The Squad (6 page)

Collins apologised to Broy for not telling him about Kavanagh. ‘I told him that that was what I had been preaching to him since I met him, not to tell anything, that the Irish people had paid too big a price for carelessness like that, in the past.’ Michael similarly apologised to Joe the next time he met him, but was glad the two of them now knew and understood each other. Thereafter Kavanagh joined Broy’s meeting with Collins at the home of Tom Gay. They were later joined by another detective, Jim McNamara, who was a confidential clerk for the assistant commissioner of the DMP in Dublin Castle. The son of a police officer, McNamara was a light-hearted individual who would playfully trip colleagues up while walking. With his charm and guile he won his way into the trust of both his superiors and Collins. The three detectives were subsequently joined by another, David Neligan. The detectives would go to Clontarf separately by tram, while Collins usually cycled there. If any of them wished to contact Collins at other times, they could do so by leaving a message with Gay at the Capel Street library.

In early May a three-man delegation of Irish-American politicians, which had tried unsuccessfully to get President Woodrow Wilson to secure a hearing for a delegation from the dáil at the Paris Peace Conference, visited Ireland. The dáil held a special public session for them at the Mansion House on 9 May 1919, and there were some dramatic developments in which Collins essentially upstaged everyone. ‘A few of us had a very interesting experience’, he wrote to Stack a couple of days later.

Collins had been arrested in March 1918 for incitement to riot and incitement to raid for arms in Longford. He put up bail in April 1918 during the conscription crisis, but did not appear in Londonderry on 19 March 1919 to face trial. A bench warrant was issued for his arrest the next day. He was also wanted for illegal drilling in Skibbereen. The bench warrant for that offence was issued on 14 April and provided a description of him: ‘Clean shaven – youthful appearance – dresses well – dark brown eyes – regular nose, fresh complexion, oval face, active make, 5’ 11” height – about 30 years – dark hair. Generally wears a trilby hat and fawn overcoat.’ His address was given as 44 Mountjoy Street, which was correct at the time, but he promptly moved, and the police reported that they were unable to locate him there.

But some detectives recognised Collins and a couple of other wanted men as they entered the Mansion House for the special session and they called G Division headquarters to raid the place. ‘I heard about this almost on the spot,’ Broy said. He could not telephone a warning from the police station, so he went outside to a public telephone and called de Valera. As the telephone service of the day was notoriously insecure, Broy gave the warning in French, but the Long Fellow could not understand his French. Piaras Beaslaí therefore took the message from Broy that the building would be raided that afternoon.

‘We’ll have our lunch first,’ Collins replied rather nonchalantly when Beaslaí passed on the warning. The Big Fellow was obviously enjoying the prospect of becoming the centre of attention. He sent Joe O’Reilly to fetch his uniform. O’Reilly, a fellow Cork man, was a lively individual, totally dedicated to Collins. ‘About five o’clock the enemy came along with three motor lorries, [a] small armoured car, machine guns, probably 200 or 250 troops,’ Collins wrote. ‘They surrounded the building with great attention to every military detail. They entered the Mansion House and searched it with great care and thoroughness but they got nobody inside. The wanted ones codded them again.’

Collins, Robert Barton and Ted Kelly had slipped out a back window and hid in an adjoining building. When the military left they returned, only this time Collins was dressed in his Volunteers uniform. It was a show of bravado that went down well with most of the gathering, though some felt that the Big Fellow was showing off again. ‘By this time everybody should know that it is by naked force that England holds this country,’ Collins wrote with obvious satisfaction. ‘Our American friends got an exhibition of the truth while they were here.’

Tim Healy, the old parliamentarian, happened to be in the vicinity and saw the raid in progress. ‘Nothing that the wit of man could devise equalled the Mansion House raid of the military in folly,’ he wrote. ‘Every damn fool seems to be in the employment of the British government in Ireland.’

Meanwhile Collins was growing ever more impatient for a fight. He encouraged local units of the Volunteers to raid police barracks for arms. This, in addition to affording an opportunity of acquiring much needed weapons, had the advantage of acting as a kind of training operation for the Volunteers. It soon led to the withdrawal of the RIC from isolated areas and the abandonment of hundreds of police barracks throughout the country.

He complained in a letter to Austin Stack about Sinn Féin politicians making things ‘intolerable’ for militants like him. ‘The policy now seems to be to squeeze out anyone who is tainted with strong fighting ideas, or should I say the utility of fighting,’ he grumbled. He was particularly critical of the party’s executive committee, which he described as ‘a Standing Committee of malcontents’ who were ‘inclined to be ever less militant and more political and theoretical’. In short, they were talkers and thinkers, rather than men of action, and he was a man of action. ‘We have too many of the bargaining type already,’ Collins grumbled. ‘I am not sure that our movement or part of it at any rate is alive to the developing situation.’

Describing himself as ‘only an onlooker’ at the executive committee meetings, he complained that the moderates were in control. When Harry Boland went to the United States to make preparations for de Valera’s forthcoming tour, the party replaced him as national secretary with Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington, the wife of a pacifist murdered during the Easter Rising. Collins was appalled. Not only had Boland been replaced by a woman, but the party also went on to announce that his replacement was necessary because he was out of the country. With this announcement, Collins fumed: ‘our people give away in a moment what the Detective Division had been unable to find out in five weeks.’

He clearly felt a lot of hostility towards himself and his militant views. There were ‘rumours, whisperings, suggestions of differences between certain people’, he wrote, describing this as ‘rather pitiful and disheartening’. It belied the national unity of which de Valera boasted and it tended towards confusion about the best way of achieving the national aims. ‘At the moment,’ Collins exclaimed, ‘I’m awfully fed up.’

‘Things are not going very smoothly,’ he was still writing three weeks later. ‘All sort of miserable little under currents are working and the effect is anything but good.’

He would soon have a freer hand to do his own thing though, as de Valera was to set out for the United States in early June.

In the spring of 1919, de Valera had restrained the Big Fellow’s desire for a military campaign by ensuring that the political wing of the movement had a big say in policy. Shortly after de Valera went to the United States however, Brugha and Mulcahy authorised Collins to kill one of the DMP detectives who had refused to be cowed by the Volunteers.

Many policemen were resigning because of their social ostracisation. Those who were nearing retirement, having spent the bulk of their working lives in the police force, were too old to find other employment. They stayed on but most kept their heads down and ignored all political activities.

In July Collins was authorised by Richard Mulcahy as chief-of-staff and Cathal Brugha as minister for defence to kill Detective Sergeant Patrick Smyth, because he was a particular thorn in the side of the republicans. He had been warned on a number of occasions ‘to lay off republicans or he would be shot’, one of those who took part in the assassination later explained.

‘I’m not letting any young scuts tell me how to do my duty,’ Detective Sergeant Patrick Smyth had declared. He had arrested Piaras Beaslaí for making a seditious speech and had found some incriminating documents on him. Collins and Harry Boland warned Smyth not to produce the documents in court, but the detective ignored them. As a result Beaslaí was sentenced to two years in jail, instead of the two months he might have otherwise expected.

Jim Slattery recalled a meeting at 35 North Great George’s Street around the middle of July 1919. A number of men were selected by Dick McKee and Mick McDonnell and brought to an inner room. McKee asked if any of them objected to shooting enemy agents.

‘The greater number of Volunteers objected for one reason or another,’ Slattery said. ‘When I was asked the question I said I was prepared to obey orders … I recall that two men, who had previously told Mick McDonnell that they had no objection to being selected for special duty, turned down the proposition at that meeting … McDonnell seemed very annoyed at them and asked them why they had signified their willingness in the first instance.’

Among the men who agreed that night were Tom Keogh, Tom Kilcoyne, Jim Slattery and Joe Leonard. These four, together with Tom Ennis and, later, Paddy O’Daly, were to become the nucleus of the famous Squad, but there was no mention of this that night.

‘We were merely told that we were to be given special duties,’ Slattery added. He received his orders from McDonnell to shoot Detective Sergeant Smyth, who was living in Millmount Avenue. A native of Dromard, County Longford, Smyth was in his early fifties and had helped identify some of the leaders following the Easter Rebellion.

‘McDonnell instructed me to go to Drumcondra Bridge and take with me Tom Keogh, Tom Ennis and Mick Kennedy, who knew Smyth by sight,’ according to Slattery. ‘McDonnell told us that Smyth usually came home by tram, alighted at Botanic Avenue and walked across the bridge. We were to wait at the bridge and shoot Smyth when the opportunity offered. We waited at Drumcondra bridge for about five nights.’

The first time he came along they did not strike because Kennedy was not sure it was Smyth. They expected him to turn into Millmount Avenue where he lived, but he passed the entrance and walked to Milburn Avenue, which was adjacent to his home. It was too late before his would-be assassins realised what had happened. Fearing that they had aroused Smyth’s suspicion, they did not come back for about a week, until the night of 30 July.

They waited that night with .38 revolvers, which they soon found were not powerful enough. They had expected that Smyth would fall as soon as he was shot. ‘But after we hit him he ran,’ Slattery noted. ‘The four of us fired at him. Keogh and myself ran after him right to his own door and I think he fell at the door, but he got into the house.’

Smyth gave a statement next day. ‘When I got off the tram at the end of my own avenue, I saw four or five men against the dead wall, and a bicycle resting against the curb stone. Just as I turned the corner into Millmount Avenue, I was shot in the back. I turned and said to them, “You cowards” and three of them fired again with revolvers at me.’ Even though one bullet had hit his right leg, he had still managed to run towards his home.

‘They pursued me to within fifteen yards of my own door, and kept firing at me all the time. In all about ten or twelve shots were fired at me. I called for assistance but no one came to me except my own son.’

Smyth’s teenage son, Thomas, had witnessed the whole thing; he was just over five yards from his father when he was shot.

Smyth was hit four times, the most serious wound was from a bullet that entered his back, passed through a lung and lodged in his chest, just above the heart. At the time Smyth’s wife and three of their seven children were in the country on holiday. In the commotion his six-year-old second son raced from the house vowing ‘to catch those who shot Dada’. He returned later saying that the men had run off.

‘Was it not a cowardly thing to shoot him in the back without giving him a chance of defending himself?’ Smyth’s sixteen-year-old daughter said next day. ‘He always carried a revolver,’ she added, ‘but he hadn’t it with him last night, so he could not put up a fight against his would-be murderers.’

‘We had made a right mess of the job,’ McDonnell complained next day.

‘But I can assure you,’ Slattery said, ‘I was more worried until Smyth died than Mick was. We never used .38 guns again; we used .45 guns after that lesson.’

Although Smyth was mortally wounded, he lived for five weeks before finally succumbing as a result of complications caused by an abscess of the lung resulting from a bullet wound. He died on the afternoon of 8 September 1919.

The reaction in Dublin Castle was to use the killing as an excuse to ban Sinn Féin. It was an ill-conceived act that played directly into the hands of Collins, who would henceforth have little difficulty in outmanoeuvring Sinn Féin moderates and implementing a more militant policy. The checks that de Valera had placed on the militants were wiped out by the banning of the political wing of the movement. To some Irish people this amounted to a British declaration of war, and it was intended to appear as such.

Back in the spring of 1919 Ian Macpherson, the chief secretary for Ireland, had wished to ban Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, the Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan, and had written to Bonar Law on 16 May 1919 acknowledging that it would mean ‘
open war
with all its horrible consequences’. Law and Edward Carson, the two staunchest unionists, thought this would be a mistake. ‘To proclaim Sinn Féin means putting an end to the whole political life of Southern Ireland and that could not be effectively done,’ Law had warned. In the circumstances Macpherson had to back off, but after an attack on British soldiers in Fermoy on 7 September, followed by Detective Sergeant Smyth’s death next day, Dublin Castle announced the drastic measures that the chief secretary had predicted would amount to ‘open war’ just four months earlier – Sinn Féin, the Gaelic League and Cumann na mBan were all banned, along with Dáil Éireann. ‘We had allowed these members to sit together
in consultation
if they wished,’ Macpherson wrote to Bonar Law on 13 September, but when they ‘conspired by executive acts to overthrow the duly constituted authority then we could act.’