GARDA Commissioner Drew Harris approached Limerick Garda Sergeant John McCabe this week and shook his hand as he criticised the placing of a tricolour on the coffin of IRA killer Pearse McAuley, who with others, shot Sgt McCabe’s father in cold blood.
Commissioner Harris and Sgt McCabe share a common bond, both have suffered the trauma of a father being murdered by the IRA.
Commissioner Harris offered his hand to Sgt McCabe at this week’s conference of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI), in solidarity with the McCabe family, and he condemned the placing of the tricolour along with IRA garb, including a black beret and gloves, on McAuley’s coffin, at his funeral last week.
McAuley was part of an IRA gang that shot dead Sgt McCabe’s father Detective Garda Jerry McCabe in Adare on June 7, 1996.
McAuley, who in 1991 shot his way out of Brixton Prison in an audacious escape, along with Nessan Quinlivan, a brother of Limerick Sinn Fein TD Maurice Quinlivan, served ten and half years of a 14 year sentence after he pleaded guilty to Detective McCabe’s manslaughter while on trial for his murder.
Deputy Quinlivan previously condemned Detective Garda McCabe’s killing.
When previously asked about his brother’s prison escape alongside McAuley, the Limerick TD said he would have “done the same if I was there”.
The Limerick Post reached out to Deputy Quinlivan for his opinion on the tricolour being placed on McAuley’s coffin, but he could not be reached for comment at the time of this article going to print.
The placing of the tricolour on McAuley’s coffin was sharply criticised by Garda management and politicians across the political party divide, including by Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty, whose party supported Detective McCabe’s killers after their manslaughter convictions.
Deputy Doherty said McAuley was “in the eyes of Republicans…not a Republican” and that the convicted IRA killer and wife abuser had had nothing to do with Sinn Fein for “many many years”.
“In relation to the placement of a tricolour, if it was our decision, one would not be on the coffin,” added Deputy Doherty.
Commissioner Harris said the placing of the tricolour on McAuley’s coffin was “outrageous” and that the national flag had been “abused and disrespected”.
Mr Harris’s father, RUC Superintendent Alwyn Harris, was murdered in October 1989, in an IRA bombing at the height of the Troubles in the North, when a Semtex car bomb exploded under the Harris family’s Vauxhall Carlton while Alwyn Harris, and his wife who survived the blast, were driving to a Sunday church service.
A spokesperson for Jerry McCabe’s widow, Ann McCabe, told the Limerick Post she had “no comment” regarding McAuley’s death or the placing of the tricolour on his coffin.
