard singing in the Blocks during the Blanket protest. He had a close circle of friends in the Blocks amongst them the late Joe McDonnell. He was very much a family man and deeply loved his partner Cathy and their children.

MH

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Cormac Mac Airt by Jim Gibney.

Cormac Mac AIrt was the first Teddy Boy I met or at least at the time I thought he was a Teddy Boy. I was 12 and he was 14 or 15. It was 1965 or 1966. Cormac’s attire on the first formal occasion I met him was something else. He was dressed from head to toe in black. He had a black knee length overcoat, black long trousers, black boots and to round it off he sported a black pork-pie hat. He was leaning against May Young’s shop a few yards away from his family home in Beechfield Street. He had a fag burning in the corner of his mouth and with the other free side of his mouth he spoke to me, ‘Alright kid’, he said like he was an elderly teenager to my eleven years. I muttered something whilst admiring his style.

There were others there with him, bigger boys than me. He was regaling them with one story after another but the fag never left his mouth nor did it seem to burn out. There was plenty of laughter and larking about and Cormac was the centre of it. I stood with my pal Jimmy Lundy at the corner of Madrid and Bryson Street and Cormac stood at his corner where I met him dressed in black as dusk settled; the corners were less than one hundred yards apart. I stood there nightly with my pal whiling away the time in quiet reflection occasionally looking up to see if Cormac was at his corner which he sometimes was. You knew when he was there by the sound of laughter.

As happens with teenagers our lives went in separate directions until I met Cormac again when I was 16 and he was a few years older. His dress sense was still as good as his sense of humour but we had moved on from the street corners to other locations. The talk wasn’t about designer labels but about the IRA and about people’s homes needing defended. 

It was 1970 and the Short Strand was a community under siege from loyalists and the B Specials. The district’s teenagers all too quickly shed their teenage ambitions and were part of a world where guns and bombs, petrol and gelignite, were the topics for conversation.

Cormac was part of those early years when the IRA was finding its way out of obscurity into the public arena. At meetings he said very little but he was one of those IRA volunteers who delivered. He was resourceful. He was also confident and solid: qualities not usually associated with someone as young as he was then. 

The turnout at Cormac’s funeral said it all. It was not only impressive in its size but in who was there; IRA volunteers spanning 40 years paid their respects; ex-prisoners – especially former blanketmen – swelled the cortège.

Bobby Storey’s excellent oration captured the essence of Cormac Mac Airt. He loved life. He deeply loved Cathy his partner and his extended family. He was funny and serious when the times required it. The IRA needed Cormac when he was a teenager on the streets of the Short Strand and he was with them. He was needed in difficult situations inside the prisons, particularly on the blanket protest, and in preparing for the Great Escape, and he was there.

Cormac was a loyal Volunteer from beginning to end. 

First published in An Phoblacht. (08.11.08.)