| Finbar Cafferkey | |
| Birth Place: | Achill Island, County Mayo, Ireland |
| Death Place: | Near Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine |
| Branch: | |
| Rank: | Volunteer |
| Battles: | |
Finbar Cafferkey ([1] – 19 April 2023[1]) was an Irish political activist and soldier. In the late 2000s and early 2010s Cafferkey was active in the Shell to Sea campaign, which campaigned against the construction of an oil pipeline in north-west County Mayo.
In 2017 Cafferkey was in Syria providing medical aid before he joined the People's Defense Units, an arm of the Syrian Democratic Forces aligned with Rojava, and fought against the Islamic State. In 2023 it emerged that Cafferkey had been in Ukraine, fighting alongside the Ukrainian International Legion against the Russian invasion. Cafferkey was killed 19 April 2023 near the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk Oblast.[2]
Cafferkey was a native of Achill Island in County Mayo, Ireland. Politically, Caffereky was an Irish Republican and socialist[3] [4] who was a part of the Shell to Sea campaign which occurred in the late 2000s and early 2010s. It campaigned against the building of an oil pipeline in north-west County Mayo.
After leaving College, Cafferkey was at one time a member of the Irish Army Reserve.[5] [6] [4]
In 2015 Cafferkey travelled to the Greek island of Kos, where he assisted refugees amidst the 2015 European migrant crisis. A journalist from the Irish Independent happened to be also there reporting and verified Cafferkey's presence, and reported that Cafferkey, alongside another Irishman, later went to the border of Greece and North Macedonia to continue his work.[7]
Cafferkey arrived in Syria in the late spring of 2017. According to his own account, Cafferkey was embedded in a heavy weapons platoon five weeks after he arrived, and part of the fighting around the city of Raqqa, then the de facto capital of the Islamic State, as part of the overall Raqqa campaign (2016–2017).[8] In June 2017, a video on YouTube emerged in which Cafferkey, referring to himself by a Kurdish nom-de-guerre "Çîya Demhat", is interviewed.[9] As part of the video, Cafferkey discussed his motives for fighting:
Precisely when Cafferkey went to Ukraine is publicly unknown, as he never publicised the fact nor told anyone outside his family. The Irish Times has stated that Cafferkey had been in Ukraine for roughly a year before his death, and that he had been working mainly with anarchist-aligned aid groups.[10] Solidarity Collectives, a Ukrainian left-wing anti-authoritarian network, reported that he was delivering humanitarian aid and cars for frontline zones from Poland to Ukraine.[11]
Cafferkey's presence in Ukraine only became public knowledge following his death, when it was confirmed he had been killed fighting near Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast.[12] [13] Some reports have indicated that Cafferkey died fighting alongside Russian anarchist Dmitry Petrov (a founder of the Combat Organization of Anarcho-Communists) and US citizen Andrew "Harris" Cooper (a former US Marine and left-wing organiser), in a battle for a vital supply road near Bakhmut.[14] [15] [16]
Following his death, many tributes were made across the political spectrum to Cafferkey. Amongst those tributes were some from Tánaiste and Minister for both Foreign Affairs and Defence Micheál Martin, who stated "My deepest sympathies to the Cafferky family on the sad passing of Finbar. He obviously was a young man of clear principles. Our thoughts and our prayers are with the family today".[17]
Following Martin's tribute to Cafferkey, the Embassy of Russia, Dublin issued the following statement:
There was widespread disgust at the Russian statement, with the chairman of the Dáil Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence Charles Flanagan immediately describing it as "threatening, intimidating and chilling" before suggesting Russian diplomats in Ireland should be expelled for such remarks. Sinn Féin TD Louise O'Reilly called the Russian statement "vile" while Independent TD Thomas Pringle described the statement was "an absolute disgrace".[18] Members of People before Profit Bríd Smith and Paul Murphy, who had both met Cafferkey via the Shell to Sea campaign, also expressed revulsion at the Russian statement but called for Irish politicians not to be baited by Russian rhetoric.[18] [19]
In response to the Russian statement, Finbar's brother Colm issued a statement: