Michael Collins and the Women Who Spied For Ireland

by Meda Ryan

  British spies and intelligence officers in mufti mingled with other shoppers and business people on Dublin’s Grafton Street and Dame Street. Lily Mernin would saunter up and down these streets on the arm of Frank Saurin or Tom Cullen (two of Mick’s principal intelligence officers), ostensibly window-shopping. Her task was to identify these Castle intelligence agents for the Squad. Lily took great risks but remained undetected throughout the period of hostilities.

  Mick was regularly in touch with several women including Brigid Lyons (later Lyons-Thornton), a medical student who worked as an undercover agent. Mingled with her college notes she often held messages, sometimes in code, for Mick. As a Cumann na mBan member, Brigid had been arrested for her participation in the 1916 Rising. The early months of 1917 found her with Collins and others electioneering for her uncle Joe McGuinness, as Sinn Féin candidate for South Longford. Especially from 1919 onwards, Brigid was a dispatch carrier for Collins, often acting as a conduit between him and people in the Longford and the Galway area. (She had begun her medical studies UCG, and later qualified in UCD). The intelligence work done by women such as Brigid and women working in post offices, in railway stations, in boarding houses and the many who were in a position to observe the activities of British agents meant that Collins could coordinate all the information. At meetings with the Squad, movements were worked out and tactics were put in place to deal with the regular harassment and terrorisation of citizens. Piaras Béaslaí recalls that for Mick ‘office work was almost as important as outside work’.6He certainly had an aptitude for the detailed and methodical handling of information.

  Notes

  1 Dave Neligan to author, 10/1/1974.

  2 Michael Collins (Nancy O’Brien’s son) to author, 5/3/1986.

  3 Nancy O’Brien-Collins, ‘Recollections’ in Irish Independent Supplement, 20/8/1966.

  4 Piaras Béaslaí, Irish Independent, 20/8/1966.

  5 Florrie O’Donoghue, Irish Independent, 20/8/1966; I am indebted in John Borgonovo for details regarding reuniting Josephine Marchmount and her son Reggie. Other quotes are from interviews with Criostóir de Baróid 12/1/1981 and Margaret Helen 18/7/1984.

  6 Piaras Béaslaí, Irish Independent, 20/8/1966.

  Women Linchpin in Espionage

  In mid-1919, Mick was appointed president of the Supreme Council of the IRB. At this period tensions with Cathal Brugha came to the fore. ‘I’m fed up,’ he wrote to Austin Stack, who was in jail. ‘Things are not going very smoothly ... All sorts of miserable little undercurrents are working and the effect is anything but good.’ He was determined that no secret organisation should undermine the Dáil; he saw the activities of the IRB and of the Volunteers as aiding the political process to achieve its aims.

  The departure of de Valera for America meant that more responsibility for the Volunteer movement and Sinn Féin was thrown upon Mick and his comrades. In June 1919, though himself opposed to the move, he had helped Dev to fulfil his ambition to go on a fundraising and awareness mission, by arranging for his travel incognito to America, via Liverpool.

  As minister of finance, Mick had prepared a prospectus for the fundraising which would be required in the struggle for independence and the construction of a new independent state. The Dáil had agreed to float a national loan along the lines of a scheme organised by the Fenians but de Valera and Collins had disagreed on some of the details.

  In de Valera’s absence, Arthur Griffith was acting president, and Mick as minister of finance was in constant consultation with him. According to Piaras Béaslaí: ‘It was about this time, while Collins and Griffith were being drawn together, that Cathal Brugha began to be estranged from Collins’. Brugha now advocated ‘extreme and drastic action against the English government,’ and wanted cabinet members assassinated. Mick opposed this scheme; he could not in this case see the ends justifying the means. He argued that British cabinet ministers, unlike secret service men, could be replaced, that ‘intelligence data carried in the head had greater significance!’

  Mick was director of intelligence of the Volunteers and continued to act as adjutant-general and director of organisation, as well as being minister of finance. He filled all these demanding roles from three offices: Cullenswood House in Ranelagh, Bachelor’s Walk and a finance department office at 6 Harcourt Street.

  Much of his time was absorbed by the national loan; the work for this was done at Number 6 Harcourt Street. His energy and vitality inspired those around him. He frowned at any laxity during working hours, and did not permit swearing in front of ladies. Once he held Desmond Fitzgerald’s head under the tap for refusing to admit Nancy O’Brien to the office. Decorum was important; ladies should get lunch at a proper time and always be respected. For himself there was never enough time and he would hastily devour sandwiches fetched by Joe O’Reilly.

  At this time Robert Barton wrote to a mutual friend, Moya Llewelyn Davies, that ‘Mick is very well & very hearty, a tower of strength & by no means the wild extremist he is supposed to be. The only extreme things about him are daring and determination.’1Mick had known Moya when he lived in London and through Batt O’Connor, a relative of hers, she had already sent some vital information to Mick about how Lloyd George was determined to quell what he called the ‘terrorists’ in Ireland.2

  In mid-1919 Mick’s great friend and comrade Harry Boland also departed for America to help de Valera to raise funds and create awareness. The two had grown close when other Sinn Féin leaders were in jail: they were around the same age and wrestled and played hurley together. On Sundays they would often head for Granard to stay in the Greville Arms Hotel. Away from the hectic city life Mick enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and the companionship of the Kiernan sisters. Harry Boland was in love with Kitty. There was the odd game of tennis, and under the vigilant protection of local scouts the house parties in their rented country cottage were always a time of laughter, music, dancing and conversation. Mick was a good dancer, and in particular he enjoyed the céílís. But above all he loved the countryside, the long walks, the stimulating conversation with the Kiernan girls and their brother.

  At all times Collins acted contrary to the authorities’ perception of a wanted man. He dressed and acted normally despite their efforts to seek him out and in fact it was this normality and daring that saw him through. In the summer of 1919 his sister Katie (Sheridan) boarded the Mayo train for Dublin. Intelligence men had her under observation from the outset and sent news ahead that a woman clad in a brown gaberdine coat was on her way to meet her brother, Michael Collins. Katie had been ill and was cold and pale. A friend of hers, whom she met at Athlone station, insisted that Katie take a loan of her fur coat and give her the gaberdine instead.

  At midnight when the train arrived in Dublin station a military presence was evident. Passengers were ordered to remain seated; there was to be a search.

  Mick had asked Joe O’Reilly to meet Katie at the station. As people waited on the platform, Joe looked around, saw Mick standing behind him, then watched as Mick pushed forward and asked a porter, ‘What’s the hold-up?’ When a British officer replied that it was that ‘damned Collins again’ he told the officer that he had already been held up twice that day because of that blackguard! Then he spotted Katie. He told the officer he was meeting that passenger; she was ill. The lady did not resemble the description of the lady they were looking for in a brown gaberdine. The British officer told him to go ahead. Mick stepped on the train, politely took her hand and O’Reilly, in gentlemanly fashion, linked her arm and escorted her out, with Mick at heel, still muttering and shaking his head. They walked past some military men who stood by while their comrades continued to search the train.3

  Each morning O’Reilly met the incoming boat at the North Wall. Gelignite from the Welsh coalfields packed in tin trunks and rifles in wicker baskets and timber boxes marked ‘China – Fragile’ were put aside by reliable handlers ‘for collection’. Sailors, workmen or women returning from a visit to relations
regularly walked past the military with revolvers and ammunition tucked discreetly into their bags – arms that eventually found their way to Collins and his men.

  The photo held by police was totally unlike the real Michael Collins. In The Police Gazette or Hue-And-Cry, under ‘Apprehensions Sought’, a description and sometimes a photograph ‘of persons who are wanted’ was given. It stated, ‘If any of them be found they should be arrested and a telegram sent to Head Quarters’. Michael Collins is described as ‘M. P. (Dublin City and Cork W. R.), age 28, height 5 ft. 11, complexion fresh’.4 Not much to go on.

  Mick’s intelligence from Dublin Castle continued to improve. In July 1919, when his information on Detective Sergeant Smith exposed how close ‘Dog Smith’ had got to capturing him, Mick decided he had to be cut down. Though Collins has come to be regarded in some quarters as a ruthless orchestrator of killings – he is not known ever to have killed anyone himself – there is evidence from some people who worked closely with him that ordering killings filled him with tension and anxiety. He would pace the floor until news was brought to him that the killing had taken place.

  Kathleen McKenna recalls an occasion during a discussion on spies, when a young lady who believed she would please him exclaimed, ‘Of course, every spy should be shot’. Angrily, he turned on her and ‘gave his emphatic view of the conditions of judgement and punishment.’5

  His method of secrecy and segregation of each department worked very effectively. He informed Tobin, Cullen and Frank Thornton which other agents they needed to meet but gave no further information. For instance, they were unaware that he travelled one day a week to Thomas Gay’s house in Clontarf to meet Kavanagh, Broy and MacNamara and to collect documents compiled by Lily Mernin.

  Guerrilla warfare had begun but as yet only on a small scale. In early August 1919 Mick travelled to the closing stages of a week-long training camp in west Cork and on his return he recommended to brigades countrywide to set up similar training camps. The flying columns were the result.

  He was as hard on himself as he was on others. ‘I’ll be a slave to nothing,’ he told his sister Katie on his decision to abandon his heavy smoking, because he was ‘becoming a slave to cigarettes’.6

  From 21 August 1919 Mick’s burden increased with the public announcement that the Dáil had sanctioned a national loan of £250,000 to be raised in Ireland and $5,000,000 in America. Dáil Éireann was suppressed on 12 September, and on that day Mick was in his minister of finance office on the upper floor of 6 Harcourt Street. Shortly after midday he heard a commotion downstairs; a raid was in progress. He opened the back window so that he could slide down a drainpipe but the pipe was out of reach. He handed his revolver and some of his writings, including his handwritten journal from his time in Sligo jail, to his secretary, Sinéad Mason, snatched documents to lob into the specially converted secret closet and was halfway to the door when an inspector from G Division walked in. He didn’t know Mick but confronted him and asked to see the papers he was holding.

  ‘What’s it got to do with you? A nice job you have, spying on your fellow countrymen,’ said Mick casually, and he brushed past out the door. Once out of sight on the landing he headed upstairs to the caretaker’s apartments at the top of the house, through the skylight, on to the roof and across to the roof of the Ivanhoe Hotel. Here he waited until the two military lorries of soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets ‘together with a large detachment of G Division detectives’ had departed. Over an hour later he returned to his desk and a room full of scattered documents, to discover that Pádraig O’Keeffe, assistant secretary, Sinn Féin, and Ernest Blythe, TD, had been arrested.7

  The next night Detective Inspector Daniel Hoey was shot dead outside the door of police headquarters in Brunswick Street. Hoey had been responsible for the raid, had worked ‘with zeal’, according to Mick, ‘to secure victims for execution,’ after the 1916 Rising and had continued to spy ‘on his fellow countrymen’.8

  To counteract the clampdown by the authorities on advertising the national loan in the newspapers. Mick arranged a Movietone mini-film for the American market. It depicted a bond-signing outside St Enda’s with a number of people including Kathleen Clarke, Nora Connolly and Pádraig Pearse’s mother purchasing bonds from Mick and Diarmuid O’Hegarty. This helped to sell more bonds, gave Mick a high profile in Sinn Féin circles, and added to the allure of the wanted man who continued to evade capture. In the film he wore a hat, which he never wore as he hastened about the city. His friend Harry Boland in the United States was amused: ‘That film of yourself and Hegarty selling Bonds brought tears to me eyes. Gee Boy! You are some movie actor. Nobody could resist buying a bond and we having such a handsome minister of finance.’9

  The authorities wanted Collins in their grip, held, not dead. He had many close shaves. During the early days of January 1920 all his haunts were raided and it was only thanks to MacNamara’s tip-offs from the inner sanctums of the Castle and Mick’s teams outside that he was able to remain ahead of the posse. A detective called Redmond came too close for comfort and finally Collins ordered him to be shot, on 21 January, 1920. On 25 January a reward of £10,000 was offered by the British authorities for information leading to the killers, and ‘especially to the man who issued the order.’10No one ever claimed this reward.

  Martial law came into force in Dublin on 23 February 1920. This made it ‘like a city of the dead’, Mick said to his friend Dónal Hales. ‘It is the English way of restoring peace to this country.’11Offices at Number 6 Harcourt Street were now being raided so often that Mick instructed Batt O’Connor to buy Number 76, which was for sale. O’Connor, a builder, fitted a room with a concealed hiding place and an escape route through the skylight. Sir Hamar Greenwood, chief secretary at Dublin Castle, had decided to implement a hardline policy because undercover agents and RIC men had been targeted by Collins’ Squad without mercy. Greenwood’s men now had instructions to retaliate.

  After an RIC constable was shot in Cork, a group of men with blackened faces stormed the home of Tomás MacCurtain, lord mayor of Cork, on the night of 20 March 1920, and shot him dead in front of his wife and children. Evidence later revealed that the killers were assisted by the RIC. The episode angered and upset Collins, as he and MacCurtain had been friends since they were interned in Frongoch.

  Collins in turn felt that he and his comrades had no option but to ‘adopt more extreme measures’. More extreme, he said, ‘than would have been the case had we had the active, united support of the whole people. I am making no apology for what we did in these succeeding years – I hope merely to explain the necessity which drove us’.12

  In May 1920 Mick’s friend Harry Boland returned from America for a month’s break. There was a boisterous reunion. Though the two men had corresponded regularly it gave Mick the opportunity to catch up on the news from America. Harry went to Granard to meet Kitty Kiernan, to whom he was more than ever attached. One weekend in early June, Joe Hyland drove Mick and Harry down to Granard, where they danced at a céilí. Mick certainly was fond of Kitty, but she was Harry’s girl.

  In Dublin on 17 June, Harry spent a few hours talking business with Fr O’Flanagan, vice-president of Sinn Féin, then popped into a tobacconist and scribbled a note to Kitty: ‘... I need not say how truly wonderful my few days holiday were to me. I feel, however, that I treated you rather unfairly in keeping you from your slumbers ... If I could only be with you I would indeed try to make you happy. It may be that I will come back soon again from overseas ... I long to be in Ireland, more so than ever that I have hopes to win the girl I love best in the world ...’13

  On 25 June, Mick risked going to the North Wall with Kitty to comfort her as she bade a sad farewell to Harry. Harry’s ‘goodbye and best love’ telegram to Kitty from Southampton reached her as he sailed across the Atlantic. Harry’s love for Kitty was strong but later he had a rival for her affections.

  To the young ladies who knew him, Mick Collins was a tall, dark,
handsome man with sharp intellect and a mysterious aura. He had no difficulty in getting them to do intelligence work for him. If he had a sixth sense, they too appeared to have a sixth sense when he was in danger.

  At this time his girlfriend was Dilly Dicker. Many a night he hid in the attic of her parents’ Mountjoy Street guesthouse home while she played the piano in the parlour. Madeline, nicknamed Dilly by Mick, was born in 1899, to parents Alice Godfrey and Michael Dicker. Her grandparents were Sir John and Lady Godfrey of Glenflesk Castle, Killarney and Kilcolman Abbey, Cork. Her father, Michael Dicker, was an assistant commissioner in the valuation office of the British civil service but sympathetic to the cause. Mick felt that the civil service link also gave him good cover. Across the road in Mrs MacCarthy’s, 44 Mountjoy Street, there was another safe house, where Mick, Harry Boland, J. J. Walsh and many others on the run slept. There was a prearranged signal between the two houses in case of a raid. Mrs MacCarthy would go to the door, look right and left, then give the all-clear by rearranging her curtains.

  Dilly was light-hearted, musical, beautiful and full of bounce. She played the piano for the silent movies. Her personality appealed to Mick and she accepted that he had to duck in and out of her life as the occasion demanded. Mick was generally ‘in great haste’, but he crammed as much as he could into each day.

  In the early days Dilly took messages to Liam Tobin and Tom Cullen about meeting times and places but as time progressed a romance blossomed. And just as Susan Killeen had entertained him with poetry, Dilly played the piano to ease his tired mind. She would also play the harp and zither in the background while Mick scribbled on his spiral notepad. Sometimes he was so exhausted that he would fall asleep on the chair.