A MEMBER of the IRA gang who shot dead Limerick Garda Detective Jerry McCabe in Adare 28 years ago was found dead after suffering a suspected heart attack.
Garda killer Pearse McAuley (59) was found dead at his home in his native Strabane, County Tyrone.
A source close to Detective McCabe’s widow, Ann McCabe, said that she did not want to make any comment about Mr McAuley’s death.
Mr McAuley returned to Strabane after being released from prison in 2022, having served seven years for stabbing his then estranged wife, Sinn Féin TD Pauline Tully, 13 times in front of their children.
He had previously served 10 and half years of a 14-year sentence after admitting being a member of an IRA gang that killed Detective Jerry McCabe on June 7, 1996.
The Kerry-born Garda was gunned down by the gang who opened fire using a AK47 machine gun on his patrol car as it escorted a post office van delivering cash into the village.
Detective Garda McCabe’s long-term partner in the force, Detective Garda Ben O’Sullivan, was hit 11 times in the burst of gunfire but miraculously survived. Mr O’Sullivan, a native of Cork, passed away aged 78 at Milford Hospice in 2022 following a short illness.
At the time of the Adare killing, Mr McAuley was in breach of bail terms after he was arrested on foot of an extradition warrant by British authorities after he went on the run in 1991 after shooting his way out of Brixton Prison, England, along with his cellmate and former IRA member Nessan Quinlivan, a brother of Limerick Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan.
Nessan Quinlivan and McAuley had been held at Brixton Prison accused of conspiring to murder British brewery executive Sir Charles Tidbury.
The pair were being escorted to their cell when Mr McAuley produced a gun from his shoe and pointed it at the prison guards.
Mr McAuley fired shots at the prison guards, after which he and Nessan Quinlivan managed to clear a massive perimeter wall at the prison.
As the pair fled, their gun was fired again and a prison officer was shot in the leg. Mr McAuley and Nessan Quinlivan stole the prison officer’s car and fled the prison.
Mr McAuley and Nessan Quinlivan were jailed in 1993 on firearms charges and released shortly before Mr McAuley went on to become part of the IRA gang that killed Detective McCabe.
In an interview with this reporter in 2020, Sinn Féin TD Maurice Quinlivan said he would have “done the same” as his sibling on the day of the prison escape.
“When he escaped from prison in England, the Birmingham Six were in the prison. I would have done the same if I was there,” the Limerick TD said.
“There was lots said about my brother, but he was convicted of nothing really. He has a small conviction for having a weapon for which he used to escape from prison in England.”
In 1999, Pearse McAuley was one of four men jailed for Detective Garda McCabe’s killing after the gang that shot him pleaded guilty to his manslaughter while they were on trial for his murder and attempted murder of Detective Garda Ben O’Sullivan.
IRA members Kevin Walsh and Micheal O’Neill, who both had addresses at Lisheen Park, Patrickswell, and Jeremiah Sheehy of Abbey Park, Rathkeale, also served prison sentences for Detective McCabe’s killing.
A fifth man, John Quinn, of Faha, Patrickswell, was imprisoned after he admitted a charge of conspiracy to commit robbery of the post office van on the day.
Two other men, who Gardaí suspect were part of the gang that killed Detective Garda McCabe and seriously injured Ben O’Sullivan, remain at large and are still wanted for questioning.
Speaking to this reporter in 2021, Ann McCabe said that “evil men” took her husband’s life, adding that she hoped one day to be able to “eyeball” the two last suspected members of the gang that killed her husband in a court.
“Hopefully I will be around if they are brought back, it is my wish that they be brought back and I will be there to eyeball them, one hundred per cent,” she said.
