Michael Collins and the Women Who Spied For Ireland Read online

  He wrote a great number of letters while he was in Frongoch and in turn received support from women such as Susan Killeen, his cousin Nancy and his sister Hannie. The Independent, which Dolly Brennan continued to send, kept him abreast of the news in Ireland. Most days he wrote letters. Several he sent ‘surreptitiously’ so that he was losing track of his correspondence ‘which has gone all awry’. Parcels ‘from home’ were one of the great joys of prison life.10They were often sent by the women who, under Kathleen Clarke, had formed the Irish Volunteers’ Dependants’ Fund – an organisation set up for the dependants of Volunteer prisoners arrested and Volunteers killed.

  In early September an attempt was made to force some of the London-Irish to join the British army. About sixty men would have been liable for conscription, having been domiciled in Britain since the outbreak of the Great War. When they resisted they were mistreated and confined to bread and water in a effort to break their spirit. The ‘punishment’ numbers increased, with the men ‘being deprived of their letters, newspapers, smoking materials’.11Collins became chief organiser of a system which successfully got messages, food, newspapers and other items from the non-punishment to the punishment camp.12The satisfaction he derived from ‘this game of smuggling and communication’ made him ‘happy’ as he enjoyed outsmarting the authorities, and ‘besides it gives some spice to the usual monotony,’ he wrote to Seán Deasy.13Conspiracy and unorthodox methods gave him a foretaste of secrecy and manipulation, tactics which he was to exploit to the full in succeeding years.

  During the winter there was plenty of mud and dirt in the valley after the heavy rains. Michael was awakened one night by ‘a rat between the blankets’. He told Susan of this ‘exciting experience’ and his regret that he ‘didn’t catch the blighter either’.14

  Frongoch was a splendid school. Mick would often conduct debates when the prisoners assembled at night. An inveterate scribbler, ‘Mick was forever jotting down points in that notebook,’ Ned Barrett recalls. That notebook he also used for names and addresses – important contacts which he was to utilise to advantage in later years.15

  By December, detention of untried prisoners had become a problem for the establishment, so on Christmas Eve Mick Collins and some of his comrades were on the boat back to Dublin. Sadness lay ahead. When Mick reached Woodfield on Christmas night, he found the family and neighbours waking his maternal grandmother. Granny O’Brien had died during the previous night. His cousin recalled: ‘He had loved this grandmother. He had not been home for his mother’s waking all those years ago. I could see he was sad. Granny and his mother had the same features.’16

  With himself having ‘some kind of reaction’ and ‘poor old grandmother dead’ and ‘that brother of mine and his wife both very unwell’ he would be glad ‘to go back to Dublin’ he wrote to ‘Siobhán a Cushla’ (Susan, my pulse). He was looking forward to meeting her, to being with her, after all this time. Rather than by letter, personally, ‘I want to thank you for all the kindness which you have been bestowed on me while in jail, a Cushla.’17

  On his way back he made ‘a few useful contacts’ when he went to a céilí run by Cumann na mBan in the City Hall, Cork. ‘He met the Duggan family and Nora M. O’Brien’ who, according to his sister Mary, were extremely active later.18

  Back in Dublin he had Susan, the friends nurtured in Frongoch and his other friends with separatist views. There was work to be done.

  Notes

  1 Michael to Susan Killeen, 19/10/1915, private letters, Máire Molloy.

  2 Michael to Hannie, 17/1/1916 and 27/1/1916.

  3 Ibid., 29/1/1916.

  4 1916 Proclamation.

  5 Michael to Hannie, 16/5/1916.

  6 Ibid.

  7 Michael to Susan Killeen, 27/5/1916.

  8 Ibid.

  9 Ned Barrett (Kilbrittain), June 1974.

  10 Michael to Nancy O’Brien, 26/7/1916, Liam O’Donoghue, also J. O’Brien private papers.

  11 Michael to Hannie, 25/8/1916.

  12 Piaras Béaslaí, op. cit., p. 116.

  13 Collins to Seán Deasy, 12/10/1916.

  14 Michael to Susan Killeen, 21/9/1916.

  15 Ned Barrett to author, 1/6/1974.

  16 Michael O’Brien to author, 8/12/1973.

  17 Michael to Susan Killeen, 31/12/1916.

  18 Mary Collins-Powell, Memoir.

  Women Aid IRB Reorganisation

  Shortly after Michael Collins returned to Dublin he again began to attend the Keating Branch of the Gaelic League and discuss the future with the many released men. He became a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB. When Count Plunkett was put forward as the Sinn Féin candidate for North Roscommon, Collins canvassed during the January frost, snow and slush. The election was fought with the cooperation of members of Sinn Féin, the IRB, Irish Nation League, the Irish Volunteers and Cumann na mBan. The voters gave Count Plunkett a clear majority on 3 February 1917. Mick, in a happy mood, told Hannie he was ‘pleased to see so many old lads coming out in the snow and voting for Plunkett with the greatest enthusiasm.’1

  He now needed a source of revenue as well as a channel for his dynamic energy. An opportunity soon presented itself. Kathleen Clarke had founded the Irish Volunteers’ Dependants’ Fund (later amalgamated with the National Aid body) in the aftermath of the Rising to help to ease the financial burden visited on many families. She and other women had done Trojan work in this area by helping families in need. While the men were in jail these women kept the national movement alive: they were responsible for propaganda which helped to mould opinion to respect the martyrdom of the 1916 leaders; they had their prose and poetry published and they created a revolutionary fervour countrywide. Kathleen Clarke now needed a full-time secretary to coordinate and distribute funds collected through various activities, together with moneys received from Clan na Gael in America.

  When Collins’ name was put forward, Kathleen Clarke agreed: ‘He was just the man I had been hoping for. He was IRB and Irish Volunteer and also reminded me in many ways of Seán MacDermott. He also agreed with my idea that the fight for freedom must be continued, the Rising to count as the first blow’.2Collins started work on 19 February 1917, at a wage of £2/10s a week. He was now in a position to pay for his lodgings at 44 Mountjoy Street, take Susan out and sometimes have a night with ‘the boys’.

  As a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB, Collins set about its reorganisation. He had also been elected to the Volunteer Provisional Executive, the body which was to direct recruitment. Throughout early 1917 there was a great countrywide recruitment drive.

  During the by-election campaign for Joseph McGuinness in South Longford in May 1917, Michael stayed in the Greville Arms in Longford, a hotel run by the Kiernan family. Here he met the four attractive Kiernan girls – all of whom were in some way involved with their brother, Larry, in running the hotel, the bar, grocery and hardware shop, bakery and undertaking business. He took an instant liking to Helen but she was friendly with Paul McGovern; later when his attachment to Susan Killeen had ended he would pursue Helen.

  Back in Dublin, Michael threw himself fully into his work at the National Aid office. Because of the many calls on the inadequate funds, especially by mid-June with more men released, there was a strain on the resources, and seeing so much poverty and unemployment he became more convinced that self-government was necessary. Kathleen Clarke had entrusted him with the names of the countrywide IRB contacts which her husband Tom had given her. This ‘gave him the leeway to get ahead,’ she says; furthermore ‘he had the ability and the force and the enthusiasm and drive that very few men had, to work on that’.3

  Kathleen Clarke had also requested Cathal Brugha’s cooperation in the strengthening of the IRB. Despite her argument that more members of the IRB had participated in the Rising than any other body, and that the majority of the executed men were IRB men, she failed to receive Brugha’s assistance. Not only that, but, she maintains, he set out to destroy it. ‘I have dec
ided the IRB must go!’ he exclaimed one day as he stood in front of her and banged the table.4

  Collins, on the other hand, believed in the secrecy principle which the brotherhood upheld – a principle which he maintained had carried them far. He belonged to the Tom Clarke/Seán MacDermott school of thought, which believed that physical force would be the surest method of getting the British authorities to accede to Irish self-government. He maintained that the Irish Volunteers and the IRB should work in tandem. Being on the IRB Supreme Council, on the Volunteer Provisional Executive and on the National Aid board helped him to become acquainted with men and women throughout Ireland who would one day become part of the ‘great movement’.

  Éamon de Valera, commandant at Boland’s Mills during the 1916 Rising and already an acknowledged leader in Lewes jail, was returned as the Sinn Féin candidate on 10 July 1917, for the east Clare constituency.

  As more and more prisoners were released, Collins’ workload increased. He moved to more suitable office premises at 32 Bachelor’s Walk (premises he used up until the Truce).

  Vaughan’s Hotel, Parnell Square, was the venue for a meeting of minds on many a night. Here Collins met Harry Boland, a young IRB activist who was also a member of the Volunteers, Sinn Féin and the GAA. Collins and Boland got on well; Boland had boundless energy and was enthusiastic and unselfish.

  William T. Cosgrave, another survivor of 1916, won the Kilkenny by-election in August. Shortly afterwards, under the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA), the authorities saw a method of countering the disaffection by making widespread arrests. Three important leaders and close friends of Collins – Austin Stack, Fionán Lynch and Thomas Ashe – were arrested in August and joined some forty others in Mountjoy Jail. They went on hunger-strike for political status and in an effort to break them, force-feeding was introduced. On 25 September Ashe was carried back to his cell, unconscious. Soon he was dead.

  His funeral was used by uniformed Volunteers, Cumann na mBan and Sinn Féin members to mount a pageant of loyalty and solidarity. After the ‘Last Post’ had sounded, Collins, in military uniform, stepped forward and above the grave of his dead friend addressed the large assembly. As the crowds moved away, Collins stood, and wept bitterly. ‘I grieve perhaps as no one else grieves,’ he wrote afterwards to Hannie.5

  From now on the mood of the country changed. Collins embarked on a nationwide campaign of meetings and speeches. He threw himself totally into whipping up recruits for the cause. ‘You have no idea of how busy I’ve been,’ he wrote to Hannie on 8 October. ‘For about a fortnight I’ve been up almost alternate nights.’6

  Totally committed to separatism and disagreeing with Arthur Griffith’s dual monarchy concept, Collins was, however, aware of the power of Sinn Féin. He urged the IRB to support de Valera for the Sinn Féin presidency at the October Convention (Ard Fheis). De Valera was duly elected and Collins was elected director of organisation.

  In March 1918 Collins was selected adjutant-general of the Volunteers, responsible for organising both disciplinary and training procedures. As well as continuing to travel and organise throughout Ireland, Mick became a periodic weekender at Sam Maguire’s London flat to discuss with him and other IRB men the opening of channels for the procurement of armaments for Ireland. Meanwhile, on both sides of the Irish sea, he continued to spread his net, accumulating information about the movements of members of British intelligence, often seeking the assistance of women to explore avenues discreetly.

  Since March 1917 he had been indirectly receiving copies of reports emanating from Dublin Castle, British military headquarters in Ireland. Ned (Éamon) Broy was employed at detective headquarters in Dublin Castle with, among other duties, the daily task of typing detective reports on the countrywide movements of Sinn Féin members. Broy would slip in an extra sheet of carbon. The third copy he discreetly gave to a Sinn Féin member who in turn passed it to Michael Collins.

  When Collins first met Ned Broy, Broy outlined the inner workings of the Castle, its system and its training technique. The police were divided into six divisions, with the G Division responsible for nationalist movements. This division had a countrywide network of ‘eyes and ears’, its men filtering the daily activities of the nation – from railways to shops, police stations to ports.

  In the early days of 1918 Collins recruited other national-minded detectives such as Joe Kavanagh and James MacNamara, who worked in the Castle. By this time most released prisoners had been absorbed into communities so there was little need for paid staff in the National Aid office. Collins had the freedom to pursue his ambition of full-time organiser of the cause of independence. Volunteers could drop into his office at 32 Bachelor’s Walk – Volunteers such as Liam Tobin, intelligence officer to the Dublin Brigade. Harry Boland’s tailor shop in Middle Abbey Street also became a centre where information was dropped, to be passed on to Mick. The two great friends would one day be rivals for the love of one young woman.

  Notes

  1 Michael to Hannie, 23/1/1917.

  2 Michael Collins, How Ireland Made Her Case Clear, p. 60.

  3 Kathleen Clarke, Revolutionary Woman, p. 142.

  4 Ibid.

  5 Michael to Hannie, 8/10/1917.

  6 Ibid.

  The Pulse of the Secret Service

  One weekend in March 1918 Mick went to Longford with Harry Boland. He stayed in the Greville Arms, as he had done many times, and was entertained by the Kiernan sisters. Harry was courting the slim, vivacious, Kitty Kiernan at the time. Though her kind disposition charmed Mick, his friendship with Harry compelled him to keep her at arm’s length. He found the lively-minded Helen most receptive to his views and hoped to win her affections, although she was friendly with solicitor Paul McGovern. Another sister Maud had been courted before his death by Mick’s friend, Thomas Ashe. Mick’s relationship with Susan Killeen was now more on a friendship basis with ‘the cause’ being the focal point. His current girlfriend was Sinn Féin sympathiser Madeline (Dilly) Dicker, whose sister Clare had worked in the British Post Office with him. Susan had found another boyfriend to take Mick’s place. However, her place of work, P. S. O’Hegarty’s bookshop on Dawson Street, was already among Collins’ dispatch centres.

  After Mass at Legga, near Granard, on this cold, March Sunday, Mick delivered a fiery speech condemning conscription and ‘the raiding of private houses for the purpose of seizing old guns’. He urged that all young men should emulate the ‘noble martyrs’ of 1916 who put their own country first – they should join the Irish Volunteers and ‘defend their rifles with their lives’.1

  That evening he returned to Dublin; a few days later he headed for Limerick, then Cork, on organisational work. On 2 April he was confronted on Brunswick Street by detectives O’Brien and Bruton. He was, he wrote in his diary:

  ... detained in Brunswick Street for a few hours in a filthy, ill-ventilated cell ... Removed to Bridewell at 3.15 – 3.30. Cab accompanied by uniformed policeman, two detectives (Smith & Wharton). The latter asked me how everything in the South was – showing they had been observing my weekend movements. Learned later on in the evening that as a matter of fact I had unknowingly slipped them at Kingsbridge on the previous night.

  At 6 o’clock the following morning he was ‘rudely awakened’, and told to dress. He was escorted to Longford by train, and met at the station by quite a number of friends. During his trial he protested to the judge that he had been kidnapped in Dublin by an ‘unlawful and immoral authority’. His plea was overruled. He was charged with having made a speech at Legga ‘likely to cause disaffection’ and remanded to the assizes to be held in July. Meanwhile, he was sent to Sligo jail. In line with Volunteer policy he did not seek bail.

  On 11 April, Helen Kiernan visited Michael and gave him all the news of Granard. He was delighted to see her. He persuaded her to stay in town overnight so that she could visit him again next day. After a ‘very bad night’s sleep’ he recorded he had ‘the pleasure of seeing’ Helen again.
She promised to pay a return visit. ‘All the people in Granard have always been very nice and kind to me,’ he wrote in his journal.

  (Some time later, to Michael’s disappointment, Helen became engaged to Paul McGovern. He went to her in desperation and pleaded with her not to go through with the marriage but eventually became resigned to the situation.)

  In his diary of 10 April he noted, ‘Here alone I am in a state of appalling loneliness with the blackest despair in my heart. Of course the reason for my sadness and loneliness is the thought of the work I might be doing ...’2

  In his letter to Hannie on 10 April, he said he was ‘anxious to know what Lloyd George has done about conscription for this country. If he goes for it – well he’s ended!’3He was unaware that on the previous day Lloyd George had introduced his Manpower Bill in parliament and extended conscription to Ireland. This became law on 16 April. The Irish Parliamentary Party, which for some time had lacked the support of a large section of the Irish people, withdrew from Westminster, thereby playing into the hands of Sinn Féin. The separatist bodies agreed that their members would put up bail so that the imprisoned men could be free to fight the conscription issue. Collins was among the first to be freed on bail.

  Mick headed for Granard. Word went ahead of him and the local Volunteers assembled to give him ‘a royal welcome’ as he drove through the streets. His visit to the Kiernan sisters was short. Around the dining-room table he told the story of his time in jail and Kitty brought him up to date on their mutual friend, Harry Boland, and on activities in Dublin.