The Squad

In 1919, Michael Collins conceived of a scheme to knock out the eyes and ears of the British Administration at Dublin Castle by undermining and terrorising the police so that the British would react blindly and drive the Irish people to support of the Irish Republican Army. The Bureau of Military History interviewed those involved in this scheme in the early 1950s with the assurance that the material would not be published in their lifetimes. A few of the contributions were made available by the families of those involved, but the bulk of them have only recently been released. This is the first book to make use of those interviews. It makes fascinating, almost unique reading, because they contain first-hand descriptions in which men speak candidly of their involvement in killing selected people at close range. As a result it throws a considerable amount of new light on the activities of the Squad and the intelligence operations of Michael Collins.



T. Ryle Dwyer is a regular columnist with the Irish Examiner and has published many books on different aspects of twentieth-century Irish history, including a highly-acclaimed book on Charles J. Haughey, Haughey's Forty Years of Controversy.



Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

1 'I knew he was the man' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2 'Only the beginning' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3 'Every damn fool' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

4 'Almost a miracle I was not landed' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

5 'I do not defend the murder simply as such

I merely applaud it' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

6 'Shooting of a few would-be assassins' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

7 'Expect shooting' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

8 'A little bit of strategy' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

9 'We are going to have sport now' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

10 'The first shot was fired from the

lord mayor's own gun' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

11 'No harm would come to Mick' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

12 'I've my orders to shoot him' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

13 'Like a town with the plague' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

14 'The Lord have mercy on your souls!' . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

15 'The most disgraceful show' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

16 'Too good to be true' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

17 'Someone has to die for this' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

18 'She wants to see General MacEoin' . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

19 'Miss, you'll be lucky if you get out with your life' . . . 244

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26