Timothy Coughlin

Timothy ("Tim") Coughlan (1906-1928) was a volunteer in the Irish Republican Army, mainly known for his part in assassinating Kevin O'Higgins in 1927 and for the controversy surrounding the circumstances of his death in 1928.

The second-eldest in a family of nine, Coughlan lived with his parents in the family home in Inchicore, Dublin. While only in his teens during the Irish War of Independence, he took up arms against the Black and Tans and later against the Free State forces in the Irish Civil War.

As a known member of the Dublin Brigade of the IRA, he was interned by the "Free Staters" during the Civil War, but if anything became even more active and determined to continue the fighting though his side had lost the war. Together with two fellow-detainees - Archie Doyle and Bill Gannon - he took part in forming a secret "vengeance 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 reorganized following 1924, but Coughlan and his two fellow conspirators persisted and carried through their deadly aim. On July 10, 1927, the three surprised Justice Minister Kevin O'Higgins on his way to Mass at the Booterstown Avenue side of Cross Avenue in Blackrock, County Dublin and shot him down. (By one version, as he lay dying O'Higgins declared his forgiveness of his killers.)

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.

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