Decoding the IRA

by Tom Mahon

  On the first day of the strike Moss Twomey wrote to ‘M’: ‘If [the] strike lasts beyond this week you should, if possible carry out sabotage operations in mines, or destroy any forms of transport being used by blacklegs. Power stations or gasworks could be destroyed. If lighting fails, slashing [sic] of windows would bring out the underworld and start looting and consequent suppression. If rioting begins and there are clashes between strikers and police or soldiers, grenades or arms could be used to start shooting. Blacklegs could be ambushed. Only absolutely close and reliable men to be employed, and stress need for care and secrecy. Do your best to do something big. All your other activities to be suspended if necessary.’28 Two days later Twomey again wrote: ‘I was hoping to hear from you saying you could carry out operations if desired … You need not wait, begin when ready. [I] am disappointed [the] officer from here had not crossed over to [England to] assist you. [I] have sent a special messenger for him today. [I] am wondering if he will be able to cross now [because of the strike]. The QMG [Seán Russell] is in Glasgow. He has been ordered to carry out operations also. I suppose you could not get to him and concert plans. It would be good if you could do so. [I] will be anxious to hear of doings and progress of events generally. What a chance if we had been organised and prepared … Petrol tin mines would be most destructive and are easily turned out.’29

  The following day Twomey sent another urgent despatch to an officer with the pseudonym, ‘Mr Davis’: ‘Do your utmost to carry out sabotage during [the] strike. Destroy transport petrol supplies. Slash [sic] windows to start looting. Petrol tin mines might be used effectively in many ways. Derail trains, destroy junctions and signal cabins … Wherever there is [a] good [IRA] section, select the best men for operations. [The] men engaged must be most careful to avoid capture and use arms to get away. Enjoin absolute secrecy. Report progress only in cipher. Chief of staff. Acknowledge receipt at once.’30 I’m unsure of the true identity of ‘Mr Davis’ but it’s clear he was in contact with an IRA unit in Britain and may have been Seán Russell visiting Glasgow. Twomey wanted to keep any IRA involvement in instigating trouble absolutely secret and therefore the letter to ‘Mr Davis’ was unsigned, and his title ‘chief of staff’ was included at the end of the letter but only in cipher. Additionally, to confirm that the despatch had not been captured or intercepted by the police, he asked ‘Mr Davis’ to promptly report receipt of the letter. Interestingly, four days later there were three railway ‘accidents’ resulting in four deaths (three of which occurred in Edinburgh) and several injuries. Though The Irish Times wrote that: ‘It is not suggested in any of the reports that the accidents were in any way due to the action of the men on strike’, one must wonder whether the IRA or any other faction had a hand to play in this rather unusual cluster of mishaps.31

  During the strike there were relatively minor confrontations between the strikers and the police with some stone throwing and window smashing and on occasion the police responded with baton charges – but no major incidents and (officially) no fatalities. The government deployed 80,000 troops which helped guard convoys of food and fuel, arrested thousands of workers, organised volunteers to keep the transportation system going and went on a propaganda offensive, accusing the strikers of trying to wreck the nation. The TUC was credited with helping to maintain order, and made a point of refusing a cheque for several thousand pounds from the All Russian Central Council of Trade Unions. In the face of the government’s resolute determination the TUC unconditionally capitulated and called off the strike nine days later on 12 May. The miners were left to carry on the struggle on their own until the winter, when they returned to work on the mine owners’ conditions.32

  Figure 21. Despatch from the chief of staff to ‘Mr Davis’ in Britain ordering him to provoke rioting and anarchy under cover of the general strike. This operation was so secret that the author signed his rank in cipher. ‘Mr Davis’ may have been an alias for Seán Russell.

  Do your utmost to carry out sabotage during [the general] strike. Destroy transport petrol supplies. Slash [sic] windows to start looting. Petrol tin mines might be used effectively, in many ways. Derail trains, destroy junctions and signal cabins.

  If rioting takes place, arms or grenades can be used, [in order] to start shooting. Blacklegs may be ambushed.

  Wherever there is [a] good [IRA] section, select [the] best men for operations.

  Men engaged [in the fighting] must be most careful to avoid capture, and use arms to get away. Enjoin absolute secrecy. Report progress only in cipher. Chief of Staff

  Acknowledge receipt at once

  These IRA documents illustrate the organisation’s tactics for provoking a breakdown in law and order. It is interesting that there is reference to the smashing of windows, which was a fairly common form of protest at the time, having been employed by suffragettes a few years earlier. This lends credibility to historian Peter Hart’s suggestion that the IRA was behind the mysterious campaign of window-smashing that occurred throughout Britain in April 1921.33 The IRA was clearly unprepared to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the strike, and Moss Twomey was scrambling to put a plan together. If the IRA did indeed mount any attacks – and the railway accidents must be viewed with some suspicion – they weren’t officially blamed and they had little effect on the outcome. There’s no further mention of the strike in the documents I’ve seen, though there’s a break in the paper trail, with no documents in cipher addressed to or from Britain after 6 May until they resume again in late July 1926.

  Intelligence activities

  One of the goals of the IRA’s reorganisation in Britain was to develop an intelligence network throughout the country. The director of intelligence asked intelligence officers in Ireland to collect the names and addresses of all the volunteers and sympathetic civilians from their districts who had emigrated to Britain. In particular the IRA wanted the names of potential friends in influential professions and in jobs associated with transportation and service, such as members of the clergy, doctors, journalists, civil servants, domestic servants, members of the military and police, waiters, dock workers, seamen, hotel workers and transportation workers.34

  Along these lines, Twomey wrote to the IRA OC in Cork 1 brigade that: ‘There is a detective named O’Reilly in Scotland Yard, a native of Youghal [County Cork] I believe. Quain of Youghal is his uncle, and the officer in charge of [the] Volunteers [is] his cousin … Quain could be sent to London [to enable us to make contact with O’Reilly] … This matter is so important I would like you to deal with it yourself.’35 Meanwhile the IRA in the Irish midlands reported that a person by the name of Dray was going to join the London police and ‘will work for you’.36

  Twomey also reported to the adjutant in north Mayo that: ‘In London I met Paul O’Reilly. He said [that] there is a man named Gallagher, a native of Achill, employed in the War Office there. Will you please make inquiries as soon as possible about this man and find out if by any chance he would give information to us. An introduction to or even a personal visit to him by a friend may be necessary … A Volunteer named ‘Ginnelly’, also a native of Achill, met Gallagher and Gallagher told him [that] Lavelle – [a] schoolteacher [from] Achill – was a British spy. You should have this person looked up, that is if he has not already come under your notice – P. [Paul O’Reilly] thought he had. Paul is of [the] opinion [that] Gallagher would not work with Ginnelli [sic]. As unfortunately the latter proclaimed very openly how his sympathies lay and this would naturally make G. [Gallagher] nervous. Some other link would be necessary.’37

  The IRA’s intelligence officer in Liverpool met a potentially valuable contact when he was serving time in prison: ‘[The] I.O. [intelligence officer] Liverpool says he met in Maidstone Prison, Todd Sloan [of] 2 Crown Street, Tidal Basin, London E 16 … [The intelligence officer] alleges he [Sloan] is a communist and has knowledge of government ammunition stocks.’ Moss Twomey suggested to George that if ‘this man would be useful you would perha
ps be able to get an introduction to him through [the] Liverpool officer’.38 George replied: ‘Of course it would be useful in fact very useful but first of all I would want to know how our friend got into touch with him, how long he knew him, how much he knows about him, if he [can] vouch for his genuineness etc. Until I get a more detailed report it would be very indiscreet of me to approach him even with an introduction. This place [London] at the present time is packed with touts, so we will have to be careful.’ This exchange shows how conscious George was of security, even more so than Twomey. No further mention was made of Todd Sloan, so it’s uncertain as to whether he provided assistance or not.

  Todd Sloan was a London dock worker who became a prominent ‘radical agitator’, fighting for the rights of the unemployed. However, in the 1930s he had a road to Damascus experience and joined the crusading Christian, Oxford Movement, which exhorted people to turn their backs on materialism and prepare ‘for a world war against selfishness’. He rejected the divisive class warfare of his past with its ‘gospel of hate’ and embraced the movement’s call for ‘God control’ of nations to preserve peace in Europe.39

  In March 1927 Twomey asked George: ‘Do you know [the] residences of [the] hangman and [his] assistant? Could these be got if we wanted to? In certain circumstances this may become necessary.’40 George replied: ‘The following is the hangman’s address: 19 Coverdale Street [sic], Hyde Road, Ardwick, Manchester.’41 Ironically it was on Hyde Road in 1867 that an IRB group rescued a comrade from a prison van, in the process shooting dead a policeman. Based on ‘doubtful evidence’, three Irishmen were later convicted of the murder and were executed by hanging, becoming thereafter enshrined in the republican pantheon as the ‘Manchester Martyrs’.42

  The IRA in Liverpool reported that it could ‘procure from [a] printer’s staff, [that are] friendly, [a] copy [of] police reports and CID cards with [an] official stamp’.43

  Smuggling

  From October 1926 to December 1927, George, as OC. Britain, sent across to Ireland shipments of explosives, assorted munitions and a motorbike – along with military manuals, books and journals. It’s quite probable that there were other deliveries which were not listed in these documents. In addition, weapons and explosives were likely smuggled from Liverpool and Glasgow, some of which probably went directly to individual IRA units rather than to Seán Russell in Dublin. The history of a few of these consignments illustrates the IRA’s modus operandi and its smuggling network.

  In October 1926 Moss Twomey asked George for gun cotton and potassium chlorate, the latter being the primary ingredient of most of the explosives manufactured by the IRA: ‘[I’m] asking you to send on the gun cotton at once, if possible … [and] what about the pot. [potassium] chlorate you were to get?’44 A few days later Twomey arrived in London to meet with George, where he passed on instructions from Seán Russell detailing how the consignment should be sent and packaged and to whom it should be addressed, and telling him to give Russell two days’ notice before the arrival of the explosives at the North Wall at Dublin port.

  A little later George sent word to Russell to expect the goods on 25 or 26 October.45 However, he wasn’t actually able to send the case until 29 October and failed to update Russell. Finally, on 1 November George wrote to Twomey that the explosives had been sent, and asked him to confirm receipt by sending a cryptic telegram: ‘Joseph Barnes sent a case of goods on [to Dublin] last Friday. [The] delay [was] unavoidable. When it arrives, wire Mrs O’D. just saying ‘congratulations’ and sign it ‘ciss’ [sister]. Then I will send [on] the balance.’46 Meanwhile Russell was furious with George for not adhering to the agreed procedure: ‘[I] had my man on the docks on the look out as usual, who reported each day he could get no trace, so when I had given up all hope it [finally] arrived’ on 2 November – eight days late and ‘without the required 2 days notice’. Russell didn’t send the cryptic telegram to Mrs O’D, as he didn’t want George to send the second half of the consignment to the same address. Due to George’s ‘bungling’, Russell was worried that the address may have been compromised and he had to ‘send a new address, which meant completely new arrangements’.47

  Meanwhile, since George hadn’t received the telegram from Dublin he had no way of knowing whether the package had gone through and so wrote to GHQ: ‘Could you find out if it did arrive [?] It is a pity that such an important matter received so little attention.’48 Given Russell’s displeasure, this was a rather inopportune remark, and Russell sarcastically retorted: ‘“It’s a pity” says H.S. “that such an important matter received so little attention” – I quite agree.’49

  In February 1927, Twomey next asked George for a few hundredweight of potassium chlorate, a hundredweight being equivalent to eight stone or fifty kilograms: ‘Can you possibly get at once a few cwt [hundredweight] [of] pot. chlorate or as much as you can? Consign it to Messrs O’Connor Cycle Agents, Abbey Street, Dublin as cycle parts. Give [the] QMG a few days notice previous [sic] to despatch. Let me know what you hope to do in this matter.’50 George replied: ‘I can get as much of this stuff as you want, but at the present time I have no place to store or pack [it] in [sic]. If you have any suggestions to make I will be glad to have them or if you could let me have an address where casks could be sent to, it would make it much easier for me.’51

  If George felt he could send casks of explosives through Dublin port without them being apprehended, he must have doubted the competence of the customs officers or known that they were either sympathetic to or in the pay of the IRA. Even Twomey wasn’t completely averse to the idea of sending the explosives in casks rather than disguising them: ‘Could [the] stuff be made up so as not to excite [the] suspicion casks would? QMG may be able to arrange to receive casks. So [I] will see him and he will let you know. We require some very soon.’52

  In the end George bought two hundredweight [100 kilograms] of potassium chlorate for £5 and 10 shillings and, having repacked it with the help of a friend, addressed it to O’Connor’s Cycles, from a John Brow in Highgate.53 The supplier’s name, ‘John Brow’, was probably a non-existent cover invented by George. Three days later, in a cryptic message Twomey acknowledged receipt of the explosives: ‘Noted. QMG has full info about this.’54

  In April Twomey again wrote: ‘We will require more pot[assium] chlorate, at least five cwts [hundredweights] and up to half a ton.’55 There’s no further documentation on this batch and presumably it therefore went over without a hitch. In June Twomey requested more ‘stuff’ or explosives: ‘The address to which you will send [the] stuff for [the] QMG is: Mrs Sweeney, Fruiterer and Greengrocer, 5 Harold’s Cross, Dublin. Try to make it appear like fruit.’56 George felt that this would be a challenge and appeared to want to send it over again labelled as bicycle parts: ‘It will be hard to make arrangements at this end to fit in with it. Is it not possible to get one similar to the last?’57 Moss Twomey wrote back that he’d try and get a ‘more suitable address’.58 Most of the correspondence between Twomey and George for the next few months is missing and there’s no further mention of smuggling explosives until Twomey reports on a shipment that was captured by the customs in Dublin. As this occurred three months after the last communication regarding ‘Mrs Sweeney’, it was probably a different consignment.

  On 21 September Twomey wrote: ‘[The] packet you advised [sic] to [the] QMG has not turned up. Can you make inquiries there of [the] railway or [the] carriers? Send me [the name of the railway] station [it was] booked from, [the] route and what you described [the] contents as.’59 A few days later Twomey updated George: ‘[The] QMG informs me [that the] packet you sent was opened by customs here and recognised as explosives. He believes he can get it without trouble as he is fixing up with [a] friendly official.’ Twomey put the blame on George: ‘This occurred through [the] long delay in arrival [as] our agent was not there. Send by return details of contents of [the] consignment. This should always be sent. I hope that this will not upset any of your arrangements there.
I shall let you know what the result of the negotiations will be.’60

  George replied that the shipment ‘contained two drums of phosphorus [an incendiary agent], one dozen adaptors for twelve bore shotguns, one galvanometer for testing mine circuits and two tins of aircraft signalling cartridges. The latter I had in stock for a long time’. The container ‘was described as cycle parts [and] sent by Saunders from Camden Goods … to the last address given by [the] QMG. Sorry [I] cannot make enquiries at this end as [the] address given did not exist.’ George was hopeful that the customs officer whom Russell was working with would keep quiet about the seizure: ‘If the matter is referred to the head-office it will certainly affect my arrangements.’61 Twomey then asked for some ammunition: ‘If [the] stuff held up is received, we will require some .22 ammunition from you, so get it.’62 The fate of this shipment remains a mystery, as the last mention of it is a sentence from George: ‘P.S. I hope you were able to recover that packet.’63

  In addition to explosives, the IRA were able to easily come by revolvers on the black market. In April 1926 Twomey asked ‘M’ to ‘purchase the sixty Webleys [revolvers] for £30. Keep these for Britain.’64 ‘M’ however had some difficulty getting ‘silencers for revolvers’.65 In mid 1926 Jim Killeen, of the IRA’s headquarters staff, was arrested trying to smuggle revolvers from England and was sentenced to six months in Pentonville prison, London.66

  In October George bought half a dozen adaptors for Webley revolvers. An adaptor is a device which allows a weapon to fire bullets of a different calibre.67 Given the IRA’s limited supply of ammunition this was a rather useful accessory. He sent the adaptors over in different consignments. On one occasion an IRA courier was caught by customs in Dublin with three adaptors and confidential IRA despatches; however, only the adaptors were confiscated and she was allowed to go free with the despatches.68 Around the same time George sent another two adaptors sealed in a box to an IRA safe address and these got through safely.69