FÓGRAÍ BHÁIS

THE SAD PASSING occurred on Sunday 2 September of Bundoran, County Donegal, republican Andy Carty. A former POW, Andy was from a family with a long and proud tradition of republican activism. Several of Andy’s uncles saw active service during both the Tan War and the Civil War, a number of them playing prominent roles in the Battle of Pettigo in 1922. Indeed, Seán ‘Shaw’ Carty, an active republican up until the time of his death in his 85th year, was jailed during the 1920s where he went on hunger strike and again from 1939 to 1945.

Picking up this mantle, Andy saw active service within the ranks of the Republican Movement along the Donegal/Fermanagh border during the early 1970s, in a period when the IRA was engaged in daily gun battles with the British Army along the Border. In later years, in his work as a foreman in a local construction firm, Andy went out of his way to employ large numbers of republicans, at a time when the Garda Special Branch attempted to intimidate employers out of hiring republicans. 

The esteem in which Andy was held was evident by the large crowd at his funeral, which was attended by republicans from all over the north-west and beyond.

Our sincerest sympathies and condolences go to Andy’s wife and six children, daughters Susan, Bronagh and Áine, and sons Patrick, Andrew and Anton, and the wider Carty family.