‘Looking up and down the road, he moved off again,’ Byrne continued. ‘I made no further attempt to follow him, as I could see that he had me under cover. The next thing, he went over to the policeman, who was on point duty at Phibsboro.
‘It’s about time I made myself scarce,’ Byrne said to himself. ‘I boarded a tram going towards Glasnevin, got off it at Lindsay Road and proceeded to Mick McDonnell’s house to make my report.’ McDonnell and Tobin were there together when Bryne told them what had happened.
‘We had better have a go in the morning,’ one of them remarked.
The Squad was in place the following morning. ‘The two men detailed for the actual job were standing about twenty-five yards from Connaught Street on the left side coming from the city. As he came within a few feet of them they stepped out on the roadway and let him have it. He was beaten across the street with gunfire. When the job was finished they made off towards the Cross Guns Bridge.’
A policeman on duty on the Phibsboro Road came running up to the spot with a pistol in his hand and gave chase as far as the bridge. There were a number of men outside a mill, and the policeman asked, ‘Why did you not stop them?’
‘Not bloody likely,’ one of the men replied. ‘Do you want us to get the same as the fellow got down there?’
‘The last I saw of Revell was when he was lying on his back on the road.’ The job was finished as far as O’Daly was concerned and he took off. Tom Keogh caught up with him. ‘These fellows will do a bit of crowing now,’ he said.
‘We were perfectly satisfied that Revell was dead, and we were mesmerised when we read in the paper that night that he had only been wounded,’ O’Daly noted. Vinny Byrne was particularly worried about an interview that Revell gave because he mentioned: ‘I would know one of them very well, as I had seen him the previous morning.’
‘Needless to say, we were disappointed that he was not finished off completely,’ Byrne noted. ‘It left me in the position that I could never be arrested after this, as Revell was in the castle and would identify me at any time.’
CHAPTER 9
‘WE ARE GOING TO HAVE SPORT NOW’
Prior to 1920 the British cabinet was too preoccupied with other problems to devote much attention to Ireland, but the need to do something about the deteriorating situation gradually dawned on Lloyd George and his colleagues. Giving the orange clique at Dublin Castle a virtual free hand had been disastrous. Far from reforming the RIC and the DMP, the police forces had only become more demoralised.
The general officer commanding in Ireland, Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Shaw, had advocated and secured cabinet approval for using British recruits to bolster the RIC back in October 1919. Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, the chief of the imperial general staff, has often mistakenly been credited with the idea, but he did support the new force. ‘The state of Ireland is terrible,’ Wilson noted in his diary on 13 January 1920 after a cabinet meeting. ‘I urge with all my force the necessity for doubling the police and not employing the military.’ Wilson’s impact was in reinforcing General Shaw’s initial intent of keeping the involvement of the British military to a minimum. Winston Churchill, the secretary of state for war, advocated raising the auxiliary division, a special force of 8,000 former soldiers to reinforce the RIC. Like Wilson he was proposing to bolster the RIC rather than involve the British army in Ireland. There was clear opposition from a military committee appointed by the cabinet under the chairmanship of General Sir Nevil Macready, the new general in charge of the British army in Ireland. The son of a famous Shakespearian actor, Macready had served in the First World War, before being appointed commissioner of the London police. He was then moved to Dublin, from whence one of his grandfathers had emigrated.
Churchill refined his pet scheme so that the new force consisted of two distinct elements – one, former enlisted men, and the other, former officers, who became known as auxiliaries. The enlisted men were so hastily recruited that they did not have proper uniforms, so they wore a blend of military khaki and the dark green uniforms of the RIC. They acquired the sobriquet Black and Tans. They made little or no pretence to be policemen. They were an irregular military force with little or no discipline. Some stole everything they could lay hands on, and as a force they committed terrible outrages, often against non-combatants.
The auxiliary division of the RIC was established with an initial intake of 500 men in July 1920. By November, 5,498 new recruits had bolstered the RIC. Those consisted of 4,501 Black and Tans and 997 auxiliaries. The auxiliaries were former officers from various branches of the service with the RIC rank of ‘temporary cadets’. Their number ultimately grew to about 1,500 men, in comparison with some 12,000 Black and Tans. The auxiliaries received £1 a day, ‘all found’, which was double the pay of the Tans.
The British set about a thorough spring-cleaning of the personnel in Dublin Castle. ‘Administration in Ireland is, I believe, as bad as it is possible for it to be,’ the lord lieutenant wrote to Bonar Law on 18 April. Hamar Greenwood, a Canadian, replaced Ian Macpherson as chief secretary of Ireland. From the outset, even before he had ever been to Ireland, the new chief secretary was determined to follow a hard-line policy. The cabinet secretary, Sir Maurice Hankey, noted in his diary on 30 April that Greenwood ‘talked the most awful tosh about shooting Sinn Féiners on sight, and without evidence, and frightfulness generally.’
There were calls for the removal of James MacMahon as undersecretary, but Sir Warren Fisher came out strongly against it, even though he characterised him as lacking initiative and driving force. Fisher wished to retain MacMahon as a kind of token Catholic. He warned that it would be impolitic to remove him as he could be a propaganda asset, while a more dynamic individual, such as Sir John Anderson, could be appointed as a joint under-secretary to carry out the more important duties. Anderson was duly appointed to the joint position with MacMahon, and Alfred Cope replaced John Taylor as assistant under-secretary. Mark Sturgis was also effectively an assistant under-secretary, but he was given the title of private secretary to Anderson instead. Taylor’s two unionist henchmen, W. J. Connolly and Maurice Headlam, were also removed. The new regime under Anderson was essentially moderate in comparison with the hard-line unionists surrounding Taylor. The new men all favoured the concept of dominion home rule for Ireland, and they were prepared to co-operate with more nationalist minded civil servants like William E. Wylie and Joseph Brennan. Unfortunately for them, it was too late: a dreadful evil had been allowed to develop and fester in the Irish body politic.
Éamon de Valera had wished to block the killing of policemen, but in his absence, Collins had been authorised to kill Detective Sergeant Patrick Smyth. Macpherson had retaliated by introducing policies which he knew would provoke war. Within a matter of months, under the influence of a rabid Irish unionist element, the British had introduced a policy which effectively amounted to counter murder to combat the policies of the IRA in general and Michael Collins in particular.
General Sir Nevil Macready became commander-in-chief of the British army in Ireland, and Major-General Henry Tudor was placed at the head of all the police forces. But there was always tension between them because Tudor did not insist on proper discipline from his forces. Forbes Redmond was not replaced as second assistant commissioner of the DMP, but the assistant commissioner, Fergus Quinn, was retired and replaced by Denis Barrett. General Sir Ormonde Winter, known as ‘O’, became chief of overall intelligence. Mark Sturgis described him as ‘a most amazing original’ because he was ‘clever as paint’ and was probably entirely without morals. ‘“O” is a marvel,’ he wrote, ‘he looks like a little white snake and can do everything!’
While Hamar Greenwood was advocating a militant policy against the IRA, the latter was planning to shoot him before he even set foot in Ireland. George Fitzgerald was sent to Sunderland to gather information which would help the IRA to kill Greenwood. Fitzgerald, who was born and had spent some time in the United States, met so
me of Greenwood’s people and got an invitation to hear him speak. He was afterwards introduced to the new chief secretary and his wife. ‘He gave me a pass to admit me to any other meetings that were to be held,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘I got all information possible about his cars, their numbers, etc., the number of bodyguards he had with him, where he was staying, etc … I came back to Dublin some ten days later, and handed in this information. This was before Greenwood had actually arrived in Ireland.’
Threatening letters similar to the one sent to Tomás MacCurtain were already being sent to prominent republicans. Through intercepted letters Collins realised the British were planning to exterminate certain republicans whose names were already listed, in the words of one British official, ‘for definite clearance’.
The British were clearly out of touch with the temper of the Irish people, as was evident from some of the ideas advocated at high level meetings in London during May 1920. When General Macready explained that he planned to take on the IRA with more mobile forces who would surprise rebel elements, Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, the chief of imperial general staff, dismissed Macready’s plan as useless. Wilson suggested instead that lists of hostages be issued. What was needed, he argued, was ‘to collect the names of Sinn Féiners by districts; proclaim them on church doors all over the country; and whenever a policeman is murdered, pick five by lot and shoot them! My view is that somehow or other terror must be met by greater terror.’
Hamar Greenwood told the cabinet the following week that ‘thugs’ were going about the country shooting people. ‘We are certain they are handsomely paid, that their money comes from the USA,’ he said. ‘The money is paid out to the murderers in public houses.’
‘It is monstrous that we have 200 murders and no one hung,’ the minister for war, Winston Churchill, complained. He even advocated that the British should behave in Ireland like the Bolsheviks were behaving in Russia. ‘After a person is caught he should pay the penalty within a week. Look at the tribunals, which the Russian government has devised. You should get three or four judges whose scope should be universal and they should move quickly over the country and do summary justice.’
‘You agreed six or seven months ago that there should be hanging,’ he said to Lloyd George.
‘I feel certain you must hang,’ the prime minister replied. ‘Can you get convictions from Catholics?’
‘There is no detective department in Ireland,’ General Macready complained. ‘We are at present in very much of a fog but are building up an intelligence system.’
‘The best secret service man we had,’ Walter Long said, referring to John C. Byrne (alias Jameson), ‘was shot near Glasnevin some time ago.’
‘We must try to get public opinion in Ireland in favour of bringing this state of things to an end,’ Lloyd George argued. ‘Increase their pecuniary burdens.’ He was in favour of intensifying economic pressure by compelling the people to pay for local damage in the form of rates and taxes. ‘There is nothing the farmers so dislike as the rates,’ he added. If they could be got to support the law, ‘then you could deal with the terror’.
‘The difficulty is that a large percentage of the adult population carries arms,’ Greenwood argued.
‘Why not make life intolerable in a particular area?’ Churchill asked. He went on to suggest ‘recruiting a special force’. He got his way and the elite force of 1,000 former officers known as auxiliaries was recruited.
In view of the way that Greenwood, Churchill and Macready were talking, not to mention the even more volatile Sir Henry Wilson, it was hardly surprising that the troops on the grounds were thinking on the same lines.
Between 3.45 and 4 p.m. on 1 June 1920 members of the Squad were involved with the local IRA in a daring daylight raid for arms on the sentry and guards at the King’s Inns, Dublin. There were some twenty-five to thirty soldiers at the post at the time. They had planned the operation for a fine sunny afternoon, reasoning that the soldiers would be out in the grounds at the back in the good weather.
‘Peadar Clancy was in charge of this operation, which was to be carried out by members of the Squad, assisted by some men from the first battalion,’ recalled Jim Slattery. ‘Joe Dolan was told to cover the sentries at the main entrance gate. When Keogh and I reached Dolan he was to hold up the sentry, which he did very slickly. Keogh and I then slipped into the guardroom smartly and held up the guard.’ The soldiers were caught by complete surprise and none of them had a weapon at hand. ‘The operation was carried out without any casualties and no shots were fired,’ Slattery continued. ‘The rifles were locked in racks and we had difficulty in getting the keys. The soldiers stated that they had not got the keys, but Keogh noticed one of them acting suspiciously, and ordered him to hand out the keys, which he did.
‘Captain Jimmy Kavanagh brought some of his Company in and collected the arms, which were loaded on a Ford car and driven away by David Golden,’ Slattery continued. ‘Keogh and myself travelled with him in the car.’ The haul consisted of thirteen rifles and a similar number of bayonets, as well as a Lewis machine gun.
Two weeks later members of the Squad went to County Wex-ford to kill District Inspector Percival Lea Wilson in Gorey on the afternoon of 15 August. Wilson had been a constable in Charle ville before joining the British army in 1915. He had served for a time in France and was in charge of the Rotunda Gardens while the republican prisoners were being held there following the Easter Rebellion. He became notorious for mistreating prisoners and had reportedly humiliated Tom Clarke and Seán MacDermott.
‘Tom Keogh, Pat McCrae, Tom Cullen and other Wicklow men were picked to carry out his execution,’ said Paddy O’Daly. ‘Men who knew the country were sent, because they would have to take to the hills.’
Dressed in civilian clothes, Wilson had been to the RIC barracks in Gorey and was walking to his home, which was about a quarter of a mile outside the town. He stopped at the railroad station at about 9.25 a.m. to purchase a copy of the Irish Times. He had been walking with Constable Alexander O’Donnell, but they had parted about 200 yards earlier.
Wilson was reading his newspaper as he walked so he may not have seen his assailants until the final moments. From the bloodstains and sounds it would seem that two shots were fired and that he went down but got up again and tried to run for about fifteen yards. There were bullet marks on the wall at the side of the footpath. He then went down again and was shot repeatedly on the ground. He died at the scene. Minutes earlier, while on his way to work, Joseph Gilbert, a grocer’s assistant, had noticed a car in the area. The bonnet was up and four men who he had not recognised were standing around the engine; there was another man in the car. After the shooting the car was seen going in the Ballycarnew direction.
Joe Sweeney happened to be in the bar of the Wicklow hotel that evening when Collins stomped in. ‘We got the bugger, Joe.’
‘What are you taking about?’
‘Do you remember that first night outside the Rotunda? Lea Wilson?’
‘I’ll never forget it.’
‘Well,’ said Collins, ‘we got him today in Gorey.’
If Collins had another reason for killing Lea Wilson, he might not have been able to tell Sweeney without compromising his source, but his remarks, the fact that there had been no rebel activity around Gorey,* and the fact that the Squad was sent to County Wexford to carry out the hit, seem to suggest that it was in revenge for what happened outside the Rotunda on the evening in 1916.
However, Paddy O’Daly had a different opinion. ‘Captain Lea Wilson was not shot because he had ill-treated Seán McDermott and other prisoners in 1916, because there were other British officers just as bad as he had been and no attempt was made to shoot them,’ O’Daly argued. ‘I believe he was shot because of the position he held at the time, and for no other reason. I am satisfied from my long experience with the Squad that no man was shot merely for revenge and that any execution sanctioned by Michael Collins was perfectly justified.’
‘This is martial law,’ the army officer said. ‘We are in command and you must get out.’
When Winters did not comply, the officer called on two soldiers to put him out. As he was leaving, O’Daly’s four-year old daughter called Winters ‘a traitor’ and he pushed her to the ground. Enraged, the officer ordered his men to throw Winters outside the gate.
Somebody told Collins that O’Daly was going to kill Winters, who still lived near him. ‘What is this I hear about you going to shoot Winters?’ Collins asked him.
‘That is the first I heard of it,’ O’Daly replied. ‘I think it is a joke.’
‘That is too serious to be a joke.’
‘As far as I was concerned, it was a joke,’ O’Daly explained. ‘The thought of killing Winters had never entered my head.’
‘Collins gave me a lecture on revenge and told me that the man who had revenge in his heart was not fit to be a Volunteer,’ Daly continued.*
As part of the British reorganisation, police around the country were being reassigned. Most of the eighteen men stationed in Listowel were being transferred to other stations and replaced by a much larger number of Black and Tans. Only three would remain, essentially to act as local guides for the new men. This led to uproar and the men resisted the move. The new divisional commissioner for Munster, Gerald Brice Ferguson Smyth, went to Listowel to explain the situation. He was accompanied by Major-General Henry H. Tudor, who was in charge of the Black and Tans and the RIC.
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