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Bill Gannon (died 1965) was a well-known militant of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and later a leading member of the Communist Party of Ireland. == IRA career and the O'Higgins Assassination == Gannon had fought in the Irish War of Independence. In the Irish Civil War he took the anti-treaty side and was among the force which seized the Four Courts in Dublin. After the defeat of his side he spent a considerable time under internment, together with numerous others. He was completely unreconciled to the victory of the "Free Staters", and together with two fellow-detainees – Archie Doyle and Timothy Coughlin – took part in forming a secret "venegeance grouping". The three vowed that once free of imprisonment they would take revenge on their opponents, whom they considered traitors to the Irish cause. Most such private revenge pacts were broken up by the IRA leadership when it reorganised following 1924, but Gannon and his two fellow conspirators persisted and carried through their deadly aim. The act which first made Gannon (and the two others) well-known was the assassination of Justice Minister Kevin O'Higgins. On 10 July 1927, the three surprised O'Higgins on the Booterstown Avenue side of Cross Avenue in Blackrock, County Dublin and shot him down. O'Higgins was especially hated by IRA members for having ordered the executions of seventy-seven of their fellows during the Civil War, an act for which he outspokenly took responsibility and refused to express any remorse. Moreover, he was a dominant member of the Free State government and the conspirators had good reasons to believe that his death would weaken it. None of the three was ever apprehended or charged with the assassination, though Coughlin was killed by a police informer in 1928 under circumstances which remain controversial up to the present. Gannon and Doyle benefited from the amnesty for IRA members issued by Éamon de Valera on his accession to power in 1932, and after that date they could openly admit their part in assassinating O'Higgins without fear of being prosecuted. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bill Gannon (Irish republican)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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