Michael Collins and the Women Who Spied For Ireland

by Meda Ryan

  Many Dáil Éireann members and prominent Sinn Féin sympathisers had received threats written on the Dáil Éireann notepaper which had been lifted during the September raid on Sinn Féin headquarters. Mick was seriously alarmed by this development.

  His intelligence system had penetrated the heart of the British secret service. Memos of military communications were included in his documentation, and with Lily Mernin now well able to decipher carbon paper there were few British intelligence activities that evaded him. With his photographic memory, he could recall names, dates and documents. He became familiar with all the Castle personnel – military and civilians – their appearance, movements, habits and haunts. His initial source was the G men’s leather-bound diaries held in the Castle office. Here the G men entered their day’s activities, including suspects seen, where these went and the company they kept. Within the Castle walls Mick’s men regularly read and copied G men’s diaries for him.

  By November 1920, he had evidence that the Cairo gang was becoming more and more dangerous. For some time he had the correspondence of these ‘businessmen’ scrutinised. Dilly and the women out in Howth were playing a pivotal role. With the aid of their landladies these men’s wastepaper baskets were examined. Duplicate keys were made, also with the cooperation of landladies. Frank Thornton and a team of Collins’ men kept a watching brief and logged the activities of each man. Then Frank Thornton was lifted, held and severely questioned, but was released after ten days. A raid on Vaughan’s hotel had Liam Tobin and Tom Cullen jostled from their beds, held and closely questioned. They gave false names and managed to bluff their way out. Three nights later the hotel was again raided but Tobin and Cullen escaped through a window and spent some hours in an outhouse. And on 10 November, Richard Mulcahy escaped through the skylight in Professor Hayes’ house at 5 am. ‘We were being made to feel that they were very close on the heels of some of us,’ Mulcahy remarked.11

  It was around this time that Mick was in Amiens Street Station with Dilly Dicker one day; he was sending her on a mission. Suddenly they spotted the police. Mick leaped into one of the station’s large luggage baskets, pulled the canvas covering over himself and told Dilly to hide him. In a flash, she was sitting on the basket and began to wave at an imaginary friend on the train.12

  After all these close shaves, Mick could not fail to read the signs. Unless the Cairo gang was eliminated, the end was in sight for himself and many others. On 17 November he wrote to Dick McKee:

  Have established addresses of the particular ones. Arrangements should now be made about the matter. Lt. G is aware of things. He suggests the 21st, a most suitable date and day I think. M.13

  The Lt. G. was ‘a woman typist at army headquarters’ who ‘always signed her notes to him with the letter G’. The addition of Lt. was to create the impression that the agent was an army officer, should the letter be intercepted.14

  There is no clue as to the identity of ‘Lt. G’. Most of her notes gave information on troop movements, their strength and armaments, forthcoming activities of ‘British Military Intelligence, the Auxiliaries and the Black and Tans’. There are, according to Rex Taylor, seventeen notes initialled by this ‘G’.15Lt G. was in fact Lily Mernin.

  Mick and his men were ready. He drew a detailed plan, setting out streets and routes, marked target houses and put Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy, commandant and vice-commandant Dublin brigade, in charge of the men chosen for house raids in different areas. At precisely 9 o’clock in the morning, on Sunday 21 November, eleven of the Cairo gang were shot dead in various locations, some in their beds in the presence of their wives or companions.

  That day all hell broke loose. In the afternoon a Dublin-Tipperary football match was fixed for Croke Park. The match was in progress and the pitch densely packed with men, women and children when lorryloads of military invaded Croke Park and opened fire on the spectators and players. There was panic and people tried to rush for cover. Thirteen spectators and a player, Michael Hogan, were killed, and a great number were wounded. ‘Bloody Sunday’, as it became known, made its mark on nationalist opinion.

  In Dublin Castle, Dick McKee, the organiser of the assassination campaign, his associate Peadar Clancy and Conor Clune, an innocent football supporter picked up with McKee and Clancy, were tortured and killed. The official line was that they were shot ‘while attempting to escape’.

  Collins was among the congregation who attended Mass a few days later for the two men in the pro-cathedral. His wreath read: ‘In memory of two good friends – Dick and Peadar – and two of Ireland’s best soldiers. Mícheál Ó Coileáin. 25/11/20’.16

  From this time on a reign of terror was instituted by the military forces. Curfew was proclaimed in Dublin from 10 pm. People were held up on the streets and searched. Outside Dublin the war intensified. The IRA flying columns and active service units grew. They arranged their own attacks on barracks and conducted ambushes, and for the most part worked independently of GHQ. They needed the support of local men, and especially of the women, who billeted them, gave them food, washed their clothes and attended to the wounded. These Volunteers took on the might of over 50,000 regular troops and 15,000 Black and Tans.

  Because of widespread devastation an American Committee for Relief in Ireland had been established and food and clothes were sent in shiploads. To coordinate the materials and the money raised, the White Cross was established towards the end of 1920, with an executive which included women such as Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Kathleen Clarke and Molly Childers. Máire Comerford and Leslie Price were recruited to travel to various counties for the White Cross and assembled information for Collins on the difficulties being experienced, particularly in the farming community by women who had to struggle with the work of the farm while husbands and sons were ‘on the run’.17

  The police had the impression of a reckless and flamboyant ‘terrorist’ and ‘murderer’ but Mick Collins maintained his businessman demeanour, seldom taking undue risks. When Harry Boland wrote a note from America cautioning Mick to be careful after so many arrests, Mick responded:

  I am in love with life as much as the next man. The escapes of others often chill me to the marrow. But for myself I take a logical view of things and act in accordance with what would seem to be a supersensitiveness.18

  On 3 December the military found documents relating to G Division during a raid on the house of sympathiser Eileen McGrane. These were carbon copies given to Mick by Broy and stored in sacks by Eileen. Broy was immediately suspected. He was arrested and taken to Arbour Hill. Collins had Inspector Supple and Detective Inspector McCabe from the Castle intimidated into opening Broy’s locker and box. They burned everything so that there was no evidence against Broy. To Collins’ delight, Broy was released on bail, and the matter was never reactivated.

  Meanwhile, down in Longford a decision had been taken by Seán MacEoin and the local brigade to eliminate RIC Inspector Kelleher, who had come to Longford, he said, ‘to spill blood’. He lodged in the Greville Arms in Granard. On 31 October 1920, he was shot in the bar as he put down his half-finished glass of whiskey.

  On the night of 3 November, eleven lorries of military entered Granard, sacked the town and burned down Kiernan’s hotel. Larry Kiernan, Kitty and their three sisters were arrested. The others were held overnight but Kitty was detained for three days. Mick was upset. He remonstrated with MacEoin, saying that the hotel should not have been used as the place of execution.

  Afterwards he wrote to Kitty, suggesting she come to Dublin for a chat. One night in late November 1920 Mick and Kitty talked well into the night in an upstairs room in Vaughan’s Hotel, exchanging news of Harry Boland’s activities.

  The Kiernans, now homeless, stayed in Omard House, Granard. Later they would move to a large flat over a shop on the New Road.

  Tentative peace moves were afoot in December 1920. Lloyd George wanted the Irish problem solved. He decided to make use of Griffith’s arrest, knowing that Griffith was a mode
rate. Archbishop Clune of Perth, uncle of the murdered Conor Clune, arrived on the scene and was asked by influential people to see Lloyd George, who in turn suggested that he meet Arthur Griffith in prison. This he did. But he also met Mick Collins in Louise Gavan Duffy’s school on St Stephen’s Green. Mick was very conscious of security and left nothing to chance. Through warders in Mountjoy and through women visitors to the prison, Mick remained in close touch with Griffith but did not dare to visit him.

  Collins was now in a difficult situation. He was acting president of Dáil Éireann since Griffith’s arrest, as well as minister of finance. He was president of the IRB, director of intelligence, and director of munitions in the IRA Army Council and found it difficult to reconcile the military side with the first prospect of negotiations. In a letter published in the Irish Independent on 7 December he wrote: ‘At the moment there is a very grave danger that the country may be stampeded on false promises and foolish ill-timed actions. We must stand up against that danger. My advice to the people is, “Hold fast”’ and that: ‘Everyone in Ireland has reason to be profoundly distrustful of British politicians of all schools ...’19

  From experience Collins knew that Griffith was open to persuasion. He didn’t want anybody to be under the illusion that because Lloyd George could have direct access to Griffith he could solve the problem. ‘Does anyone think that Mr Griffith will be so foolish as to negotiate with anybody from behind prison bars, away from his followers, and from his movement?’ Collins wrote.20

  On 23 December 1920 the Government of Ireland Act was passed. Ireland was to be divided against the will of the majority. On Christmas Eve morning 1920, with Collins’ many agents aiding in the decoy, de Valera, dressed in clerical garb, arrived in Dublin. Mick and he had long discussions.

  To celebrate Christmas, Mick that night dined in the Gresham Hotel in the company of Liam Tobin, Tom Cullen, Gearóid O’Sullivan and Rory O’Connor. They had dinner in the public dining-room, and had just finished when the waiter told them Auxiliaries were in the hall. They were on them immediately. All gave false names and addresses. Mick had the narrowest escape so far. He gave his name as John Grace, an accountant.

  ‘Where do you work?’ asked the officer.

  ‘My office is in Dame Street,’ said Collins.

  In an ordnance survey map which he carried Mick had ‘6 Refills’ scribbled in a corner – a reminder note. The officer tried to persuade him it was rifles. But his clear writing left no doubt, he said; it related to notebook refills which he used at work. The officer, distracted by trying to solve the question of the ‘6 Refills’, didn’t ask why he carried a map. Nevertheless, he was very suspicious. He took a photograph from his pocket and Collins kept up a pleasant smile as he eyed the revolver in the officer’s pocket. He said afterwards that if he was going to be arrested, he would have snatched the revolver. ‘The officer drew an old photograph of me out of his pocket and compared it with my face, drawing my hair down as it was in the picture,’ he told Batt O’Connor afterwards. ‘It was touch and go. They were not quite satisfied, and hesitated long before they left us,’ he said.

  The raiding party left and Collins got very drunk that night.21

  Notes

  1 Collins to Dónal Hales, 13/8/1920.

  2 Ibid.

  3 Máire Comerford to author, 4/9/1979.

  4 Ibid.

  5 Kathleen Napoli MacKenna, Memoir, q. Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins, p. 108.

  6 Piaras Béaslaí, op. cit., V. 1, p. 427.

  7 Dan Breen, My Fight for Irish Freedom, p. 152.

  8 Frank O’Connor, op. cit., p. 119.

  9 Dorothy Macardle, The Irish Republic, p. 368.

  10 Michael Collins to Hayden Talbot, Talbot, op. cit., p. 93.

  11 Richard Mulcahy, Notes on Béaslaí’s Michael Collins, MP, UCDA.

  12 Dorothy (Dicker) Heffernan to author, 10/9/1996.

  13 Collins to McKee, q. Rex Taylor, op. cit., pp. 98,104.

  14 T. Ryle Dwyer, Michael Collins: the Man Who Won the War, p. 100.

  15 Rex Taylor, op. cit., p. 100.

  16 Original in Kilmainham Museum.

  17 Leslie Price, 3/7/1979, and Máire Comerford, 4/9/1979, to author.

  18 Collins to Boland, q. Rex Taylor, op cit., p. 96.

  19 Michael Collins to Irish Independent, 7/12/1920.

  20 Ibid.

  21 Piaras Béaslaí, op. cit., pp. V. 11, 139, 140, also Batt O’Connor, With Michael Collins in the Fight for Irish Freedom, pp. 120, 121.

  Women’s Gun-running Role

  Mick was happy to see de Valera back home but soon after Christmas he had to fight off an attempt by de Valera, backed by Brugha and Stack, to send him to America to sort out some problems that had arisen in relation to fundraising. It made no sense to Collins for him to leave the country at this stage.

  At a Dáil meeting Mick voiced his concern about the ‘atrocities on women’ such as the raid one night by men in mufti on the home of Agnes Daly in Limerick. She had a horrific experience, had her hand slashed and her hair cut with a razor, and gashes to her head. The Auxies used the excuse that she tried to run away from them, ‘one young women against a group of strong men!’1 Agnes, her sister Madge and Peg Barrett from Clare were on Collins’ intelligence team. (The Daly girls were sisters of Kathleen Clarke, wife of executed 1916 leader Tom Clarke, and of Ned Daly, also killed in 1916; they were nieces of Fenian John Daly.) They were regular carriers of dispatches for Mick to and from the Limerick and Clare brigades, as were the Barrett sisters, Peg, Josephine and Dell.

  The Daly girls helped in the running of the family bakery, and often travelled on the train with dispatches concealed in bags of flour. Mick would meet them at a bakery and flour shop off Parnell Square. One day Agnes, Madge and Peg Barrett were inside the bakery when the Auxies came on a raid. All three had important documents and Peg had proof that a spy going under the name of James Breen had been gathering information on Collins for some time. Breen, who masqueraded as a hat salesman, had become well known to Peg, who risked her life on many occasions to get information.

  That day at the bakery door, a young man, ‘cleaning’ for a purpose, gave the signal with his whistling lilt. The three girls were ‘sampling cakes’ as they wished to place an order. Mick, dressed in a business suit, leaped over a bench at the first whistle, dipped his fingers in flour, ran them through his hair, and behind the bench leaned with pen poised. ‘He was taking the girls’ order,’ Peg recalls, ‘confidently telling them the difference between the texture of one cake and the other. I was a friend. That day we were about to smuggle guns down south.’

  The raiders ripped open bags of flour, knocked over some trays of cakes, took plenty of buns and eventually departed, to the relief of all. The never-used oven with the false back held guns, as it had on other occasions. The girls brought some of these to Limerick and Clare in concealed pockets sewn on the shifts they wore underneath their long skirts.

  ‘Breen’ later met his death like other spies on Collins’ track.2

  Eileen McGrane, who kept important documents belonging to Collins, was in her flat one evening when it was raided. Not alone did the raiders carry away important documents but she was arrested and courtmartialled – the first courtmartial of a woman. She did not betray any secrets. She was kept in custody for many months. Other women had the same fate. Mick was enraged, also because ‘the enemy took a whole lot of my old private letters – poor mother’s mortuary card not being left even,’ he told his sister, Helena (Sr Celestine): ‘Surely there must have been some one of yours [letters] among them. They raided all the known addresses ... I wonder if you were raided!’3

  By now areas in Dublin were being ‘combed out’, the inhabitants harassed and searched. Citizens of Dublin had grown to accept the abnormal conditions. The campaign against the crown forces intensified. Collins constantly varied his tactics, and if he suspected a person was curious, he ‘invented Gyntian romances’. Often he pretended to others that h
e had a date with a girl.4So compartmentalised were his intelligence activities that when he was going out to Dalkey or Howth with Dilly he would get rid of ‘those in 44’ by saying that they had been invited to a house party.5A common ploy used by Mick as well as by others in his intelligence department was to walk down the street linked to a likely young girl.

  There were moments of light relief. During the difficult days of January 1921, Mick was a guest at a party given by an Irish-American attorney, James M. Sullivan, at his home in Palmerston Park. Most of the guests were ‘wanted’, but among them were three G men – Broy, MacNamara and Neligan. The host was unaware of their identity. Many of Collins’ intelligence women were there also – Moya Llewelyn Davies, Máire Comerford, Brigid Lyons-Thornton, Jennie Wyse-Power.

  Mick had already imported arms, mainly from Glasgow and Liverpool, and had also been involved in the importation of arms from Italy through his friend Dónal Hales. There were dispatches and pleas to him, especially from the three Cork brigades, that they were in urgent need of arms as they were ‘harassed to a terrible extent by the enemy’.

  Dónal’s sister, Madge, had already been to Italy in December 1920 and by March 1921 was about to embark on another trip. She was a key link in the arms importation and carried many of Mick’s instructions in her head. Often her brother would write to her and she would travel to Dublin by train from Cork to convey the message to Mick. She was also in a position to decode some of Dónal’s ambiguous statements in his letters to Collins. Madge was the link between Collins and Liam Deasy and his Third West Cork Brigade, members of which were involved in preparing dumps for the arms.6