FRANCIS RAFFERTY

IRA Volunteer who took the war to England

g BY PAT MAGEE

MY dear friend and comrade Francis (Frankie Fuzz) Rafferty died from prostate cancer on Wednesday, November 24th, aged 58.
I first met Frankie in 1976. He wasn’t long released from internment. I hadn’t known him in Long Kesh but knew of his reputation as a good Explosives Officer. The IRA had recently ended its ceasefire and we were back to war. Frankie threw all his energy and considerable skills into the new campaign in Belfast.
By the end of the 1970s he was on the run, based in Cork, then later in Ballymun, Dublin, both from where he continued to do whatever he could to further the armed struggle.
The culmination was his arrest, with five others, on active service in England in July 1996. He was subsequently convicted, after a trial lasting 56 days, of conspiracy to cause explosions at national grid electricity sub-stations, for which he was sentenced to 35 years. He was eventually released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.
We’ve met on occasions since. The last time was in August, when he told me about the cancer. Frankie always had a calm and calming disposition. He was grounded and bravely facing whatever future that fate had left him, expressing  concern only that he would have enough time left for his family’s needs.
He never in all the years wavered in his belief that what we did at war had to be done. He remained an Irish republican of conviction, committed to the political path.
Frankie died in Tallaght, Dublin, and was buried at Bohernabreena Cemetery on Saturday, November 27th.
My condolences to his wife Caroline, their children, and to his wider family circles.