Decoding the IRA

by Tom Mahon

  The evidence from these documents suggests that there was a prolonged discussion at GHQ regarding the IRA’s use of chemical weapons. It was a period of two full years from Aiken’s mention of gas artillery shells to Twomey’s request for the weapons from America. And if the RIC’s director of intelligence, Brigadier-General Ormonde Winter, was correct in his information then the IRA considered their use for over five years. Throughout this period Seán Russell remained at GHQ, and so the finger of suspicion must point to his involvement. Considering that the IRA’s plan for seizing power in the Free State depended on swiftly taking control of Dublin, rather than a set piece war, it seems possible that chemical weapons figured in this plan. The IRA had no other surprise weapon or tactic.

  However, the whole idea of a gas attack on Dublin was far-fetched and impractical, and it seems inconceivable that many in the IRA leadership, including Moss Twomey, would have actually carried through such an act and exposed the citizens of Dublin to either tear gas or poison gas – though they did certainly consider it!

  All the major powers in the 1920s possessed chemical weapons expertise and experience, but any attack would have been contrary to the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which banned the use of poisonous and asphyxiating gases (and biological weapons) in war and was soon signed by all the major powers except the United States and Japan. Ireland, under Cumann na nGaedheal, acceded to the treaty in 1930 with the reservation that it would not consider itself bound by the treaty if attacked by a country using chemical weapons. Although not explicitly stated, the majority of signatories consider that the provisions of the protocol cover tear gas in addition to poison gas. The United States, however, disputes this.124 Needless to say the IRA is not a signatory to the protocol! There’s a certain irony that Frank Aiken (who was interested in gas artillery shells in 1925) should have been the first signatory to the 1968 Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. This was an honour bestowed on him as Irish Minister for External Affairs for his championing of the cause of nuclear disarmament.

  Arms smuggling

  During the mid 1920s the IRA smuggled a small quantity of arms and ammunition from America. The smuggling depended on the IRA’s ability to purchase weapons in America, support among the longshoremen who loaded and unloaded the ships in New York and New Jersey, sympathetic crew members on the ships or passengers willing to carry the weapons in their luggage, and IRA men at ports in Ireland or Britain able to receive the cargo. As already discussed, this network had originally been developed by the IRB in the nineteenth century and reached its peak during the Anglo-Irish War under the direction of Michael Collins and his agents. But with Collins’ support of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the disbanding of the IRB and the drift of many IRA men away from the movement, it had partially disintegrated.

  Following the Irish Civil War, though arms continued to be freely available in America, the IRA was severely constrained by a lack of finance, due to a loss of support from (particularly the wealthier sections of ) the Irish-American community.

  In New York and New Jersey the IRA had some support among the longshoremen – a key constituency for anyone wanting to smuggle weapons or any other goods. Traditionally the longshoremen had been of Irish stock, and until 1900 about 95 per cent of those on the New York waterfront were Irish. By 1920, however, the Irish were in a minority due to the large influx of Italians, although the workforce at Manhattan’s west side docks remained predominately Irish. The longshoremen were organised into a powerful union, the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), and the Irish were strongly represented among the union’s leadership. As the union exercised considerable control over the movement of goods through the docks, it’s not surprising that it had links with organised crime.125

  During the Anglo-Irish War the longshoremen on Manhattan’s west side were ‘attuned to the struggles of Ireland’ and made large donations to Irish relief funds. The men were organised into work gangs which tended to be based upon county of origin in Ireland, and this reinforced their nationalist spirit.126 In the summer of 1920 some 2,000 longshoremen stayed away from their jobs in support of Irish independence and in protest at the arrest of Terence MacSwiney, the then Sinn Féin mayor of Cork city.127

  There were several smuggling routes from New York direct to Cobh in Ireland, or to the ports of Liverpool, Glasgow and Southamptom and from there on to ships bound for Ireland. Most of the transatlantic ships were British-flagged vessels, on board which the contraband was transported in the care of a crew member or passenger acting for the IRA.

  On arrival at Cobh the weapons were either handed over to dockers working for the IRA or brought to the Rob Roy pub in the town, to be picked up later. Likewise at the British ports there were IRA men working at the docks who would collect the weapons and arrange their transfer to a boat sailing to Ireland.

  In addition to weapons, the IRA sent over money by courier, and despatches went back and forth between Ireland and America. The despatches were carried either by a courier or by a sympathetic crew member.

  By 1924 the main arms smuggler in New York was Liam Pedlar, who doubled as the ‘military attaché’ for de Valera’s republican ‘government’. The smuggling network was probably at a nadir during this period and Pedlar complained to Seán Russell that he had no addresses in Liverpool and Glasgow to ‘which stuff [munitions] could be delivered’. Pedlar forwarded several thousand rounds of ammunition to Ireland, mainly for .303 Lee Enfield rifles (the standard British army service rifle of the period), but had to pay men to bring it across. He was able to send IRA despatches to the port of Southampton, but couldn’t smuggle weapons there.128 Pedlar was very disparaging of the IRA section working on the Liverpool docks, writing that ‘things seem to be very much mixed up’.129

  Pedlar sent weapons on the White Star Line’s SS Baltic and despatches on the British-flagged Majestic, Leviathan and Olympic.130 He was constantly seeking out crew members who’d work for him. A member of the crew on the America agreed to bring over goods, and Pedlar asked Russell to arrange, on the ship’s arrival in Cobh, for the IRA to send out a tender to meet the vessel. So that the courier and the local IRA could recognise each other, one of the IRA men would wear a pre-arranged article of clothing which would be similar to a piece worn by the man on the America.131 Around this time the adjutant general also advised that ‘it is possible to get men positions as stokers etc. on boats going from London to America’.132

  Moss Twomey and Andy Cooney set about rebuilding the smuggling network and worked with An Timthire as well as IRA commanders in Britain and Ireland. An Timthire wrote to the chief of staff that a number of crew members could be availed of to bring despatches and ‘probably the handling [of] ammunition’. The list included: ‘Ed Redmond [the] Second Engineer [on the] Empress of France, George McNamara [and] James Murray of Cork [who were] Second Class Deck Stewarts [on the SS] Baltic’. The chief of staff told An Timthire that ‘communications [despatches] or any stuff [weapons or explosives] which can be sent direct[ly to Cobh] shall be left at [the] Rob Roy [bar],133 while an IRA man who had emigrated to the US offered his services when he visited Dublin: ‘Kevin O’Neill was home from [the] USA, and was willing to take papers or war goods from there if wanted.’134

  Throughout the 1920s the IRA’s attempts to import large shipments of arms and explosives, from either America or the continent, mostly ended in failure and the organisation was defrauded on a number of occasions. The IRA’s success was in importing multiple small consignments, which over time added up to a significant quantity of weaponry.135

  The most spectacular of the large purchases in America was that of 653 Thompson submachine guns in 1921 by a group which included Liam Pedlar. Around fifty guns were promptly sent on board the SS Baltic and Celtic to Liverpool and from there to Ireland. However, US customs impounded the main cache of 500 weapons, and following a legal tussle they were eventually handed over in November 1925 to the ‘owner’s agent’, Joseph McGarrity, who acted on behalf of the IRA. McGarri
ty stored the weapons at a warehouse in Manhattan.136

  Liam Pedlar continued to send a small quantity of those remaining in his possession to Ireland throughout 1923.137 In February 1925 he wrote to Russell that parts for the guns were at Joe Begley’s house in Ireland, but they weren’t well cared for and would soon be ‘useless’. Begley had been one of the senior arms agents in America, along with Pedlar, during the Anglo-Irish War. Pedlar recommended that Russell could get the guns from Begley by way of an introduction from Kathleen O’Connell (de Valera’s long-standing personal secretary).138

  In 1926, after US Customs returned the 500 guns to McGarrity, ‘Mr Jones’ attempted to sell the weapons to the Soviets: ‘I tried to get “Stephen” [the Soviet intelligence officer in New York] to buy the Thompson guns. I asked [for] $70,000. Whenever they [the Russians] are in doubt they cable home. This is how they treated this offer. I waited patiently for months for an answer. I asked again, and they said that one of their commercial organizations would buy them. I have waited in vain and they can now get someone else to do their dirty work.’139 In July 1927 John Joe Sheehy and his teammates brought back some of the guns to Kerry on the Baltic.140 By 1936 all the Thompsons had been distributed – most made it back to Ireland, but some fell into the hands of (or were possibly sold to) criminal gangs in America.141 But the Thompson proved to be of little use to the IRA – it was a short-range, rapid-fire weapon unsuited to the IRA’s tactics, and this was compounded by a chronic shortage of ammunition.142

  One of Connie Neenan’s contacts was a man by the name of O’Neill, who worked as crew on the Victor Emmanuel III, and Neenan reported to Twomey: ‘[The] Free State are importing all sizes of ammunition from [the] US. The stuff goes to Dublin direct on Oriel Line [sic] boats particularly the Victor Emmanuel … On her last trip she took rifle and artillery ammunition.’ Neenan was likely thinking the IRA could seize some of these munitions and he recommended that if Twomey had an informant within the offices of George Bell & Co. (the ship’s agents) at Burgh Quay he could get a detailed description of the cargo from the ‘bills of lading, a few days before [the] arrival of [the] ship’ in Dublin.143 Interestingly, Neenan mistakenly referred to the shipping line as the ‘Oriel Line’ rather than the correct ‘Oriole Line’. ‘Oriel House’ was the original headquarters of the CID in Dublin, and the name by which the IRA often called the CID or the Special Branch.

  However, the ship’s first mate, a Swede by the name of William Dahlgrene, posed a (temporary) obstacle. Neenan described the situation: ‘[The] first mate of [the] Victor Emanuel [sic] is anti-Irish’ and had succeeded in removing several Irish men from the crew. ‘He is a danger to us and should be dealt with i.e. put in hospital for a few weeks. He would [then] lose [his] ship. He got threatened in Cork before and won’t go ashore there. He must be got at over there [in Dublin].’144 Two months later, before Twomey had a chance ‘to meet O’Neill to find out about [the] first mate’, Neenan reported that Dahlgrene ‘was drowned [sic] accidentally during [his] last trip to Dublin. I presume he was drunk.’145

  On the morning of 29 December, with the Victor Emanuel docked in Dublin, Dahlgrene’s body was pulled from the water at the North Wall docks. The night before he had visited officers on board another ship with a friend. The friend denied they were drunk, saying: ‘We had just one cup of coffee and one drink each.’ However, as he was returning to the Victor Emmanuel ahead of Dahlgrene he heard a splash. The gardaí determined Dahlgrene had fallen from a gangway which was well lighted and with intact railings. They also reported that when they interviewed the ship’s officers who had been with Dahlgrene they were all sober, though this was several hours after the incident. The coroner ruled he had died from drowning but noted a three-inch cut over his left eye which was presumed to have occurred as he fell into the water.

  Was Dahlgrene pushed? Did O’Neill or another IRA man do the job? Or was it just a coincidence that he drowned at a time when the IRA wanted him out of the way? Neenan reported that he had previously been threatened in Cork, so Dahlgrene was already a marked man. On the other hand Neenan’s warning to Twomey about the first mate wasn’t received at GHQ until 19 January 1927, three weeks after the drowning.146 Dahlgrene’s companions denied he was drunk, though if he had been they would have likely denied it anyway. We can only speculate, but there are no clear answers to these questions.

  When Twomey was unable to acquire gun cotton in Britain he asked Neenan to try to get it and suggested that O’Neill could bring it over: ‘Perhaps [the] man on the Victor Emmanuel could bring [a] small lot [over] on each trip. It is urgent.’147 Two months later Neenan was still trying to acquire some from ‘Stephen’.148

  The picture that emerges of the IRA smuggling operation in the US during the mid 1920s is far from spectacular, but nonetheless it resulted in a steady trickle of weaponry.

  De Valera and the IRA

  Just as in Ireland, the main threat to the IRA and Clan na Gael in America came from de Valera and Fianna Fáil. IRA veterans in the US retained a great degree of loyalty to de Valera and in 1926 An Timthire wrote that 99 per cent of republican supporters there wouldn’t ‘stand nasty things to be said of him’.149 Given this degree of support, Neenan needed to be very careful in criticising or distancing the IRA from de Valera.

  De Valera’s support organisation in America was the AARIR. However, like all the Irish-American political organisations it went into a decline following the Anglo-Irish Treaty – only it had further to fall than the others. In 1921 its membership was 700,000 and by 1925 this had dropped to 13,870, of whom approximately a quarter were in New York.150 This was still, however, a larger membership than that of the Clan. Some republicans remained members of both organisations, although overall the AARIR’s membership was more affluent and influential than that of the Clan.

  In January 1926 Frank Aiken set out on a lecture tour of the US, sponsored by the AARIR.151 Although no longer chief of staff, he remained an officer attached to the GHQ staff and officially the IRA pronounced that ‘he was granted leave of absence to perform work for the Republic abroad.’152 In reality though de Valera had sent him to raise support and funds for the soon-to-be-founded Fianna Fáil.

  On Aiken’s arrival the newspapers, including The New York Times, inaccurately referred to him as the IRA chief of staff.153 Aiken didn’t correct this error for some time and news of his ouster wasn’t commonly known in America. Even Joe McGarrity assumed he was still chief of staff and he was furious when he found out.154 McGarrity felt that he and the Clan had earned the right to be kept fully informed of developments in Ireland and angrily wrote to Aiken: ‘I have failed to learn up to the present time, just what the platform or policy of the party is.’155 Aiken (and de Valera) were trying to maintain the Clan’s support, or at least prevent their condemnation, as they stealthily developed their political policy, and Aiken wrote to McGarrity that ‘the Clan na Gael organisation should confine its activities to supporting the Army [IRA] whilst leaving the members free to support their favourite political Republican organisation.’156

  In the autumn Aiken was suspected of suffering from TB and was sent to recuperate in the dry climate out west. ‘Jones’ reported: ‘He is in California at present under doctor’s orders. He was becoming TB [sic].’157 As instructed by the Army Council, ‘Jones’ sent him on a copy of General Order 28, which forbade a member of the IRA from standing as a candidate in an election.158 Aiken continued to be watched by the IRA until his return to Ireland in mid 1927 – still technically a member of the organisation.159

  Members of the Clan were concerned about what appeared to be another impending split in its ranks; between those who favoured de Valera and those who supported GHQ. In New York the Clan had already been badly affected by the 1920 break with Devoy (when only a minority of the original Clan members aligned themselves with McGarrity’s section) and in 1927 members there proposed that Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil reunite under a ‘neutral’ leadership. As Neenan reported: �
��In the near future, the idea of both republican wings of political organisations [Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil] becoming united is to be suggested. A convention of each party is to be called when ‘Scelig’ [J. J. O’Kelly, a Sinn Féin leader] will offer to resign and call on de Valera to do likewise, leaving both conventions to elect a neutral leader. [It is] said [that the] united party will get [the] full support of Devoy’s Clan. This is the report, as I got it, and though I see no possibility of it materialising, the New York Clan are very keen on you [Twomey] having this information.’160 Twomey more realistically replied: ‘There is no hope of success for the suggestion … It would not be entertained I think by any section. They [Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil] are getting more apart every day.’161

  A major cause of the dissension within the Clan was a rule passed at the organisation’s convention in September 1926, that stipulated that its membership couldn’t participate in any political party that was involved in elections in Ireland.162 The rule was clearly aimed at Fianna Fáil. At the convention Cooney (who was in attendance) had ‘advised against passing the rule … [as he] knew it would lead to friction’ and the IRA’s leadership in Dublin regarded it as ‘unwise’.163 In February 1927 Neenan reported that the rule had ‘driven a lot of old members away, as the latter believe they should be entitled to do as they please. All such members are joining Fianna Fáil. This … is doing a lot of harm.’164