Decoding the IRA (22 page)

Figure 17. Report from the IRA's department of intelligence to the chief of staff:

 

Waterford was the only Munster county which had seen little fighting
during the Anglo-Irish War. In 1926 Twomey wrote to the local battalion OC: ‘I am indeed extremely disappointed at the report on your area sent by the officer [from GHQ] who recently attempted to inspect it. So far as I can learn from him, you had no arrangements made for the holding of parades and he made many fruitless journeys. Did I not give you ample notice of the inspection? I cannot accept any excuse as to why proper arrangements were not made. This officer had other work to do, besides wasting his time in your unit. I feel that this matter is so important that I have instructed another officer to report to you in the near future. You must see to it that this officer is able to inspect every single area. You will facilitate him in every way. See that he is billeted in friendly houses as he has very little cash.' Twomey added that the inspecting officer
‘will report to (the) Metropole Hotel and give the name of “Whitmore”. Leave word, as to how he will get in touch with you, at once.'
³¹

Offaly

County Offaly failed to distinguish itself during the war against the British. Richard Mulcahy, IRA chief of staff at the time, was highly critical of the brigade's inactivity and an inspector from GHQ reported that: ‘[The] enemy has contempt for the [Offaly 2] Brigade in general.'
³²

By 1926 the Offaly brigade claimed a membership of 216 (making it one of the largest of the IRA units).
³³
At the April 1927 officers' meeting in Dublin its OC sided with the IRA militants, stating that ‘he had no faith in politicians' and that republicans who stood for election were ‘deserters of principle'. Not surprisingly he was one of the minority who voted against the proposed republican election pact.
³⁴

During the barrack raids of November 1926 the brigade again managed to avoid action but the unit's first staff officer came up with an alternative proposal to GHQ. Writing in an awkward style, he suggested:
‘In this area's case, however, I have certain incumbent action otherwise, to be executed here
[
sic
].
Action, which if carried out, universally will strike terror into the hearts of our opponents. There are ten men in this area – who come under the category of spies, baillifs [
sic
], sheriff, and judiciary – to be shot here. Will you acquiesce in making a General Order in this direction, for Friday night the 3rd [of December]
[ap]prox. between the hours of 7 and 10 o'clock? Signed, 1st Staff Officer, Offaly Area.'
³⁵

Two weeks later the staff officer sent details to the chief of staff of some of these ‘notorious spies'. A national school teacher from Daingean, by the name of McInerney, showed his British sympathies by wearing a poppy on Remembrance Day and selling poppies at the school. He was reported to carry a revolver and to regularly drop into the local garda barracks. At the time of the barrack raids he was quoted as saying that if the IRA attacked the barracks, they should be let in and then murdered by the gardaí, though the IRA staff officer didn't elaborate as to how the unarmed gardaí would accomplish this.

John Lennon from Tullamore was an IRA officer arrested by the gardaí for selling poteen. To be treated leniently, he and his brother allegedly offered to inform for the gardaí and to give information on the whereabouts of IRA weapons. The staff officer said that Lennon's brother then asked to meet him. Knowing it was a trap, the officer didn't attend the proposed rendezvous and Special Branch officers were later seen at the meeting place searching for him.

John Campbell of Rahan had been dismissed from the IRA during the Civil War for signing a written undertaking not to engage in future armed activities against the state. He went on to work as a paid informer for the Special Branch and tried to recruit other IRA members. On one occasion the gardaí raided an IRA house looking for a secret room which was used to store weapons. Campbell was suspected of having given the information to the gardaí, as he was said to be the only one outside of the household who knew of the existence of the room. The gardaí also uncovered some weapons in the area and for this Campbell received £30. In this case the IRA's informant was reported to have been a brother in a religious order who was related to a garda chief superintendent.

John Rigney was a ‘scoundrel' and an officer in the Free State army whose family betrayed two IRA men who sought refuge at their home during the Civil War. The men were soon arrested and later executed. It was said that ‘Rigney and a party of military feasted the evening of the arrest at his house in apparent jubilation for the capture.'

The final ‘spy' listed was Major General Prout, who had been a senior
divisional commander of the Free State's national army during the Civil War. He fought in the Tipperary/Waterford region where his troops were regarded as undisciplined and frequently drunk and he himself was accused of being weak and incompetent. Towards the end of the war in April 1923 his soldiers killed Liam Lynch and arrested several leading IRA officers.

Figure 18. The chief of staff wrote to the Offaly brigade seeking to thwart the unit's plan to shoot several suspected ‘spies'. Moss Twomey was in prison at the time and therefore Andy Cooney may have been the author. It was written in 1926, and not 1923.

 

The IRA staff officer sought to justify these intended killings by disingenuously comparing them to Michael Collins' execution of (actual)
British intelligence agents during the Anglo-Irish War: ‘I am sure you will agree with me when I state that it was the annihilation of the spies which brought about the consolidation of our position in the old days. Similar action to my mind is again incumbent on our part.'
³⁶

Fortunately GHQ didn't share the Offaly officer's enthusiasm and a despatch was sent from headquarters (likely written by Andy Cooney):
‘The operation you suggest requires more consideration, before sanction for its execution could be granted. Permission cannot at present be given.'
³⁷
Headquarters followed this up with a letter asking:
‘Are you able to carry out the annihilation of all known spies? If so, is your brigade in a position to look after the men, who may have to go on the run? GHQ cannot give any assistance whatever, not having any money.'
GHQ offered a much more practical solution:
‘The best action to be taken against those agents is publicity. [Placing] prominent notices in conspicuous places and tying them to chapel gates will render their usefulness as spies worthless.'
³⁸
This despatch appears to have finally put the matter to rest.

Connaught

Overall the IRA in Connaught was weak and largely inactive. Nominally Mayo had a large IRA contingent, though it went into rapid decline and from 1926 to 1930 the membership of the Claremorris brigade declined from 227 to 40.
³⁹

In September 1926 the OC of the Connemara battalion spent three days inspecting the South Galway brigade and reported: ‘[I] found the area so badly disorganised that I could not find a single officer who could exactly tell me what rank he held.' He was unable to find any member of the brigade staff. But eventually ‘after much trouble and searching' came across one of the ‘old veterans',
‘Packie Ruane'
of Menlough who agreed to summon a meeting of the officers (if required) and to reply to despatches from GHQ. Letters for Ruane were to be sent via a covering address —
‘Michael Crehan, Menlough, Ballinasloe'
— from where they'd be forwarded to Ruane.
⁴⁰
When Moss Twomey later visited the area he arranged to meet the brigade's officers at Turley's pub in Newbridge, where ‘everybody in it [is] alright'.
⁴¹
Unfortunately for the IRA
Packie Ruane eventually went the way of many other IRA veterans and was appointed chairman of the local Fianna Fáil cumann.
⁴²

There were two IRA brigades in Mayo, the North Mayo brigade with a reported 520 members and in the south the Claremorris brigade with 227.
⁴³
As with all IRA units these numbers were largely imaginary. Both brigades were badly demoralised by the exodus of volunteers, many of whom either emigrated or joined Fianna Fáil. In June 1927 a grand total of seven members defied GHQ by standing as candidates in the general election, and four were elected – three for Fianna Fáil and one for Sinn Féin. Michael Kilroy, who was the most prominent IRA commander from the county and was a member of the Army Executive, was among those elected for Fianna Fáil.
⁴⁴
Kilroy was later ‘dismissed' from the brigade.
⁴⁵
Needless to say it was unlikely that those who remained were the cream of the crop.

The plight of
Michael Kitterick
illustrates the situation many volunteers, particularly those from the poorer counties of the west, now found themselves in. The North Mayo brigade headquarters recommended to GHQ that the IRA should employ him as a weapons instructor. This offer seemed primarily motivated by a desire to help out an unemployed comrade. Kitterick was an ‘unattached' officer, meaning that he was no longer active. He was ‘very intelligent and extremely enthusiastic about Army affairs'. Following his release from prison in 1924 (and due to his association with the IRA) he was unable to find ‘casual employment' locally and emigrated to Liverpool, but not finding a job there either he soon returned to Mayo. Kitterick had fought for the IRA in both the Anglo-Irish War and the Civil War and had no civilian vocational skills, though he was able to instruct in ‘general organisation and advanced infantry training' and was a
‘qualified trainer … [for the] Vickers [and] Lewis [machine guns] and [the] Stokes trench mortar'
.
⁴⁶
While the IRA was known to possess a number of these machine guns, they had few if any Stokes mortars. However, being a relatively portable weapon, capable of firing an eleven-pound shell 800 yards every two seconds, it had the potential to be devastatingly effective if used by a properly trained and equipped IRA.
⁴⁷
This was the sort of weapon that Twomey, as chief of staff, should have tried to acquire!

Northern Ireland

In 1926 the IRA had 517 members in the six counties of Northern Ireland, with 242 volunteers attached to the Belfast battalion alone. Remarkably this number remained stable in 1930, though the total membership of the IRA declined significantly.
⁴⁸
This was likely a testament to the
de facto
dis-enfranchisement and marginalisation of the Catholic nationalist minority in the north rather than any organisational skills of the IRA.