Authors: T. Ryle Dwyer
Before being invited to rejoin, Neligan was interviewed by the inspector general, Colonel Walter Edworth-Johnson, who asked him about conditions in the country. ‘I told him the truth, which was unpalatable to him,’ Neligan explained. ‘Of course he knew the state of affairs himself, better than I did.’ He offered Neligan any division he desired. ‘I replied that G Division would suit me,’ Neligan noted. ‘He agreed.’ Hence Neligan went back as a detective working on political crime – the classic double agent. His initial task was protecting Thomas O’Shaughnessy, the recorder of Dublin. Dan McDonnell was Neligan’s handler, carrying messages from him back to intelligence headquarters.
Each of the G Division detectives kept a journal in which he entered the names of suspects that he had seen that day. Neligan and McNamara used to check the journals of the detectives based in Dublin Castle and note information that would be of interest to the IRA. ‘We used to convey this information to Collins which served as a warning to those political suspects to watch themselves, that they were being seen by the police or under observation with a view to being picked up later,’ Neligan explained.
Collins got further information by recruiting Willie Beaumont, a British army officer who happened to be from Dublin and whose brother, Seán, was a Sinn Féin supporter. Willie Beaumont said openly on a number of occasions that he was going to capture Collins to earn a £20,000 reward. Collins had Seán Beaumont arrange a meeting with his brother.
‘Tom Cullen and I were present at the interview,’ Frank Thornton noted. After a long discussion, Collins revealed himself.
‘I am the fellow that is worth £20,000,’ he said.
Collins was not taking a huge chance in revealing himself to Beaumont as he knew that Beaumont was already supplying information to them. Dan O’Donovan, who worked for the finance department under Michael Collins, was receiving the information and passing it on to Collins. The Big Fellow, however, resented O’Donovan’s interference in intelligence matters.
Beaumont’s involvement stemmed from the night he was on a tram that was stopped and searched by auxiliaries. They found a notebook on him that he had kept while serving with the Dublin Fusiliers in France, and they gave him a bit of a hard time until one of the auxiliaries who had been in some of the same places in France realised that he was telling the truth. Beaumont was indignant about the way that he and the other passengers had been treated.
‘He said to me that, if I got him a gun, he would shoot some of the auxiliaries,’ Seán Beaumont recalled. ‘I suggested to him that he should cultivate their acquaintance and pass on any information that he might get to me.’
And so Willie Beaumont began associating with the auxiliaries, going drinking with them at night and then giving the details to Seán when he got home. Seán would write down this information and pass it on to O’Donovan, who passed it on to Collins. Thus Collins knew that Willie Beaumont was disillusioned with the British before he sought to enlist his help.
Collins also enlisted the help of others. Constable Maurice Ahern from west Limerick was stationed at the Bridewell. He helped a Volunteer one night by getting the station sergeant to threaten the British military personnel responsible if they did not bring back a prisoner named Guilfoyle.
‘The officer in charge of the military said that it was none of our business, that he was their prisoner, but we told him that if he was not brought back to the Bridewell we would report the fact [to the police],’ Ahern explained. ‘The military returned with their prisoner to the Bridewell about 4 a.m. I had a chat then with Guilfoyle who told me that he was brought to the Milltown Golf Links and put on his knees there, but added that he gave them no information. He heard a discussion between the officers regarding the attitude taken up by the policeman before he was taken from the Bridewell and he believed that the action of the Sergeant and Constable were responsible for saving his life.’
‘It must have been as a result of this,’ Ahern added, ‘that Constable Matt Byrne called me one day and told me he, himself, was very prominently identified with the Volunteer Movement at the time and that he was in touch with Michael Collins and others. He asked me if I could get into the Movement and give all the information and help I could. I said I would be delighted to give all the assistance and information that might be of use to them which would come my way.
‘I remember one particular occasion a British party coming down and the officer in charge saying to me, “Paddy, we are going to raid a couple of houses in the locality tonight. Do you know where Frankfort Avenue is?” I said I did. His next question was: “Do you know McGee’s shop?” I said I did. I may mention that this time I knew from Collins’ staff where certain wanted men would be residing. This information was given to me so that if I knew beforehand the places where these men were residing were about to be raided I could convey the information to those concerned prior to the raids. When the British officer asked me if I knew where McGee’s shop was, it occurred to me that J. J. Walsh was the man they were going to raid for, as I knew him to stay there occasionally. The British officer said to me: “Paddy, come along and show me where these places are.” I said to him, “Do you mind delaying, sir, for about a quarter of an hour until I get a cup of tea,” and he said, “Certainly not, come to the Station Sergeant’s office when you are ready.”’
Ahern used the time to warn the people at McGee’s of the impending raid. Then, of course, when the raid took place, nobody of interest to the raiding party was caught.
Ahern went with Constable Byrne to Julia O’Donovan’s house one night in Rathgar Avenue, where they met Constable Culhane. They were asked to recruit more. ‘I went to Fitzgibbon Street Station and there got in touch with Constable Terence O’Reilly,’ Ahern said. ‘I put the matter to him as it had been represented to us at the meeting in O’Donovan’s house, and he agreed to come in.’
Collins came to O’Donovan’s another night, along with Gearóid O’Sullivan, J. J. O’Connell from IRA headquarters and Ned Broy. They had a lengthy discussion about compiling intelligence reports on enemy activities and getting some more policemen to provide information on undercover agents being brought in from Britain. ‘Collins addressed us that night and told us he appreciated very much all we were doing.’ He added that he still felt that he could rely on them to get more reliable men who were serving in the DMP to come over to their side.
They proceeded to enlist the help of others – Constables John Neary at Kevin Street, Peter Feely at Kingston, P. O’Sullivan at Fitzgibbon Street, Paddy McEvoy, Mick O’Dea and Sergeant Patrick Mannix at Donnybrook. Those were just some of the police who helped to compile information on undercover agents and helped to frustrate their activities.
‘I secured information as to where raids were to take place when stationed in Donnybrook,’ Sergeant Mannix recalled. ‘I was on several occasions detailed for duty at the Show Grounds, Balls bridge, and, subsequently, had to accompany British Officers from the Show Grounds who were engaged in searching houses in the Donnybrook area. On a few occasions while accompanying the search parties, I saved the lives of men who were found in the houses that were being searched, as I informed the officers in charge that those men were law abiding citizens, although in each case they were much wanted men. The officer, relying on my information, then withdrew and the men got safely away.’
This happened a number of times. On one occasion a volunteer named Burke escaped as the raid was about to begin, but he was spotted next day by a secret service agent named Pat Killeen who informed Donnybrook Station that Burke would be at the address that night. Mannix informed friends of Burke to stay away that night. ‘This man escaped last night but he won’t escape to night,’ the officer declared as they left Donnybrook station. Mannix took this to mean that the officer was going to shoot the man on the spot, but, of course, he was not there.
Some of the touts that the British brought in were English people who were really of little use to them. Dave Neligan asked Cullen and Thornton to meet him and some of the touts one night at the Rabbiatti Saloon in Marlborough Street. ‘I found ourselves with three of these touts sitting around a table having fish and chips,’ Thornton remembered.
‘Blimey,’ one of them said to Thornton, ‘how did you learn the Irish brogue? We’re here in Dublin for the last twelve months and we can’t pick up any of it, yet you fellows seem to have it perfected.’ These imported touts were not of much use to the British, but there was a lot of information the IRA intelligence could pick up from them.
* Collins also traced Head Constable John Patrick Ferris to Belfast. He was another of those suspected of involvement in the MacCurtain killing. Headquarters in Dublin warned that ‘this operation would have to be very carefully organised because Ferris seems to have a charmed life,’ said McCorley. ‘One or two previous attempts had been made on him and he came out of all of them unscathed,’ he added.
Ferris was shot at point blank range in Cavendish Street in the Falls Road after leaving St Paul’s presbytery. He was hit in the neck and the hip. ‘We left him perfectly satisfied that the execution had been carried out. To our astonishment, although he was seriously wounded, he recovered,’ McCorley lamented.
At a few minutes after 7 a.m. on 15 July 1920 a post office official was on the platform of the back entrance of the Rotunda sorting office when he noticed four civilians walking quickly towards him. They produced revolvers and ordered him to put up his hands. They ordered everyone inside and Oscar Traynor, along with some twenty men, descended through a mail shoot. All were armed with revolvers.
‘I at once made my way to the office in which I had been informed the emergency telephone was situated,’ Traynor said. ‘We took possession of the phone, the room and its occupants.’ All of the postmen stopped working and gathered to watch what was going on. The postmen were, on the whole, favourably disposed towards the raiders.
The operation was undertaken primarily by the second battalion of the Dublin brigade under Traynor, but one of those involved was Joe Dolan of the intelligence headquarters staff, as well as Charlie Dalton who joined the headquarters staff immediately after the raid. The whole thing was arranged with inside help from the sorting office, where the three main agents were Pat Moynihan, Liam Archer and Dermot O’Sullivan. Moynihan, who was known as ‘118’, provided a map of the layout of the Rink, identifying the sector where the Dublin Castle mail was sorted. A few of the men went straight to the compartment known as the ‘State Office’ which was where the official correspondence for the various Dublin departments was sorted in four or five bags. These bags were passed out to a car, and the driver then took off slowly so as not to attract any attention.
Ever since the Squad had held up the mail van on 3 March, Dublin Castle mail was collected at about 8 a.m. by an armoured car, but on the morning of 15 July the IRA made off with the mail before the armoured car arrived. ‘The raiders apparently were thoroughly familiar with every department and carried out their plans in an expert and thorough fashion,’ the
Irish Times
reported.
‘After the raid I went off to my job, and while I was there Mick Collins sent word to me to tell me that I had been identified,’ Traynor continued. ‘Collins said I had been identified by a postman who was an English Jew.’ The man had possibly recognised Traynor through his involvement in football, and had told some other postmen that he recognised the leader of the operation. Word was promptly sent to Collins.
‘Mick said that if I thought it necessary to get away from work to do so, but he said that he was taking the necessary steps to see that this fellow did not talk any more about it. A couple of fellows were sent to talk to this Cockney Jew, and they told him that if he did not keep his mouth shut they would have it shut permanently. That put the wind up the fellow, and I think he left the country.’
A couple of days later Lord French received mail at the viceregal lodge with a notice stamped on it: ‘Opened and censored by the Irish republic’. The letters that the intelligence people did not have any use for had simply been resealed and dropped in an ordinary post box.
In the era before direct dialing the telephone system was notoriously insecure and the mail provided the safest means of communication, other than direct personal contact. For people being planted as undercover agents or for people passing on information to the authorities direct personal contact was too risky. The seizure of the mail bound for Dublin Castle in February and again in July proved an invaluable source of information. Thereafter the IRA held up trains and raided the mail carriages. This not only provided a source of intelligence on communications between Dublin Castle and the local authorities, but the seizure of letters to the RIC frequently uncovered local people who were passing on information. Thus the raids, which became a near daily occurrence from Donegal to Kerry, became a deterrent to people using the mail to inform the police.
With the mounting number of agents, Collins also had to increase his intelligence staff around this time. One of his new men was Dan McDonnell, a sturdy Dubliner with a thick mop of red hair. ‘I was invited to become a member of the intelligence staff,’ McDonnell explained. He was interviewed by Tobin and Cullen and given the code number 101. ‘When I had any written report to make, which was rarely, I just signed it “101”,’ he explained. ‘My first assignment was to go to Leeson Street at 9 o’clock on a Monday morning and to report on all British personnel, whether in cars or on foot, that passed up Leeson Street Bridge. Along came three or four staff cars with staff officers, etc., and with brass hats, red bands, etc. I did this morning after morning. At the same time another member of our staff had been detailed to watch these following from another place, and what we saw, between us, tallied. Nothing that I know of was done in these particular cases.