This Monday is the anniversary of "Bloody Sunday", 21st November 1920.
This post isn't about the rights or wrongs of what Michael Collins was getting up to in Dublin in those far off days right after the First World war. Rather, it's just information I've gathered from a number of sources, with regard to a Sunday morning that started murderously and the days that followed.
I've only just started writing this up and I will go back and edit the posts I publish, I'm sure. It's very hard to write with the tone of voice I would use in the pub, late at night, when everyone's relaxed and in the mood for a story. So just pretend that's where you are...
Back then, a small handful of Irish people were plotting ways of attacking the British government in Ireland in order to provoke them into excessive retaliation that could be used against them. In addition, a daily propaganda sheet was mailed out to every newspaper editor and MP in England (forerunner of blogs?). Each envelope had to be mailed from a different post box as the British were scanning the mails in order to halt the flow of this information. When I walk around Dublin now, I see the old mailboxes and think "that one too".
The British government consulted with senior military officials who recommended forming a new intelligence service, made up of unemployed ex army officers. Their remit would be to track down, arrest and interrogate the key members of the Irish rebels, including the proscribed Dail members and the Irish "Republican army" that conducted ambushes and acts of destruction.
This new intelligence service is sometimes referred to as the 'Cairo Gang' in history books. This is usually attributed to the Cairo conference in 1921 or a cafe called the Cairo cafe that some of the secret service guys hung out in. But I think it's more straightforward than that.
During the First World War the British set up their Intelligence operations in Cairo. When the war ended, and a lot of those guys were out of work, they applied for and got jobs doing undercover work in Ireland. And the Irish guys who had been in the British Army during the war knew this and knew where these guys had come from.
There were many unemployed ex army officers in London so recruiting volunteers for undercover work in Dublin would not have been difficult. What is hard to understand is how the British military thought they could achieve any success in a town that, then as now, is small and friendly, with everyone looking out to see if they know you, or are related to you.
A group of men were sent over, some with links to Ireland, like Terrence Langrishe, ex Irish Guards and heir of Sir Hercules Langrishe, Baronet, of Knocktopher Abbey, co. Kilkenny. His good friend Peter Aimes, an ex Grenadier guard who gave his home address as New Jersey, was one of the leaders of this 'secret' police force.
Michael Collins was Director of Intelligence for the Irish Dail's army and he received information from a number of channels that this secret group was establishing itself in Dublin and other cities in Ireland. He ordered them to be watched and their movements noted. Some of those original notes survive.
The men he was watching wore civilian clothes but moved around after dark, after the curfew. Some historians believe this group struck first, assassinating the mayors of Limerick and Cork in their homes, but that can't be right as Cork mayor MacCurtain was killed in March and this group moved into Dublin in the summertime 1920. Maybe something unofficial was going on before that, I'll have to get out to Kew again as they keep opening up files that have been embargoed to this day.
Peter Aimes and Captain ? Bennett were part of a group that raided Vaughan's Hotel on Parnell Square in mid November. They questioned a number of residents, including two members of Michael Collins's intelligence staff who had been tracking their suspicious behaviour in order to determine whether they were part of the British intelligence group. That raid sealed their fate.
A British army informer who has never been identified and is sometimes thought to be a female secretary in Dublin Castle, kept Michael Collins informed of the secret group's objective, to find and murder Michael and all the people who worked with him. Thirty five men were identified as belonging to or aiding this secret intelligence group and this information was presented to the cabinet of the proscribed Dail who voted to assassinate as many as possible on the same day at the same time. I have never found any information about where this idea originated, but the received wisdom is that it was Michael Collins' idea. I certainly think he was ruthless enough, but it was a time in history when loss of life had lost a bit of meaning, after the unbelievably high casualties from the trenches.
Their addresses, mainly boarding houses, were watched and some serving people were recruited to help with tracking their movements. The men who would carry out the assassinations were advised to learn the layout of their targets' locations and carried out assessments disguised as plumbers, telephone engineers and so on.
Four days before the event, a final meeting was held with a number of Dail and Irish "army" members. Evidence regarding each man's likelihood of being a "spy" was discussed and the final list was whittled down to twenty names. Preparations were put in place to have each man shot at 9 am exactly on Sunday 21st November.
On the Saturday, Michael Collins intended to spend the night at Vaughan's Hotel. However, late in the evening he was advised by the hall porter that something wasn't right and he left the hotel quickly, moving down the street to number 38, where a friend had a flat on the top floor. Shortly after this, the hotel was raided and a couple of residents were arrested and taken away. That night he lay awake underneath the trap door leading to the roof of the house, ready at anytime to pull down the ladder and escape across the rooftops if his location was raided.
A few years ago, number 38 Parnell Square was a hotel and I stayed there on Saturday the 20th of November. My window faced west and I could see St. Dominick's church and the jumbled roofs of the houses on Parnell Street just to the south. I looked at the trap door above the stairs on the top floor and thought about what it would be like to go back in time and see what had happened that night. The following morning was clear and cold, no more than 9 degrees but without a wind so it wasn't uncomfortable. Bells ring out all over Dublin these days. It would have been the same on that morning in 1920.
According to James Gleeson in his book 'Bloody Sunday', on that morning an assassin going up the stairs at the Shelbourne Hotel got spooked by his reflection in a mirror, fired and alerted the British secret agent who fled from his room.
All over Dublin, men were lined up to knock on doors precisely at 9 o'clock.
I've tracked down all the addresses and it isn't that easy as most of the relevant house numbers have been removed. I remember getting quite cross about that, which just goes to show that even doing research can distract from the point of it all, that these were murder scenes.
And the day job intervenes, so more later...
