Foy Michael Collins's Intelligence War

The Struggle Between the British and the IRA 1919-1921
1. Auflage 2008
ISBN: 978-0-7524-9590-3
Verlag: The History Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 360 Seiten

Michael Collins is often thought of as Ireland's lost leader: a man born into a revolutionary environment who became a skilled statesman and military leader. His personality and actions fascinated both the Irish population and his British enemies, who sought to repeatedly capture him. Setting the secret war firmly within the context of the Irish capital at the time, the author draws on an extensive range of primary sources - inlcuding documents which have only recently been released - to vividly recapture the atmosphere of the period.

MICHAEL T. FOY is a former Head of History at Methodist College, Belfast and Tutor in Irish History at Queen's University, Belfast. He possesses an MA and PHD from Queen's University, Belfast. He has appeared frequently on Irish TV speaking on Irish history, and is the author of three previous books for The History Press. He lives in County Antrim.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Foy, Michael T.

Leseproben

TWO

DIRECTOR OF IRISH INTELLIGENCE

THE ORGANISATION TAKES SHAPE, 1919

When Collins went on the run again in September 1919 after the Dail’s suppression, he had plenty of company, because every Irish cabinet minister, government department and Volunteer GHQ was forced underground as well. The survival of this parallel government depended on its relocation to secret offices throughout Dublin, an operation that Collins organised though his trusted fixer, Michael Noyk. As a Jewish solicitor and Trinity graduate, Noyk made an impeccable front man, though politically this long-term republican had (in his clients’ vernacular) form as long as his arm. By paying over the odds, he acquired properties that he registered under eminently respectable and frequently fictitious double-barrelled names, making certain that the new tenants followed routines identical to those of their neighbours.1 This was especially true of 3 Crow Street, a narrow thoroughfare off Dame Street in the city’s main banking and business district and, piquantly, only about 200 yards from Dublin Castle. There, in a second-floor office, Volunteer GHQ’s Intelligence Department functioned as the ‘Irish Products Company’, its ‘employees’ wearing business suits and coming and going at regular hours.2 Only a small inner circle knew the secret of Crow Street, and even fewer went there.

Map 2. Michael Collins’s Territory: Parnell Square, Dublin and environs

Collins’s personality shaped Volunteer GHQ’s intelligence system, validating one historian’s assertion that

an espionage service will be largely a reflection of the man who controls it. The success of his agents will depend as much on the inspiration they receive from the top as on their own spying ability and skill. The active work in the field will be determined as much by the organization and administration of the service as by the policy handed down by the government, for unless the agent in the field is backed by the resources of an efficient service, no personal skill can achieve the fullest degree of success, which is the aim of all espionage activity.3

The great intelligence director must be an outstanding individual, because, like a commander-in-chief, he wields immense authority as well as carrying always a crushing burden – the power of life and death over others.4 His persona and the way he exercises immense responsibility must also inspire subordinates, and certainly between 1919 and 1921 Collins proved himself a born leader. In building up and running his intelligence system he consistently demonstrated acumen, flair, inventiveness, efficiency and imagination. The ‘Big Fellow’ also looked a leader, with a commanding physique and a consummate actor’s dignified bearing that accentuated his dominance in any gathering, while he radiated calmness, reassurance and clarity of purpose.

Collins staffed his organisation with competent, strong-willed team players, courageous risk-takers whom he liked testing to the limit. Mulcahy admitted how

reckless Mick was in his daring and in his intensity. When he got men’s wills around him moving in a particular way, he was prepared to test them to the full. When Mick got an idea into his head that he wanted to give people an example as to how they ought to step to unexpected situations, he didn’t reckon his own value to the organisation or to the danger – he simply plunged into a situation in a daring and reckless and to some extent irresponsible way.5

Although Collins planned his major operations meticulously, he knew that perfection was unattainable in the intelligence world. Excessive caution corroded morale as much as foolhardiness and the only mistake greater than underestimating an enemy’s strength was to overestimate it. Collins inspired and reciprocated loyalty, evoking in life and death the unwavering devotion of his men. One recalled his ‘curious and unusual facility for getting work done by other people. They were all kinds, intellectuals, craftsmen, seamen, hotelkeepers, quay workers and pacifists. He trusted other people and inspired devotion in others.’6

Collins also proved himself a superb man manager who, while hardened to espionage’s duplicity and cruelty and unburdened by conscience or regret, still retained that core of humanity indispensable in someone to whom men entrusted their lives. An excellent listener, he exuded charm, good humour, patience and interest in other people’s lives. Supremely self-confident, Collins never shrank from accepting responsibility, tried to blame others for setbacks or get others to do his dirty work for him because, as Mulcahy insisted, he ‘was always prepared to do the things that he would have other people do’.7 Undoubtedly Collins drove subordinates very hard. One remembered that he was ‘full of enthusiasm and energy and could laugh well but he had other very strong moods. He could not stand stupidity and he didn’t stand fools gladly. It seems to me that you were afraid of nothing in the world except having to go back to Collins and say that you hadn’t done the job.’8

Collins’s indomitable will reminded Noyk of ‘the words of the Spartan mother who said to her son: “Come back with your shield or on it.” The word “cannot” did not figure in his vocabulary.’9 Moreover, his energy and craving for action were those of a young man in a tremendous hurry with a great deal to accomplish in a short time. To many, Collins seemed a driven man, a restless force of nature, unceasingly accumulating information from books, newspapers, written reports, meetings, discussions and casual conversations and absorbing it rapidly through his excellent memory. He conversed with Broy about Russian secret societies and recommended a book on guerrilla warfare in south-west Africa to a professional soldier. And always Collins expanded his boundaries, as Mulcahy discovered once when

looking in Collins’s bag for something and what had he in it only what used to be called one of the little grey books. Not only was his intelligence and will all that it might be, but he was using the little grey books of Pelmanism to work himself up a little bit more to be able to remember telephone numbers etc. That was part of his work and part of his approach to things.10

But Collins’s tremendous self-assurance, his belief that he could do almost anything – certainly better than anyone else – combined with a compulsive need for absolute control, created the danger of a one-man band. Hoarding intelligence obsessively and doling it out meagrely even to his closest associates, Collins was truly worthy of the spymaster’s ultimate accolade: the man who kept the secrets. He also loved accumulating offices and responsibility, occupying four important government and army posts simultaneously for most of 1919. True, as a bachelor Collins travelled light and had a strong constitution, his fitness honed by sport and a generally abstemious lifestyle, but he lived at a headlong pace, constantly overstretching his physical and emotional resources and cramming a dozen lifetimes into one relatively brief career. Eventually even Collins found his workload unsustainable and by the end of 1919 he had reluctantly resigned as GHQ Director of Organisation and Adjutant-General.11

Temperamentally restless and burdened by numerous responsibilities, Collins had no intention of being Crow Street’s departmental desk manager. Instead he moved unceasingly around an intelligence empire that was concentrated in a relatively small area of central Dublin at the northern end of O’Connell Street. In hotels, public houses, clubrooms and halls clustered around Parnell Square, Collins would meet important contacts, receive messages and documents, issue instructions and convene conferences, usually walking or cycling between his favourite haunts. Although on the run, he never wore a disguise, carried a personal weapon or surrounded himself with an armed bodyguard. Yet Collins’s personal security remained intact, something that is explicable only in the light of the British intelligence system’s virtually complete breakdown. Until mid-1920 his network’s focal point was Vaughan’s Hotel in Parnell Square, which Mulcahy regarded as ‘a magic mixer’, ‘a great clearing centre for all who wanted to make contact with him. They could very easily be directed from Vaughan’s to whatever “joint” he was occupying at the time.’12 Within a short radius Collins also transacted business, socialised and sheltered for the night at Barry’s and Fleming’s hotels on the northern side of Parnell Square and Devlin’s and Kirwan’s public houses in Parnell Street to the south. After arriving from Scotland in early 1920, Liam Devlin made his more select and discreet establishment freely available to Collins, and it soon displaced Vaughan’s as his unofficial headquarters. Collins usually left Devlin’s just before curfew, along with Liam Tobin, Frank Thornton and Tom Cullen of GHQ Intelligence Department. But often they stayed overnight because of enemy activity in the area or an early morning intelligence operation. Collins convened more formal meetings at the Gaelic League’s headquarters or its nearby Keating Branch, the Grocers and Vintners Association’s offices in Banba Hall and the Irish National Foresters’ headquarters – all situated in Parnell Square. For a time he also frequented Miss McCarthy’s boarding house in nearby Mountjoy Street.

Mulcahy regarded Parnell Square as ‘the seat in which Collins generated and used his power and that reputation for leadership’,13 which led...