Remembering this week BLOODY SUNDAY” Dublin, November 21, One of the most significant events to take place during the Irish War of Independence, was Bloody Sunday. .Dail Eireann was established as the parliament which unilaterally declared and Irish Republic. The Irish Republican Army waged a guerrilla war against the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC),and their the auxiliary organisations and the British Army In response to IRA actions, the British Government formed paramilitary forces to augment the RIC, and the Auxiliary Division (the Auxies). The Black and Tans became quickly renowned for their brutality. In Dublin, the war largely took the form of assassinations and reprisals on both sides. The events that occurred on the morning of 21 November was a concerted effort by the IRA in Dublin, to wipe out the British intelligence organisation in the city . British Intelligence in Dublin, included what was known as the “Cairo Gang” so named from their services in British military intelligence in Egypt and Palestine during the first world war and their patronage of the Cairo Cafe on Grafton Street. This was a group eighteen high-ranking British Intelligence officers, who had established an extensive network of spies and informers around the Dublin. The IRA Chief of Staff, described it as, “a very dangerous and cleverly placed spy organisation” Since 1919, Irish Finance Minister, the head of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and IRA Chief of Intelligence had operated a clandestine squad of IRA members in Dublin (a.k.a. “The Twelve Apostles”), which was used to assassinate RIC and British Intelligence officers. In November 1920, a decision was taken which ordered the assassination of British agents, the fear was, that the leakage of information had put the IRA’s organisation in the capital city in severe danger. The IRA also believed that the Cairo gang were orchestrating assassinations of leading republicans. Dick McKee was put in charge of planning the operations. On November 20, the assassination teams, which included members of the IRA’s Dublin Brigade, were briefed on their targets, who included 20 agents at eight different locations in Dublin. The IRA leadership had planned to kill over 50 British intelligence officers and informers, the list was reduced to 35 on the insistence of Cathal Brugha, the Irish Minister for Defence. Early on the morning of 21 November, the IRA teams mounted the operation. The killings occurred in middle-class area of south inner-city Dublin, except for of one shooting at the Gresham Hotel on O’Connell street. Four agents were killed. At 22 Lower Mount Street, At 28 Upper Pembroke Street, one British officer was killed. The building was surrounded by Auxiliaries, alerted by the firing, and in the gun fight two Auxiliaries were killed and one IRA man, Frank Teeling, was wounded and captured. Future Irish Taoiseach, Sean Lemass was involved in the killing of a Captain Bagely, also on Mount Street, while in two further incidents on the same street three more British agents were killed. Only a few streets away, further shootings took place on Baggot Street, Fitzwilliam Street, Morehampton Road and Earlsfort Terrace . On that day 13 people were killed and 6 wounded, including suspected agents and those with no connection to politics, and two Auxilaries. Four of the British casualties were military intelligence officers and another four were Secret Service or Mi5 agents. Only one Squad member was captured, Frank Teeling, and he managed to escape from gaol. One result of the actions on that day was that people were now afraid to be seen supporting or passing information to the British administration. British intelligence lines were intercepted and used against them. The State counter intelligence became effectively paralysed. This is acknowledged by British historians, for example Lawrence James in The Rise and Fall of the British Empire. said looking at the reasons behind the British agreeing to a truce in July 1921, he notes- “The British army had still not overcome many of its operational problems, not least the lack of a competent intelligence-gathering service. In fact, by early June, the two sides were facing deadlock.” Photo: The bodies of nine British officers killed in Dublin five days earlier are taken back to England for burial on the destroyer HMS Seawolf. The men had been assassinated by the IRA on the morning of November 21, leading to the Bloody Sunday shootings at a Croke Park later that day
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 19:41:03 +0000