Michael Joseph "Red Mike" Quill (September 18, 1905 – January 28, 1966) was one of the founders of the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU), a union founded by subway workers in New York City that expanded to represent employees in other forms of transit. He served as the President of the TWU for most of the first thirty years of its existence. A close ally of the Communist Party USA (CP) for the first twelve years of his leadership of the union, he broke with it in 1948. Quill had varying relations with the mayors of New York City. He was a personal friend of Robert F. Wagner Jr. but could find no common ground with Wagner's successor, John Lindsay, or as Quill called him "Linsley", and led a twelve-day transit strike in 1966 against him that landed him in jail. However, he won significant wage increases for his members. He died of a heart attack three days after the end of the strike. Quill's leadership is not only noted for his success in improving workers' rights but also for his commitment to racial equality, before the Civil Rights Era. Early years in Ireland and immigration to America Quill was born in Gortloughera, near Kilgarvan, County Kerry, Ireland. He was a dispatch rider for the Irish Republican Army from 1919 to 1921 while still a teenager; then a volunteer of the Anti-Treaty IRA in the Irish Civil War that followed. One canard has him robbing a bank to raise funds for the IRA. He participated in fighting between Pro and Anti Treaty IRA units over the town of Kenmare in Kerry. Quill's IRA record of service was confirmed by his commanding officer John Joe Rice, Kerry 2nd Brigade years later to Quill's widow Shirley. Following the wars, Quill worked as a carpenter's apprentice, then a woodcutter. Having fought for the losing side in the Civil War, Quill's prospects in Ireland were low and so he was brought to the United States in 1926 by his uncle Patrick Quill, a conductor in the subway who got him his first job there. Mike's brothers, Patrick and John, had already moved to the city before him. In New York City Quill first lived with family in Harlem. Working for the IRT and trade unionism Quill worked various oddjobs to make end's meet, including at one point bootlegging alcohol, as prohibition was still