Mullingar was centre stage in Michael Collins’ intelligence war

The online release last year by the Military Archives of reams of personal correspondence belonging to Michael Collins has, for a wider audience, shed new light on Mullingar’s place in the underground intelligence war waged by the Irish revolutionary leader during the War of Independence.

The Collins Papers, previously available to researchers for years by appointment at Cathal Brugha Barracks, provide members of the public with a window into the sophisticated intelligence network run by Collins across the country from 1919 to 1922.

The bulk of the files relevant to Mullingar concern typed and handwritten communications between Collins, the IRA’s deputy director of intelligence Liam Tobin, and Harry Conroy, the Mullingar Brigade’s during the height of the War of Independence.

Conroy, a native of Co. Sligo, lived in Mullingar during the conflict where he doubled as an insurance agent. A member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, he was known to and trusted by Collins with handling intelligence in a town which was, as Conroy put it, “an important enemy centre” where there was “continuous movement of [British] troops”.

James Hynes, meanwhile, was a clerk and Conroy’s man in Mullingar post office. He had been initiated into the IRB by David Burke, a Mullingar jeweller who went on to serve as a brigade-level officer during the War of Independence.

According to his statement to the Bureau of Military History, Hynes was given the keyword STAMBOUL in 1919 and set to work on breaking police cyphers going through the post office. In doing so, he discovered that the keyword had changed to REPUBLIC. From there on, Hynes became “conversant with the use of cyphers”, enabling the IRA to keep one step ahead of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC).

“I generally sent the contents of decoded messages to [Mullingar IRA officers] David Burke, Harry Killeavy or Seán Grogan, or to a man named Doyle, whose first name I cannot recollect,” Hynes told the Bureau in 1953.

“My brother, Edward, generally delivered them. I sometimes left messages myself with the Misses Leonard, who ran a café in Pearse [Earl] Street.”

The correspondence between Mullingar and the intelligence department of the IRA’s General Headquarters (GHQ) runs from February 1, 1921, through the climax of the Anglo-Irish War and the Truce, ending in January 1922.

Early correspondence with GHQ includes details of changes to the alphabetical cypher with which British codes could be broken by Hynes, e.g., HONDURAS, PERSIAN GULF and CUMBERLAND.

There are also lengthy exchanges about the activities of a man by the name of James Redican, of Boyle, Co. Roscommon. Redican was a bank robber who attached himself to the IRA in Mullingar in 1920. While on trial for his crimes before an Irish court in 1922, he claimed that he had been ordered by an IRA brigadier-general to rob banks and mail trains to raise funds for local IRA units – funds which were subsequently unaccounted for. However, correspondence between Conroy and GHQ in the Collins papers indicate that Redican was acting under his own authority.

Other memos in the collection demonstrate the variety of interactions between GHQ and the IRA in Mullingar:

• A dispatch dated March 8, 1921, revealed an unnamed prisoner had tipped off police that IRA rifles were kept in Mooney’s Ironmongers of Earl Street (later Pearse Street), Mullingar.

• On March 23, Collins (or Tobin) requested Conroy to attend for an urgent meeting at GHQ.

• Eight days later, Conroy could tell his superiors that messages had been decoded in Mullingar warning that raids on “telephone instruments” at post offices and railway stations would proceed immediately.

• On April 5, Conroy told GHQ that Shaw’s jewellers in Mullingar had been robbed by British soldiers, and “on returning to barracks were noticed to have cut hands”. When searched by their officers, two watches and a necklace were found.

• Three days later, Conroy gave GHQ a first tip-off about John Herlihy (or O’Herlihy), a Loughrea-born exsoldier living at Lynnbury Terrace, Mullingar, who was “suspected of being an active enemy agent”. In the ensuing weeks, the IRA made efforts to track Herlihy’s movements.

• On April 11, Conroy described Mullingar as “an important enemy centre... [with] continuous movements of troops – generally by train”. This, he stated, was the reason for difficulties in transmitting reports to GHQ, something Collins et al regularly complained about.

• Four days later, Collins inquired about an RIC head constable stationed in Mullingar known as James S. Kydd. “Is he known to many of your people? I want a report on this matter with the greatest possible speed, and if he is not known to many, steps should be taken to get him known at once. This is of the greatest possible importance.”

• The level of efficiency and specificity demanded by Collins from his intelligence officers is demonstrated in an exchange of memos in late April. On April 28, Conroy stated that about 50 plainclothes Auxiliaries had searched trains at Mullingar the previous day. Two days later, Collins responded: “With regard to para. 3 of your note, you should always specify the trains that were actually searched.”

• On May 14, GHQ, acting on information supplied by the Longford Brigade, tipped off Mullingar IRA that a clerk at the parcels office in Mullingar Railway Station, Andy Burke, needed to be watched closely. “I hear he is a bad pill,” wrote the Longford Brigade officer. “His people are from here (Longford). His father is an ex-R.I.C. man, and our people would need to be on the alert in Mullingar, for no doubt Burke is watching every move made there.” Possibly, Burke had a role in pointing out Longford guerrilla leader Seán Mac Eoin, who had been arrested in Mullingar some weeks beforehand.

• A detailed GHQ dispatch of June 11 featured descriptions of RIC personnel and transport (car models, number plates etc), presumably in aid of an effort to ambush a convoy taking Seán Mac Eoin to Dublin for trial.

• On June 16, Conroy’s report to Collins mentioned a “man named FitzGerald” who had an uncle living in Ballynacargy, and who was suspected of having “given the enemy information regarding the whereabouts of members of the I.R.A. in Ballynacargy and district”.

• With a truce just days away, Collins was informed by his Mullingar men that “all telephones – public and private – in Co. W’meath have been seized by enemy police. Later public phones were returned”. Meanwhile, Conroy also reported that women and children of enemy soldiers and auxiliaries in Longford, Athlone and Mullingar had been instructed to leave “within twelve days” of July 4.

• After the Truce, which came into effect on July 11, 1921, dispatches continued, with Collins and the IRA making preparations for a breakdown in peace negotiations. On October 28, 1921, GHQ told the Mullingar I/O that a British secret service agent codenamed ‘Fever’ had left for Mullingar, possibly with a view to starting operations there. Hynes received a full description of the man: “5’ 6” or 7”, stout build, well developed, reddish hair, fair moustache, prominent dirty yellow teeth. Dresses carelessly in grey, brown or navy.” Conroy replied on November 3 stating that the IRA in Mullingar had not been able to trace ‘Fever’. He assured Tobin, however, that they would “be able to discover his movements from the enemy I/O here, with whom we have just got in touch indirectly.”

• In the same letter, the matter of Redican – now in jail and facing trial in Dublin for bank robberies – came up again. Conroy tells Tobin that Redican had been writing to a “Mrs Goddard of Ballynacargy”. This was Susie Goddard (née Poole), the daughter of a Ballynacargy postmaster who was married to a British officer based in Mullingar Barracks. Susie had been recruited by the IRA for intelligence work.

• Early signs of a split in the IRA are evident. One file marked “Dublin, 2 Oct. 1921”, outlines details of the arrest of two Mullingar IRA men, Patrick Dowling and Christopher Kelleghan, by their superior officers, apparently for the crime of sending a letter to GHQ complaining about their officers’ lack of activity during the War of Independence. The men were arrested and threatened with execution by these officers, who later went on to take the anti-Treaty side when the IRA split. “This treatment of prisoners is peculiarly English and its practice among the Republican forces would no doubt, if continued, reduce their morale to the level of the enemy’s,” wrote Liam Tobin, Collins’ right-hand man in IRA intelligence, upholding complaints of mistreatment by the two prisoners.

Sources: www.militaryarchives.ie (file numbers MA/CP/05/02/33-34 and 03/21; Bureau of Military History witness statement WS 867, James Hynes).