EIRE: McCaughey's Doom

In Dublin last week tough, handsome Sean McCaughey, 28, who described himself as the Adjutant General of the Irish Republican Army, listened with a faint smile while a military tribunal charged him with kidnapping and assaulting robust Stephen Hayes, onetime I.R.A. officer and County Wexford fooballer. To the hellion I.R.A., the Eire Government is illegal, and so proud Defendant McCaughey refused to plead either innocent or guilty.

Plaintiff Hayes had a brutal tale to tell. In June Defendant McCaughey and three others snatched him from his home, trussed him up with wire, hustled him to an empty County Louth farmhouse. There they accused him of squealing I.R.A. secrets to the Government. When he denied this they blindfolded him, bound him to a chair, bashed his face and head with fists and a revolver barrel. Finally Sean McCaughey threatened that if he did not confess in 15 minutes he would be shot. Thereupon Stephen Hayes invented imaginary incidents, was removed to Dublin.

Shortly he was blindfolded again, taken to the banks of the Liffey and threatened with drowning. In July an I.R.A. court-martial questioned him all one afternoon and night, sentenced him to death. For ten days his legs were chained and padlocked. Early this month three of his captors shoved him into a car, started through the city. Stephen Hayes managed to seize one of their guns with his manacled hands and pitch himself into the street.

Concerning this story Defendant McCaughey had nothing to say. The court-martial ruled that, although Plaintiff Hayes had an I.R.A. past, he was entitled to live in peace and safety. Defendant McCaughey was sentenced to be shot by a firing squad.