Irish Republican Army unit during the Irish War of Independence
This article is about the Irish Republican Army unit. For the nine progressive members of the United States House of Representatives, see The Squad (United States Congress).
On 10 April 1919, the First Dáil announced a policy of ostracism of Royal Irish Constabulary men. At the time Sinn Féin official policy was against acts of violence. Boycotting, persuasion and mild intimidation succeeded against many officers. However others escalated their activities against republicans and in March 1920 Collins asked Dick McKee to select a small group to form an assassination unit.[3]
Members
Liam Tobin at the funeral of Michael Collins in 1922
When the Squad was formed, it came directly under the control of the Director of Intelligence or his deputy and under no other authority. The Squad was commanded by Mick McDonnell.[4]
The original "Twelve Apostles" were Mick McDonnell, Tom Keogh, Paddy McCrea,Jimmy Slattery, Paddy Daly, Joe Leonard, Ben Barrett, Vincent Byrne, Sean Doyle, Paddy Griffin, Eddie Byrne, Mick Reilly and Jimmy Conroy. After some time The Squad was strengthened by the following members: Ben Byrne, Frank Bolster, Mick Keogh, Mick Kennedy, Bill Stapleton and Sam Robinson. Owen Cullen (a member of 2nd Battalion) was driver for a short time, and Paddy Kelly of County Clare for a short time. They were employed full-time and received a weekly wage.[4][5][6]
Sometimes, as occasion demanded, the Squad was strengthened by members of the IRA Intelligence Staff, the Active Service Unit, munition workers and members of the Dublin Brigade, Tipperary Flying Column men, Dan Breen, Séumas Robinson, Seán Treacy and Seán Hogan, and also Mick Brennan and Michael Prendergast of County Clare. The IRA Intelligence Staff consisted of the Director of Intelligence Michael Collins, the Deputy Director of Intelligence Liam Tobin, the Second Deputy Director of Intelligence Tom Cullen, the Third Director of Intelligence Frank Thornton, and members Joe Dolan, Frank Saurin, Ned Kelleher, Joe Guilfoyle, Paddy Caldwell, Paddy Kennedy, Charlie Dalton, Dan McDonnell and Charlie Byrne. The munitions workers included Mat Furlong, Sean Sullivan, Gay McGrath, Martin O'Kelly, Tom Younge and Chris Reilly.[4]
Other members included Mick Love, Gearoid O'Sullivan, Patrick Caldwell, Charlie Dalton, Mick O'Reilly, Vincent Byrne, Sean Healy, James Ronan, Tom Keogh, Tom Cullen, Paddy Lawson, John Dunne and Johnny Wilson, James Heery. Seán Lemass and Stephen Behan (the father of Irish writers Brendan and Dominic Behan) have also been listed as members of the Apostles. There is no hard evidence to support the inclusion of many of the names, but those who subsequently served in the Irish Army have their active service recorded in their service records held in the Military Archives Department in Cathal Brugha Barracks, Rathmines. Andy Cooney is also reported to have been associated with the Squad. Stephen Behan's involvement was first made public in 1962, when the BBC broadcast an episode of This Is Your Life dedicated to Behan. During the broadcast, remaining members of the Squad joined Behan on the set of the show.
Assassinations
On 30 July 1919, the first assassination authorised by Michael Collins was carried out when Detective Sergeant "the Dog" Smith was shot near Drumcondra, Dublin.[5] The Squad continued to target plainclothes police, members of the G Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, and—occasionally—problematic civil servants. Organisationally it operated as a subsection of Collins's Intelligence Headquarters. Two of the executions by the Squad were the killing on 21 January 1920 of RIC Inspector William Redmond of the G Division[7] and on 2 March 1920 of a British double agent John Charles Byrnes.[8]
Bloody Sunday
One of the Apostles' particular targets was the Cairo Gang, a deep-cover British intelligence group, so called since it had either been largely assembled from intelligence officers serving in Cairo or from the Dublin restaurant called the Cairo, which the gang frequented. Sir Henry Wilson brought in the Cairo Gang in the middle of 1920 explicitly to deal with Michael Collins and his organisation. Given carte blanche in its operations by Wilson, the Cairo Gang adopted the strategy of assassinating members of Sinn Féin unconnected with the military struggle, assuming that this would cause the IRA to respond and bring its leaders into the open.
The best-known operation executed by the Apostles occurred on what became known as Bloody Sunday, 21 November 1920, when British MI5 officers, linked to the Cairo Gang and significantly involved in spying, were shot at various locations in Dublin (14 were killed, six were wounded). In addition to the "Twelve Apostles", a larger number of IRA personnel were involved in this operation. The only IRA man captured during the operation was Frank Teeling. In response to the killings, the Auxiliaries retaliated by shooting up a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary at Croke Park, the proceeds from which were for the Irish Republican Prisoners Fund, killing 14 civilians including one of the players, Michael Hogan, and wounding 68. The Hogan stand at Croke Park is named after him.
The elimination of the Cairo Gang was seen in Dublin as an intelligence victory, but Lloyd George commented dismissively that his men "... got what they deserved, beaten by counter-jumpers...". Winston Churchill added that they were ".. careless fellows ... who ought to have taken precautions".[9]
Some Squad members were hanged in 1921 for the killings on Bloody Sunday, including Thomas Whelan and Patrick Moran. Moran had killed a World War I veteran, Patrick MacCormack, who seems to have been an innocent victim.
In May 1921, after the IRA's Dublin Brigade took heavy casualties during the burning of the Custom House, the Squad and the Brigade's "Active Service Unit" were amalgamated into the Dublin Guard, under Paddy Daly. Under the influence of Daly and Michael Collins, most of the Guard took the Free State side and joined the National Army in the Irish Civil War of 1922–23. During this conflict some of them were attached to the Criminal Investigation Department and were accused of multiple assassination of Anti-Treaty fighters. They were also involved in several atrocities against Republican prisoners, particularly after the death of Michael Collins, due to many of them having personal ties with him.
Later years
Bill Stapleton went on to become a director of Bord na Móna, while Charles Dalton and Frank Saurin became directors of the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake. Dalton was the subject of an article by Kevin Myers; Myers questioned Dalton living in Morehampton Road in 1940, but did not research his article enough to mention that Dalton was a director of the Sweepstakes at the time. In October 1923, Commandant James Conroy was implicated in the murder of two Jewish men, Bernard Goldberg and Emmanuel 'Ernest' Kah[a]n. He avoided arrest by fleeing to Mexico, returning later to join the Blueshirts. [10] A later application for an army pension was rejected. The killings were the subject of a 2010 investigative documentary by RTÉ; CSÍ: Murder in Little Jerusalem.[11]
Related Research Articles
The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary paramilitary organisation. The ancestor of many groups also known as the Irish Republican Army, and distinguished from them as the "Old IRA", it was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916. In 1919, the Irish Republic that had been proclaimed during the Easter Rising was formally established by an elected assembly, and the Irish Volunteers were recognised by Dáil Éireann as its legitimate army. Thereafter, the IRA waged a guerrilla campaign against the British occupation of Ireland in the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence.
Michael Collins was an Irish revolutionary, soldier and politician who was a leading figure in the early-20th century struggle for Irish independence. During the War of Independence he was Director of Intelligence of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a government minister of the self-declared Irish Republic. He was then Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State from January 1922 and commander-in-chief of the National Army from July until his death in an ambush in August 1922, during the Civil War.
Bloody Sunday was a day of violence in Dublin on 21 November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. More than 30 people were killed or fatally wounded.
The Cairo Gang was a group of British military intelligence agents who were sent to Dublin during the Irish War of Independence to identify prominent members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) with, according to information gathered by the IRA Intelligence Department (IRAID), the intention of disrupting the IRA by assassination. Originally commanded by British Army General Gerald Boyd, they were known officially as the Dublin District Special Branch (DDSB) and also as D Branch.
The Dublin Guard was a unit of the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and then of the Irish National Army in the ensuing Civil War.
This is a timeline of the Irish War of Independence of 1919–21. The Irish War of Independence was a guerrilla conflict and most of the fighting was conducted on a small scale by the standards of conventional warfare.
Richard "Dick" McKee was a prominent member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). He was also friend to some senior members in the republican movement, including Éamon de Valera, Austin Stack and Michael Collins. Along with Peadar Clancy and Conor Clune, he was killed by his captors in Dublin Castle on Sunday, 21 November 1920, a day known as Bloody Sunday that also saw the killing of a network of British intelligence agents by the "Squad" unit of the Irish Republican Army and the killing of 14 people in Croke Park by the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).
David Neligan, known by his soubriquet "The Spy in the Castle", was a crucial figure involved in the Irish War of Independence (1919–21) and subsequently became Director of Intelligence for the Irish Army after the Irish Civil War (1922–23).
Seán Allis Treacy was one of the leaders of the Third Tipperary Brigade of the IRA during the Irish War of Independence and one of a small group whose actions initiated that conflict in 1919. He was killed in October 1920, on Talbot Street in Dublin in a shootout with British troops during an aborted British Secret Service surveillance operation.
Paddy Daly (1888–1957) sometimes referred to as Paddy O'Daly, served in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and subsequently held the rank of major-general in the Irish National Army from 1922 to 1924.
Brigadier-General Sir Ormonde de l'Épée Winter, KBE, CB, CMG, DSO, was a British Army officer and author who, after service in the First World War, was responsible for intelligence operations in Ireland during the Anglo-Irish War. He later joined the British Fascists and fought for the Finnish Army in the Winter War.
Francis Theophilius Brooke PC, JP, DL was an Anglo-Irish Director of Dublin and South Eastern Railways and a member of the Earl of Ypres' Advisory Council. He was gunned down, aged 69, by elements of Michael Collins squad of the IRA. He was marked out for his activities as a judge, anti-republican activities, and his friendship with Sir John French. As an Irish Privy Counsellor, Brooke was a signatory of the order proclaiming Dáil Éireann illegal.
Liam Tobin was an officer in the Irish Army and the instigator of an Irish Army Mutiny in March 1924. During the Irish War of Independence, he served as an IRA intelligence officer for Michael Collins' Squad.
Peadar Clancy was an Irish republican who served with the Irish Volunteers in the Four Courts garrison during the 1916 Easter Rising and was second-in-command of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the War of Independence. Along with Dick McKee and Conor Clune, he was shot dead by his guards while under detention in Dublin Castle on the eve of Sunday, 21 November 1920, a day known as Bloody Sunday that also saw the killing of a network of British intelligence agents by the Squad unit of the Irish Republican Army and the killing of 14 people in Croke Park by the Royal Irish Constabulary.
Conor Clune was one of three men along with Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy killed in controversial circumstances in Dublin Castle on Bloody Sunday, 1920, a day that also saw the killing of a network of British intelligence agents by the "Squad" unit of the Irish Republican Army and the killing of 14 people in Croke Park by the Royal Irish Constabulary. Clune was 27 years old.
James Emmet Dalton MC was an Irish soldier and film producer. He served in the British Army in the First World War, reaching the rank of captain. However, on his return to Ireland he became one of the senior figures in the Dublin Brigade of the guerrilla Irish Republican Army which fought against British rule in Ireland.
G (detective) Division was a plainclothes divisional office of the Dublin Metropolitan Police concerned with detective police work. Divisions A to F of the DMP were uniformed sections responsible for particular districts of the city.
Tom Cullen was an Irish republican active in the Irish revolutionary period.
Peter Ashmun Ames was an American British Army intelligence officer and member of the Cairo Gang who was assassinated by the Irish Republican Army.
References
↑ Neligan, David (1968), The Spy in the Castle, MacGibbon & Kee, London, pg 179, SBN 261.62060.6
↑ O'Farrell, Padraic (1997). Who's who in the Irish War of Independence. The Lilliput Press. p. 99. ISBN 1 874675 85 6.
↑ "CSÍ: Murder in Little Jerusalem" (in Irish and English). RTÉ Factual. 11 October 2010. pp.25 mins. Archived from the original on 20 August 2011. Retrieved 14 October 2010. – Note: Limited availability
Bibliography
The Squad and the Intelligence Operations of Michael Collins T. Ryle Dwyer
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