Michael Collins and the Women Who Spied For Ireland

by Meda Ryan

  The second group did not get very far with Oscar Traynor at the Hammam Hotel. It was here that Máire Comerford also came on her bicycle after she left the Four Courts. Traynor gave her some advice on changing gears; soon she had the hang of it and took off to Republican-held posts around the city to see if there were any wounded. It was at this stage that she decided definitely to throw in her lot with the anti-Treatyites.10

  Countess Markievicz had taken up sniper duty in Moran’s Hotel. Many of Collins’ female friends and associates, such as Leslie Price, Linda Kearns, Grace Plunkett, Peg Barrett and her sisters, Madge Daly and her sisters, joined the opposing forces.

  Cathal Brugha, with a small garrison, which included Linda Kearns, Kathleen Barry and Muriel MacSwiney, remained in the Hammam Hotel with orders to hold out until surrender was inevitable. On Tuesday, as the Hammam Hotel began to blaze under the heavy bombardment, Traynor sent a dispatch to Brugha asking him to surrender. But Brugha continued to fight like a tiger ‘... and fell amid a volley of shots’. Two days later he died. His friends revealed he had not intended to surrender.11News of Brugha’s death appalled Collins. Though they were enemies latterly, he had admired the spirit and dogged determination of the older man. He understood his aggressive action, his strong-mindedness and his obstinacy.

  At this time of great turmoil and stress, Mick’s concern for Kitty was great, and Kitty’s concern for him was heartfelt. She wrote: ‘When I think of you perhaps in the midst of a fight, I think that I should be near you, beside you. Because if you were going to die, I’d like to go with you.’12

  Caught up in the affairs of the country, he would often only have time to send ‘a very very hurried wire today’ to Kitty, ‘ – please do forgive me for it. There are people waiting while I write it’.13Next day from Government Buildings: ‘... I’m longing to see you and everything and all my love and wherever I may be for the next week, I’ll do my very best to wire and write. And God be with you, my own Kitty’.14

  Sometimes Kitty chastised Mick for not writing more often; if she was ‘really sure’ that he missed her and ‘had not somebody else,’ she said, perhaps she would understand. Yet on reflection, it was good of him ‘to write at all’ and he ‘so worried and upset’.15

  With the Civil War mounting, with reports of men being killed and injured and hardships in many homes and with a million pulls on his crowded time, Mick read what he called Kitty’s ‘really unpleasant letter’ two or three times with a heavy and sad heart. ‘And who’s the somebody else?’ he wrote in desperation.

  And O’Connell St is broken down and I’m sorry that the poor old Gresham is gone and destroyed. But it is gone, and I suppose I can’t restore it or can I or what? And what must I do? And now I’m called. So goodnight and love and everything. And if I’m in places where I can’t even wire to you or where you don’t hear at all of me or from me, I’ll think of you and it will be all the harder because you won’t know and harder still because you’ll be wondering that you don’t hear and all sorts of things ... And fondest love, no matter what.16

  Matters discussed at government meetings concerned military decisions rather than political issues. In Kerry, with its long coastline and mountainous regions, anti-Treaty forces continued to train and muster military support; they took over towns and villages throughout the county and engaged in guerrilla activity. Michael Collins now decided to tackle the problem head-on; he would go back to soldiering and take command. At a government meeting on Wednesday morning 12 July, he ‘announced that he had arranged to take up duty as commander-in-chief of the army and would not be able to act in his ministerial capacity until further notice, and that Messrs. O’Higgins, McGrath and Fionán Lynch had also been appointed to military posts’. At this meeting W. T. Cosgrave, minister of local government, ‘was appointed to act as Chairman of the Provisional Government and as Minister of Finance in the absence of Mr Collins on military duties’.17

  During the day (12 July) he wrote to Kitty: ‘I was worrying about you somehow. This is just a note, and you may not hear from me except by wire for a few days. You won’t mind that – not really. I wonder when I shall see you again. May God be with you always. With all my love.’ Before going to sleep that night he wrote her another note because he had got a letter from her which lacked understanding of all he had to do. The strain of work was enough: ‘I’ve read it with a heavy and a sad heart two or three times ... Why do you think so harshly of me? It does seem strange’.18

  Collins now had a mammoth task to restore order. He donned his military uniform and moved into quarters at Portobello Barracks.

  By midnight he was ‘absolutely tired and worn out after a terrible day,’ he wrote in a note to Kitty. ‘And I’m longing to see you and everything and all my love and, wherever I may be for the next week, I’ll do my very best to wire or write. And God be with you.’19

  Kitty saw Michael’s appointment in the paper, and desperation is evident in the words she wrote: ‘You are C. in Chief now. What does this mean? More trouble I suppose. Will it ever end?’20

  He was asking himself the same question but to get the country back to stability became his principal aim. He studied army models, took advice, made plans on how a disciplined army should be structured. The organisation of payment, food supplies, clothing, arms to scattered groups of soldiers constantly on the move was a gigantic task. Tirelessly, he worked into the night hours at his Portobello desk; there are notes written at midnight and past and again at 4 or 5 in the morning. His notebook of those July days bears witness to the urgency with which he tackled most tasks and the number of items that crowded upon him. There were prison accommodation, medical service, engineering, press data, intelligence lists and a multitude of other concerns.21

  Surrounded by war, buildings crumbling, army clashes, people being killed and injured, he wrote to Kitty, ‘I have every faith in things coming right. Could not have written yesterday. Fondest love’.22

  Collins soon discovered the sadness of civil war. Lifelong friends were becoming bitter enemies; brothers and neighbours were taking opposite sides. It wounded him when Harry Boland turned his back on him. Harry had taken a staff position in the South Dublin Brigade, but soon fled out to the Dublin hills where he wrote on 13 July to Joe McGarrity: ‘It may very well be that I shall fall in this awful conflict ... I am certain we cannot be defeated even if Collins and his British Guns succeed in garrisoning every town in Ireland’.23

  In a further note to McGarrity on 25 July Harry asked, ‘Can you imagine, me on the run from Mick Collins?’24

  On 28 July Mick wrote a heartfelt letter to Harry:

  Harry – It has come to this! Of all things it has come to this.

  It is in my power to arrest you and destroy you. This I cannot do. If you will think over the influence which has dominated you it should change your ideal.

  You are walking under false colours. If no words of mine will change your attitude then you are beyond all hope – my hope.25

  Mick believed that Harry had been influenced by de Valera, Brugha and Stack. On the night of 30 July, Harry dined in Jammet’s Restaurant in Nassau Street with Anna Fitzsimons, who had been one of Mick’s secretaries during a period prior to the Treaty. He had got Mick’s letter, and was keenly aware of the changed circumstances. At one point during dinner Harry urged Anna to ‘eat well,’ adding, ‘because it may be your last meal with me’.

  That night as Harry and Joe Griffin were going to bed in the Grand Hotel in Skerries, soldiers came on a raid. Harry was injured in the stomach. He was taken to Skerries Barracks and held for four hours then moved to Portobello Barracks and on to St Vincent’s Hospital.26

  When Mick heard the news, he asked the director of intelligence to place a guard on St Vincent’s Hospital, ‘and to make a report on the exact condition of Mr Harry Boland’ and to find out ‘whether he has been operated on and what the doctors think of his condition’.27

  Harry died on 2 August. Mick was devastated, and bur
st into Fionán Lynch’s room in a fit of uncontrolled grief. Next day he wrote to Kitty:

  Last night I passed St Vincent’s Hospital and saw a small crowd outside. My mind went in to him lying dead there and I thought of the times together, and, whatever good there is in any wish of mine, he certainly had it. Although the gap of 8 or 9 months was not forgotten – of course no one can ever forget it – I only thought of him with the friendship of the days of 1918 and 1919 ... I’d send a wreath but I suppose they’d return it torn up.28

  Kitty, in her response to the death of ‘poor Harry’, wrote:

  Oh! vain is the strength of man. I realise I have lost a good friend in Harry – and no matter what, I’ll always believe in his genuineness, that I was the one and only. I think you have also lost a friend. I am sure you are sorry after him. ... Always when H. was saying good-bye, he’d say ‘don’t worry, Kitty, Mick will be all right’ ... He had my rosary beads: I have his ... Ever yours, Kitty.29

  Mick wanted to meet Kitty for dinner, but being tied up ‘in a million things’ he had asked Gearóid Mac Canainn at Government Buildings to send her a wire. Harry was still on his mind. Harry’s death confirmed for him the devastation of war and the inescapable price in human misery. Obviously he and Kitty had been speaking about Harry during dinner. Afterwards he wanted to clarify his position for her. He did not want any misunderstanding, so he put his thoughts on paper that night:

  ... You will not misunderstand anything you have heard me say about poor H. You’ll also appreciate my feelings about the splendid men we have lost on our side, and the losses they are and the bitterness they cause, and the anguish. There is no one who feels it all more than I do.

  My condemnation is all for those who would put themselves up as paragons of Irish Nationality, and all the others as being not worthy of concern. May God bless you always.

  Fondest love, Mícheál.30

  Kitty did not always sympathise with Mick’s dilemmas because the burden of his work inevitably led to his neglecting her. She went to bed early one night and couldn’t sleep. She thought of him and wrote:

  I was ‘madly, passionately, in love with you’ – to use your own words, and I understand those feelings now ... But sure you know and we both know and remember Greystones and all the other wonderful times.31

  He tried to reassure her and to remain optimistic:

  One thing – don’t worry about me. I have every faith in things coming right no matter how difficult and dark the outlook at the moment. Then we shall be happier, and I hope all the happier because of what we’ve been through.32

  Notes

  1 Tom Jones, op. cit., pp. 206, 207.

  2 PG Minutes, 12/6/1922, MP, P7/B/192; MP, 15/6/1922, UCDA.

  3 Kitty to Michael, recd., 26/6/1922.

  4 Michael to Kitty, 26/6/1922.

  5 Meda Ryan, The Day Michael Collins Was Shot, pp. 17–21.

  6 Lloyd George to Michael Collins 22/6/1922, MP, P7/B/244/1 and 2, UCDA.

  7 Michael to Kitty, 28/6/1922.

  8 PG Minutes, 30/6/1922, MP, P7/B/244/22.

  9 Maud Gonne MacBride, Éire: The Nation, 28/9/1923.

  10 Máire Comerford, unpublished memoirs.

  11 Dorothy Macardle, op. cit., 686.

  12 Kitty to Michael, 7/7/1922.

  13 Michael to Kitty, Government Buildings, 12/7/1922.

  14 Michael to Kitty, 13/7/1922.

  15 Kitty to Michael, c. 3/7/1922.

  16 Michael to Kitty, 5/7/1922 and 12/7/1922.

  17 PG Minutes, morning meeting 12/7/1922, MP, P7/B/244/58; also PRO. PG 57, 12/7/1922; 23. PG Minutes, evening meeting, 12/7/1922, MP, P7/B/244/61. See Meda Ryan, op. cit., pp. 22–29.

  18 Michael to Kitty, 12/7/1922.

  19 Ibid., 13/7/1922.

  20 Kitty to Michael, 15/7/1922.

  21 Meda Ryan, The Day Michael Collins was Shot, op. cit., p. 34.

  22 Michael to Kitty, 26/7/1922.

  23 Boland/McGarrity correspondence, McGarrity Papers, NLI.

  24 Ibid., 25/7/1922.

  25 Collins to Harry Boland, q. Taylor, op. cit., p. 194.

  26 Anna Fitzsimons-Kelly, Irish Press, 1/8/1938.

  27 Collins to Director of Intelligence, 3/7/1922, MP, P7/B/ 4/90.

  28 Michael to Kitty, c. 2/8/1922.

  29 Kitty to Michael, recd. 4/8/1922.

  30 Michael to Kitty, 4/8/1922.

  31 Kitty to Michael, 15/7/1922.

  32 Michael to Kitty, 14/7/1922.

  Commander-in-Chief’s August Days

  ‘When are you coming to town?’ Mick wrote to Kitty from government office very early on the morning of 28 July. ‘You don’t know [how] glad it made me to speak to you on the phone yesterday – to hear your voice and I can always feel very near one when I speak on the phone ... The pressure is very very heavy and there is little sign of relaxation.’

  In his new role as commander-in-chief he was throwing himself fully into the task. In a memo to the government on the general situation on 26 July, he reported that the government forces were in a strong position. On 5 August he wrote to W. T. Cosgrave, acting chairman that he intended to deal with the immediate problems in the south. He was preoccupied with military matters, having left the political arena temporarily to Griffith, Cosgrave, O’Higgins and others.

  That day he sent a telegram with his ‘fondest love’ to Kitty saying that it was ‘quieter this morning. Hope ordinary conditions will be restored in a few days. How are you and everything? ... All here doing well so far’.

  The course of the Civil War was determined by the pattern of barrack occupation of either pro- or anti-Treaty forces, and also by leaders in districts. In early August, Collins had officers and men placed in strategic positions which led to the taking of Limerick, Waterford, Wexford and other major centres. Coastal landings were suggested by Emmet Dalton, director of military operations. Dalton believed that Republican strongholds were vulnerable to attacks from the sea so Collins placed him in charge of operations to carry out his [Dalton’s] own suggestion.

  Michael Collins had engaged his sister, Mary Collins-Powell, to liaise between himself and Emmet Dalton in Cork. She was involved in the organisation of a volunteer force to help her brother. She was an extremely determined and efficient young women and had been a help to Mick throughout the entire revolutionary period.1

  On this occasion Mary Collins-Powell was unable to use the direct route from Cork because of the destruction of roads and railway lines, so Harry Donegan and Dr Gerald Ahern brought her some of the way on a yacht called The Gull. As the wind was against them they pulled in at Waterford, which was in government hands; from there she got a taxi to Rosslare and then a train to Dublin. She had details for Michael of arrangements for the Cork landing, and told him that there were up to 500 men ready to join his forces in Cork but who were lying low due to lack of arms.2

  On 7 August he was about to leave the barracks on army business when his sister arrived. He shared this news with Kitty: ‘She [Mary Collins-Powell] is full of Cork and what the Irregulars are doing there.’ They had taken control of customs duties and taxes.

  Later that day, Dalton brought an eighteen-pounder and five hundred mostly raw recruits aboard the commandeered Arvonia and landed at Passage West, County Cork. Collins was in high spirits when he discussed the taking of west Cork with John L. O’Sullivan and Seán Hales. Both efficient soldiers, they set out by boat from Dublin with a number of men, landed without difficulty in Bantry Bay, captured the town of Bantry and took towns along the coast into Kinsale during the second week of August. These expeditions happened at the same time as a shipment force under Liam Tobin landed at Youghal, and Emmet Dalton’s massive invasion of Cork city.3

  Eoin O’Duffy, Field General of the South Western Command, moved with his men and took regions between Limerick and the North Kerry border just as General Paddy Daly landed at Fenit with 500 men on 2 August. A few days later another 240 men landed in Tarbert, so that by mid-August the pro-Treaty troops ha
d occupied the main centres of population in Kerry.4

  Collins, Mulcahy and all the officials at GHQ worked for hours into the night, meeting again early in the mornings to set in motion the gigantic organisation required to get so many men transported in slow-moving boats around Irish waters.

  Collins was lucky with the men with whom he worked, Richard Mulcahy, J. J. O’Connell and the officers in Dublin and countrywide were stalwarts in shouldering with him the daily burdens. There were the women of Cumann na Saoirse such as Jennie Wyse-Power, Alice Stopford-Green, Margaret O’Shea, Min Ryan, Nancy O’Brien, his sister Mary Collins-Powell and many others who did important work for him. It was after much soul-searching that many of these women supported the Treaty.

  Early on 7 August Mick wrote a few of ‘the most hurried lines’ he had ever written to Kitty before he set out for Maryborough, the Curragh and nearby military posts. Next day he wrote to her of the harrowing experience which made him cry at the funeral Mass for nine soldiers killed in action in Kerry: