Career
He participated in the Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War in the Irish Republican Army, where he was a senior figure in County Kerry. He also gained fame as a successful Gaelic Football player for Kerry. Sheehy commanded the Boherbee company of the Ireland Republican Army, and later of the Tralee battalion.
He sided against the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1922, like most of the Ireland Republican Army in Kerry.
In the Civil War, when Free State troops landed in Kerry as part of a seaborne offensive, he was in command of the Anti-Treaty garrison in Tralee. After the Army took the town, Sheehy retreated, burning the barracks there.
As the conflict became a guerrilla affair, he found himself in charge of three "columns", or around 75 men in total, in the Ballymacthomas area. He and Tom McEllistrim were in charge of an attack on Castlemaine in January 1923.
Just after the Civil War, when Sheehy was still on the run, he managed to play football for Kerry.
And so Sheehy would pay into Munster and All Ireland finals, slip off his street clothes, play, and then at the final whistle, disappear back into the crowd. He also played hurling with Tralee Parnells. Sheehy captained Kerry to the All-Ireland title in 1930.
Sheehy remained a staunch supporter of Sinn Féin and was a critical of the moves to end abstension by the party in the late 1960s.
He sided with the Provisionals in the 1970 split at the Ard Fheis and remained active in Provisional Sinn Féin until his death, supporting the Ireland Republican Army"s guerrilla campaign.