Joe McKelvey

Joe McKelvey (17 June 1898 — 8 December 1922) was an Irish Republican Army officer who was executed during the Irish Civil War. He participated in the anti-Treaty IRA's repudiation of the authority of the Dáil (civil government of the Irish Republic declared in 1919) in March 1922 and was elected to the IRA Army Executive. In April 1922 he helped command the occupation of the Four Courts in defiance of the new Irish Free State. This action helped to spark the civil war, between pro- and anti-Treaty factions. McKelvey was among the most hardline of the anti-Treaty republicans and briefly, in June 1922, became IRA Chief of Staff.

McKelvey was born in Stewartstown, County Tyrone, the only son of Patrick McKelvey, a Royal Irish Constabulary constable, and Rose O’Neill, a post office employee. His father would later be promoted to RIC sergeant. During World War I, he enlisted in the special reserve of the British Army and, in 1917, was posted to the Northumberland Fusiliers. He died in 1919 in Belfast, due to a perforation of his stomach, at the age of 57.

Joe McKelvey had a keen interest in the Gaelic Athletic Association and the Irish language. He studied as an accountant and gained some of the qualifications necessary for this profession, but never fully qualified. He worked for a time at the Income Tax Office on Queen's Square in Belfast and later found work in Belfast's engineering industry with Mackies on the Springfield road. He joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Irish Volunteers, which after 1919, became known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He is a founder member of the O'Donovan Rossa Club, Belfast – founded in 1916 on the Falls Road. Each year the club honour him with a juvenile hurling blitz, an invitational competition which is participated in by clubs throughout Ireland.

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