The Squad

by T. Ryle Dwyer

  Collins had a fairly clear vision of what he wished to do and how he wished to do it. He wanted a military confrontation with the British, but not a conventional war. ‘If we were to stand up against the powerful military organisation arrayed against us,’ Collins later explained, ‘something more was necessary than a guerrilla war in which small bands of our warriors, aided by their knowledge of the country, attacked the larger forces of the enemy and reduced their numbers. England could always reinforce her army. She could replace every soldier that she lost.’

  ‘But,’ he added, ‘there were others indispensable for her purposes which [sic] were not so easily replaced. To paralyse the British machine it was necessary to strike at individuals. Without her spies England was helpless. It was only by means of their accumulated and accumulating knowledge that the British machine could operate.’ He basically considered the DMP and RIC as spies.

  Detectives from G Division had, after all, segregated the leaders from the rank and file at Richmond barracks after the Easter Rising. And the British had relied on the RIC to select those to be deported from other parts of the country in the aftermath of the rebellion. ‘Without their police throughout the country, how could they find the men they “wanted”?’ he asked.

  The British administration was dependent on such people and would be virtually blind without them. Thus Collins determined that the first step should be undermining the political detectives in G Division of the DMP. He anticipated that once the detectives were neutralised or eliminated, the British would inevitably react blindly and in the process hit innocent Irish people and thereby drive the great mass of the people into the arms of the republicans.

  When the dáil met on 1 April 1919 de Valera was elected priomhaire (prime minister), and he then proceeded to name a cabinet that included people like Griffith, Plunkett, MacNeill, Collins, Brugha and Constance Markievicz. The cabinet were representatives of the various factions within Sinn Fein.

  The audacity of Collins seemed to know no bounds in his quest to understand the working of G Division. He asked Broy to smuggle him into the division’s document room one night so that he could see the records for himself. There would usually be one man on night duty in the detective office but it often happened that the detective on duty would have to be in court next day, so Broy was often called on to do temporary duty. On meeting Collins at Foley’s on 6 April 1919 he was able to tell Collins that he would be on duty the following night from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. They arranged for Collins to call him at midnight to ensure that he could smuggle him in. They agreed that Collins would use the name Field, and Broy would use Long. The office where the records were kept was a semi-circular office, with a large steel safe and many windows. As the blinds only covered the bottom of the windows, they would not be able to turn on the electric light without at tracting the attention of the uniformed inspector on duty. It was therefore going to be necessary for Collins to use a candle.

  At midnight Collins telephoned. ‘Field here. Is that Long?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Broy replied. ‘Bring a candle.’

  Collins arrived at about 12.15 with Seán Nunan, who was one of a number of IRB colleagues with whom he met frequently at Vaughan’s hotel. Collins had asked Nunan to come for a walk with him and it was only then that he told him that he was actually going to the detective division headquarters

  Broy had said they should be armed just in case something went wrong. ‘I duly let them in, showed them the back way and the yard door to Townsend Street, in case anything happened, and gave them the general lie of the land. No sooner had I done so that a stone came through the window.’

  ‘I told them to go into a dark passage and to wait near the back door, in the shadow,’ Broy continued. On looking out on Great Brunswick Street I saw a British soldier in custody of a policeman. I opened the door and inquired of the constable what was wrong.’

  ‘This fellow is drunk and he is after throwing a stone in through the window next door,’ the constable replied.

  Broy took charge of the soldier and brought him to the police station next door and went back to Collins and Nunan. He brought them upstairs and pilfered a box of candles and matches, because Collins had thought he was joking about the candle. Broy locked the dormitory room on the top floor and used a master key to open the detective’s room. He then opened the steel safe with the records. He had just left Collins and Nunan in the room with the candles and gone downstairs again, when there was a loud knock on the door. ‘I opened it and found the same constable back again, inquiring as to the value of the window broken glass. I gave him a rough estimate and he left. I went upstairs, told the boys what the noise was about, and came down to look after telephones, etc.’

  Collins wanted to learn first hand the extent of the British knowledge of the Volunteers, to gauge the mentality behind the records, and to use this knowledge to construct an organisation to undermine it. He and Nunan stayed in the office until about 5 a.m. They then walked to their respective residences – Collins in Mountjoy Street and Nunan in Botanic Road.

  Among the files that Collins checked was one that the DMP was keeping on him. He later bragged, with characteristic vanity, that his file mentioned he came from ‘a brainy’ family. The report, dated 31 December 1916, was written by the district inspector of the RIC in Bandon. He noted that Collins ‘belongs to a family [of] “brainy” people who are disloyal and of advanced Sinn Fein sympathies.’ His file included police reports on his involvement in the Longford by-election of April 1917 and some of his more controversial speeches, especially those he gave in Ballinamuck and Skibbereen for which the authorities had wished to prosecute him. The various files gave him an invaluable perspective on what G Division knew, and who were its most active detectives. He also got an insight into the people who were providing information. Before leaving, Collins pocketed a bound volume of all telephone messages received by G Division during the week of the 1916 Rising. Some of the messages were from loyalists providing information about where Irish Volunteers had occupied positions in small numbers, or where rebel snipers were posted on roofs or in windows. Others messages were from people who later posed as republican sympathisers. Collins had many cynical laughs listening to protestations of patriotism by some of those who had sent messages to G Division.

  Although Collins had no sleep the night he spent in the detective division headquarters, he was in fine form next day when Sinn Féin had a special árd fheis at the Mansion House. De Valera was doing his balancing act in accommodating both sides. He sought to keep militants like Collins in check both by getting the árd fheis to give the standing committee of Sinn Féin a strong voice in policy matters and by debarring members of the cabinet – other than himself and Griffith – from membership of this committee. He undoubtedly had Collins in mind when he explained the standing committee’s consultative role. He said, for example, that if a minister decided that the Irish people should no longer pay income tax to the crown, the proposal would need the approval of the standing committee, or it would be dropped.

  Collins had been arguing in favour of such a scheme within the cabinet, but he had come up against the resolute obstinacy of Brugha. De Valera, as was his wont, had assumed a detached position in the dispute, but his remarks at the árd fheis certainly leaned towards Brugha’s more cautious position on the issue. Collins was busy lobbying for the election of his friend and IRB colleague, Harry Boland, as one of the joint national secretaries of Sinn Féin. When it was all over and Boland had won, Collins seemed quite pleased with himself.

  Collins was a young man in a hurry, operating at break neck pace in at least three different spheres. Within Sinn Féin he was trying to strategically position IRB colleagues, in his ministerial capacity he was charged with organising the national loan, and, as director of both organisation and intelligence in the Volunteers, he was preparing to initiate a war of independence.

  On the night after the árd fheis, detectives of the DMP were given a very pub
lic warning. Volunteers raided the home of Detective Sergeant Nicholas Halley, and held up Detective Constable Denis O’Brien in the street, binding and gagging him. O’Brien, a native of Kanturk, had been particularly active in the DMP, especially against his fellow Corkmen in the city. Neither man was hurt, but it was a warning to them and their colleagues that the Volunteers could and would strike at them in the streets or in their homes.

  When O’Brien was brought to Dublin Castle to explain what had happened, Detective Superintendent Owen Brien asked why he had allowed himself to be tied up.

  ‘I would like to know what anyone else would do in the same circumstances?’ O’Brien responded. He later told Broy and some colleagues, ‘They were damned decent men not to shoot me, and I am not doing any more against them.’

  Addressing the dáil next day, 10 April 1919, de Valera advocated moral rather than armed resistance. Collins wished to kill those police who did not heed the warnings to lay off, but de Valera instead called for the ostracism of all policemen, whom he accused of ‘brutal treason’, because they were acting as ‘the main instruments’ in keeping the Irish people in subjugation. ‘They are spies in our midst,’ he added, echoing the sentiments of Collins. ‘They are the eyes and ears of the enemy.’

  Of course, some of these detectives were becoming invaluable to Collins. Broy was particularly friendly with Detective Sergeant Joe Kavanagh, who was working out of Dublin Castle. He was godfather to Kavanagh’s eldest son. Kavanagh ridiculed Detective Super-intendent Owen Brien as ‘Butt’ Brien. ‘Get your faces ready for the Superintendent’s joke, boys,’ he would say as Brien was about to enter a room. ‘I did not know that Joe hated England, in addition to hating the officers, but I knew that we were such friends that I could trust him,’ Broy said. Collins had asked him about Kavanagh only once or twice. One evening while walking in Stephen’s Green Kavanagh and Broy suddenly realised that they were both giving information to Collins. ‘I told him about Mick’s visit to No. 1 Great Brunswick Street,’ Broy explained. ‘He nearly fell, laughing, knowing the mentality in the G Division office and knowing Mick. He got me to tell it to him a second time, and he laughed so much that people looked at him as if he were drunk or mad. He asked me what did Mick look like in the office, and I said he looked like a big plain-clothes man going out on duty, with a stick.’

  Collins apologised to Broy for not telling him about Kavanagh. ‘I told him that that was what I had been preaching to him since I met him, not to tell anything, that the Irish people had paid too big a price for carelessness like that, in the past.’ Michael similarly apologised to Joe the next time he met him, but was glad the two of them now knew and understood each other. Thereafter Kavanagh joined Broy’s meeting with Collins at the home of Tom Gay. They were later joined by another detective, Jim McNamara, who was a confidential clerk for the assistant commissioner of the DMP in Dublin Castle. The son of a police officer, McNamara was a light-hearted individual who would playfully trip colleagues up while walking. With his charm and guile he won his way into the trust of both his superiors and Collins. The three detectives were subsequently joined by another, David Neligan. The detectives would go to Clontarf separately by tram, while Collins usually cycled there. If any of them wished to contact Collins at other times, they could do so by leaving a message with Gay at the Capel Street library.

  In early May a three-man delegation of Irish-American politicians, which had tried unsuccessfully to get President Woodrow Wilson to secure a hearing for a delegation from the dáil at the Paris Peace Conference, visited Ireland. The dáil held a special public session for them at the Mansion House on 9 May 1919, and there were some dramatic developments in which Collins essentially upstaged everyone. ‘A few of us had a very interesting experience’, he wrote to Stack a couple of days later.

  Collins had been arrested in March 1918 for incitement to riot and incitement to raid for arms in Longford. He put up bail in April 1918 during the conscription crisis, but did not appear in Londonderry on 19 March 1919 to face trial. A bench warrant was issued for his arrest the next day. He was also wanted for illegal drilling in Skibbereen. The bench warrant for that offence was issued on 14 April and provided a description of him: ‘Clean shaven – youthful appearance – dresses well – dark brown eyes – regular nose, fresh complexion, oval face, active make, 5’ 11” height – about 30 years – dark hair. Generally wears a trilby hat and fawn overcoat.’ His address was given as 44 Mountjoy Street, which was correct at the time, but he promptly moved, and the police reported that they were unable to locate him there.

  But some detectives recognised Collins and a couple of other wanted men as they entered the Mansion House for the special session and they called G Division headquarters to raid the place. ‘I heard about this almost on the spot,’ Broy said. He could not telephone a warning from the police station, so he went outside to a public telephone and called de Valera. As the telephone service of the day was notoriously insecure, Broy gave the warning in French, but the Long Fellow could not understand his French. Piaras Beaslaí therefore took the message from Broy that the building would be raided that afternoon.

  ‘We’ll have our lunch first,’ Collins replied rather nonchalantly when Beaslaí passed on the warning. The Big Fellow was obviously enjoying the prospect of becoming the centre of attention. He sent Joe O’Reilly to fetch his uniform. O’Reilly, a fellow Cork man, was a lively individual, totally dedicated to Collins. ‘About five o’clock the enemy came along with three motor lorries, [a] small armoured car, machine guns, probably 200 or 250 troops,’ Collins wrote. ‘They surrounded the building with great attention to every military detail. They entered the Mansion House and searched it with great care and thoroughness but they got nobody inside. The wanted ones codded them again.’

  Collins, Robert Barton and Ted Kelly had slipped out a back window and hid in an adjoining building. When the military left they returned, only this time Collins was dressed in his Volunteers uniform. It was a show of bravado that went down well with most of the gathering, though some felt that the Big Fellow was showing off again. ‘By this time everybody should know that it is by naked force that England holds this country,’ Collins wrote with obvious satisfaction. ‘Our American friends got an exhibition of the truth while they were here.’

  Tim Healy, the old parliamentarian, happened to be in the vicinity and saw the raid in progress. ‘Nothing that the wit of man could devise equalled the Mansion House raid of the military in folly,’ he wrote. ‘Every damn fool seems to be in the employment of the British government in Ireland.’

  Meanwhile Collins was growing ever more impatient for a fight. He encouraged local units of the Volunteers to raid police barracks for arms. This, in addition to affording an opportunity of acquiring much needed weapons, had the advantage of acting as a kind of training operation for the Volunteers. It soon led to the withdrawal of the RIC from isolated areas and the abandonment of hundreds of police barracks throughout the country.

  He complained in a letter to Austin Stack about Sinn Féin politicians making things ‘intolerable’ for militants like him. ‘The policy now seems to be to squeeze out anyone who is tainted with strong fighting ideas, or should I say the utility of fighting,’ he grumbled. He was particularly critical of the party’s executive committee, which he described as ‘a Standing Committee of malcontents’ who were ‘inclined to be ever less militant and more political and theoretical’. In short, they were talkers and thinkers, rather than men of action, and he was a man of action. ‘We have too many of the bargaining type already,’ Collins grumbled. ‘I am not sure that our movement or part of it at any rate is alive to the developing situation.’

  Describing himself as ‘only an onlooker’ at the executive committee meetings, he complained that the moderates were in control. When Harry Boland went to the United States to make preparations for de Valera’s forthcoming tour, the party replaced him as national secretary with Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington, the wife of a pacifis
t murdered during the Easter Rising. Collins was appalled. Not only had Boland been replaced by a woman, but the party also went on to announce that his replacement was necessary because he was out of the country. With this announcement, Collins fumed: ‘our people give away in a moment what the Detective Division had been unable to find out in five weeks.’

  He clearly felt a lot of hostility towards himself and his militant views. There were ‘rumours, whisperings, suggestions of differences between certain people’, he wrote, describing this as ‘rather pitiful and disheartening’. It belied the national unity of which de Valera boasted and it tended towards confusion about the best way of achieving the national aims. ‘At the moment,’ Collins exclaimed, ‘I’m awfully fed up.’

  ‘Things are not going very smoothly,’ he was still writing three weeks later. ‘All sort of miserable little under currents are working and the effect is anything but good.’

  He would soon have a freer hand to do his own thing though, as de Valera was to set out for the United States in early June.

  CHAPTER 4

  ‘ALMOST A MIRACLE I WAS NOT LANDED’

  In the spring of 1919, de Valera had restrained the Big Fellow’s desire for a military campaign by ensuring that the political wing of the movement had a big say in policy. Shortly after de Valera went to the United States however, Brugha and Mulcahy authorised Collins to kill one of the DMP detectives who had refused to be cowed by the Volunteers.

  Many policemen were resigning because of their social ostracisation. Those who were nearing retirement, having spent the bulk of their working lives in the police force, were too old to find other employment. They stayed on but most kept their heads down and ignored all political activities.

  In July Collins was authorised by Richard Mulcahy as chief-of-staff and Cathal Brugha as minister for defence to kill Detective Sergeant Patrick Smyth, because he was a particular thorn in the side of the republicans. He had been warned on a number of occasions ‘to lay off republicans or he would be shot’, one of those who took part in the assassination later explained.