by Tom Mahon
Neenan calculated that the $6,000 raised by the Clan between October 1926 and January 1927 worked out at $1.25 per head, and was ‘hopeless, and I have told them so’. He continued: ‘Too much money is used for expenses by [the] Clan. This is confidential but as far as I see, it costs too much to run such a small organization. It should be more self-contained.’210 Twomey was ‘keenly disappointed’ and added: ‘Unless there are hopes of much more support, I doubt if the Clan organisation is worth all the worry, trouble and energy expended by you and some others as well as ourselves on it. Explain to [the Clan] executive [that] we must have £1,000 at once and at least £250 ($1,250) each month.’211 Neenan agreed that the ‘Clan can do a lot more’ and that he would discuss the ‘exceptionally small’ amounts raised with the executive and report back to Twomey.212 Twomey wanted Neenan to ‘put it up to [the Clan] executive that administrative expenses in [the] Clan should be cut down to [a] minimum. Surely a couple of whole-time paid officers should be sufficient, taking [the] strength of [the] organisation into account.’213
For all of 1927 the Clan sent over a total of about $20,000 (£4,000), of which $10,000 was sent by McGarrity in November.214 In 1928 the Clan reported giving $16,000 to Neenan.215 Overall, small change compared to what had been raised a few years previously.
The amount of money raised by the Clan was limited by the wavering support for the IRA among many of its members, the IRA’s lack of military activity, and the socialist rhetoric of some of the leadership at GHQ. The Clan feared that the IRA planned to involve itself with political initiatives, and many members of the Clan were disappointed over its promotion of a republican election pact, all of which diverted attention away from military preparation. Responding to this Twomey took the precaution of writing to Neenan, regarding the pact, that: ‘Any proposals we make will specify for the safeguarding of the republican position’.216 An additional factor was the limited financial resources of many of its members, including Joe McGarrity, while the difficulty in raising money was compounded by McGarrity’s absence in Colombia during the first half of 1927.
Despite the desperate appeals from the IRA, the Clan didn’t hold ‘mass [public] meetings’ to raise money.217 The barrack raids were the only significant IRA activity of this period and An Timthire reported: ‘The recent attacks at home by the Army gave rise to great enthusiasm and admiration amongst all our fellows. We should gain considerably in membership and finance.’218
In letters to America Twomey and the leadership exaggerated the military capability of the IRA to encourage donations. An Timthire wrote in 1926 that at a meeting of the New York Clan he ‘gave mysterious hints of things that could happen if we had sufficient money. It is necessary to say things here that are not literally correct.’219 The following year Twomey sent Connie Neenan an impossibly upbeat assessment of the IRA: ‘I visited many units recently [and] am very pleased with the situation in most and [it] is generally better (both in numbers and spirit) than I expected. Except [for the] difficulty in openly drilling, things are good.’220 This after all was a force that wasn’t able to competently carry out the garda barrack raids a few months earlier! In a letter to George Gilmore in Ireland around the same time Twomey had used the phrase ‘quite pleased’ rather than ‘very pleased’.221
Neenan was careful to ask Twomey to forward receipts to the Clan for all money received: ‘[The Clan] executive demands receipts for all monies received from them. Send [receipt] when [the] cash arrives.’222 It was reasonable for the Clan to be cautious, and McGarrity and Luke Dillon had previously accused another IRA emissary, Dan Breen (of Tipperary), of having misappropriated money from the Clan when he was in America, following the Anglo-Irish truce.223
Neenan also received money from sources other than the Clan, such as from the running of dances and other fundraisers, and he deducted his personal expenses from these sums. One source was Miss Annie O’Mahoney, who ‘was by no means wealthy’. In 1926 she put a dollar a day aside until she was able to hand over $100 to An Timthire and ‘under no circumstances would she allow it to be used for any purpose except the Army’. An Timthire wrote to Andy Cooney asking him to send her an official ‘note of thanks and appreciation’, which she would ‘treasure’. Unfortunately this despatch was one of those found on Patrick Garland when he was stopped by customs in Cobh and to Miss O’Mahoney’s ‘embarrassment’ was published in the newspapers. A year later she was still subscribing ‘$20 per month to [the] Army’ and had given a ‘$100 special grant’.224 This was likely the same ‘Miss O’Mahoney’ who was a member of the executive committee to welcome de Valera to New York in 1927 and was president of the Irish Republican League in New York. The league was associated with the AARIR.225
Figure 24. In April 1927 Connie Neenan sent a report to Moss Twomey and Andy Cooney on the republican position in America. He complained about de Valera’s success in attracting support from members of the Clan. In this, the fourth page, Neenan commented on fundraising by the Clan and in the postscript named a potential IRA informer within the gardaí:
Paragraph 25: [The] appeal for funds cannot be met for some weeks, [there’s] only $1,000 in the [Clan] treasury. Luke [Dillon] put me off until June … [The Clan has] over 5,000 members. To date their contribution is $6,000 dollars or [$]1.25 per head for nine months. This is hopeless, and I have told them so.
Too much money is used for expenses by Clan. This is confidential, but as far as I see, it costs too much to run such a small organization, it should be more self-contained.
Will write [to] you again, relative to [the] appeal, [and] if possible to send cash.
The final two paragraphs concern the informer in the gardaí:
Get in touch with Sergeant Leen, Civic Guards, Bandon, County Cork. He is in [the] superintendent’s office, he is fed up with [the] imperial gang and is going to clear out, possibly emigrate. He is anxious to give information to us. Mention Martin Howard of Listowel, now in New York … [He sent a letter] to Martin offering to assist.
A significant expense borne by the IRA and the Clan in America was the provision of support for disabled and impoverished veterans and their dependants. The IRA received so many petitions for financial assistance that Frank Aiken said it ‘would require at least £10,000 per week to deal fully with every case’.226 Aiken and later Moss Twomey were adamant that the IRA could only respond to a small proportion of all such requests. By 1923, $250,000 had been raised in the US for the dependants of republican prisoners.227
By 1932 the Clan was spending $6,000 annually to support ‘disabled’ veterans.228 To cut down on abuse, the policy was for money to be provided to deserving cases by either GHQ or the Clan headquarters and not directly by individual Clan clubs.229 As Neenan wrote: ‘The matter was raised about certain [Clan na Gael and IRA] Clubs assisting destitute cases at home [in Ireland] in their own areas. I refused to sanction sectional drafts [sic] to any area and stated all monies should go through General Headquarters.’230
Neenan and ‘Jones’ were both concerned that too many veterans were dependent on aid from the IRA and the former remarked: ‘Too much money has to be expended on such cases … They are coming here to work and must not expect us to spoon feed them.’231 Twomey replied: ‘In future no money, is on any account, [to be] spent on men going out, even if [they’re] on the run, except [for] men sent out in bad health for to be cured, and then only when specific instructions are sent.’232
Joseph Blake of Dublin was in San Francisco, under an assumed name, and ‘in hospital suffering from TB and his expenses run to $120 a month. A few friends are taking him in charge, still I [Neenan] feel we are being asked to assist, which I am unable to do.’233 IRA veterans in San Francisco and New York raised money to bring out Denny Prenderville from Castleisland, County Kerry, who was ill – probably with TB. Neenan wanted him to enter America by way of Canada as ‘he won’t be passed by [the United States] Consulate doctor’.234
Another republican immigrant whom Twomey wanted
Neenan to try and help out was Thomas Curran of Dublin. When in Ireland he ‘was employed in one of the railways, did work for us [the IRA] and as a result was imprisoned’. Following his release he was unemployed and forced to emigrate – leaving a wife and family at home. When he stopped writing home his wife contacted the Dublin brigade: ‘His wife states he has no work [in America] and as he cannot send her money she is badly off. Could anything be done for him?’ Twomey wanted Neenan to send someone around to his last known address: C/O Mrs Brady, 73 west 88th Street, New York.235
IN MAY 1927 ‘MR Jones’ resigned his position as the IRA agent working for Soviet military intelligence in New York and resumed ‘civilian employment’ (see Chapter 8). Responsibility for this sensitive work was now handed over to Neenan, while Anthony Farrell from Mayo was appointed as his assistant to help him with administrative duties, but not with any responsibility for the clandestine Soviet work.236
Neenan continued to work closely with Joe McGarrity, but without a degree of success sufficient to reverse the IRA’s misfortunes. The Clan’s membership dwindled, and by July 1929 there were only 620 paid up members in New York city.237 Then in October 1929 the Wall Street Crash marked the beginning of the Great Depression. As unemployment and bankruptcy swept the US, millions were plunged into poverty. Irish immigrants were as badly affected as any other group and many of the Clan’s IRA veterans now returned to Ireland. In 1933 Joe McGarrity was expelled from the New York Stock Exchange for ‘false book-keeping entries’, leaving him almost destitute.
But McGarrity and Neenan were both rescued by the Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes. The sweepstakes was a lottery established in 1930 by the Free State government to finance hospitals and health care in Ireland. At the time lotteries were illegal in America and therefore the two were able to use the IRA and Clan na Gael networks to import, distribute and sell tickets throughout the US. Neenan was soon the sweep’s ‘principal agent in the United States’ and McGarrity was appointed a ‘special agent’. In turn McGarrity appointed Moss Twomey in Ireland as a lottery agent. In only five years McGarrity earned a commission of £300,000238 while Neenan lived a life of affluence, prompting Twomey to write to him: ‘We are told you will soon be a millionaire – don’t forget us!’239
McGarrity, however, continued his involvement in militant republicanism and in 1939 he supported Seán Russell’s bombing campaign in Britain, which culminated with an explosion in Coventry killing five people. The unintended civilian casualties occurred when an IRA volunteer panicked and left the bomb he was carrying at a crowded shopping centre. The FBI noted that some of the bombs which the IRA used during the campaign had been smuggled from America and were ‘of the type used by [the] police in the United States’.240 Twomey, no longer chief of staff, was disgusted with the ‘senseless demonstrations in a foreign country’.241
A year later McGarrity was dead from incurable cancer of the throat and in the 1970s a wealthy Connie Neenan retired to Ireland.242
CHAPTER 8
The Soviet Union and China
Wine and women. I am onto the right people now and can produce material of a high order.
‘Jones’, an undercover IRA agent in New York
We have been very active, made and placed 200 coal bombs in [the] cargo of [British] admiralty coal transports for China.
IRA commander in Scotland
In 1927, two men waiting in a café in Amsterdam were joined by a third. A brief conversation ensued and a package was handed over, before the three took leave of each other. The first two were representatives of Soviet military intelligence, their guest a member of a revolutionary organisation.
Sounds rather like a clichéd spy novel. Actually it’s an accurate representation of a meeting between the IRA and Soviet agents. This is a relationship that has never before been elaborated upon. A relationship so secret that IRA men took it to their graves and one that remained largely unknown to the British secret service and the authorities in America.
Historical background
To understand the clandestine relationship between the IRA and the Soviets in the 1920s it is necessary to have some familiarity with the circumstances of the time. Given the situation they both found themselves in, it was almost inevitable that they should have been brought together.
There were two revolutions in Russia in 1917: one a people’s revolution in February, which overthrew the Tsar, the other led by Lenin in October which brought to power a small ruthless clique, the Bolsheviks or communists. To many Europeans the Russian revolutions represented a new hope, a move away from the capitalist regimes responsible for the carnage and destruction of the First World War. Communism was expected to sweep across Western Europe – poverty, war and injustice would become things of the past. It may seem strange to us today, but the Soviet Union was to many educated and intelligent people a beacon of freedom, egalitarianism and prosperity.1
After a bloody civil war, during which Britain, France and Japan supported the counter-revolutionaries, the communists established control over most of the former Russian empire, which they renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In 1924 Lenin died and Joseph Stalin began to consolidate power. By November 1927 he had achieved complete control with the expulsion of Leon Trotsky from the Communist Party.
During the mid 1920s the USSR was conscious of the military threat from the capitalist countries. Following years of war and the implementation of disastrous economic policies, the country was almost bankrupt, there was widespread famine, the Red Army’s equipment was obsolete, and as a pariah state she had no powerful friends or allies abroad. The major threat was felt to be from an attack in the west led by Poland and Romania. Another possibility, though considered less likely, was an attack across the Chinese border led by Japan. Britain was regarded by the Soviets as their most dangerous enemy, and it was assumed that she would (at the very least) provide material support for any invasion.2
In 1927 Soviet concern about the long-term possibility of war was replaced by fear of an imminent invasion. This ‘war scare’ swept the Soviet Union and was widely promoted both at home and abroad by the government. Recently released documents reveal that the Soviet leadership did not actually believe war was imminent but that the scare was largely a deliberate fabrication, which provided Stalin with the cover to eliminate his rivals.3
Meanwhile, the Communist International or Comintern was founded in 1920 as the controlling body of all communist parties around the world. The Comintern was based in Moscow under the control of the Russian Communist Party. Local communist parties were expected to subordinate themselves to Moscow’s policies and dictates. But in countries not ripe for communism, strategic alliances between communists and nationalists were approved. Ireland and the IRA fell into this category. To further its cause the Comintern set up front organisations such as International Red Aid (in support of ‘political’ prisoners) and the League Against Imperialism.4
After a series of intelligence disasters, responsibility for foreign espionage was taken from the Comintern in 1924 and handed over to Red Army intelligence or Razvedupr (RU).5 Little is known about the RU and yet it was the ‘most important intelligence agency of the Soviet Union’, reporting directly to the ruling Politiburo of the Communist Party. Compared with the thugs who ran the Cheka or secret police, its members were often highly educated and sophisticated, and frequently non-communist. This facilitated their covert activities and ability to penetrate foreign governments and society.6
RU operatives, who were identified by a false first name, ran clandestine networks of agents in the west, often on a massive scale. They frequently operated under the cover of Soviet trade missions, such as Arcos in London and Amtorg in New York. The RU gathered information about military, scientific and industrial developments, in addition to political intelligence. Informants were handed a document, known as a questionnaire, which listed the precise technical information required.7
The items on the questionnaire were tailor
ed to the priorities of the Soviet Union, such as technical information on chemical warfare. In the First World War the Russian army had been unable to adequately respond to German poison gas attacks, and Russian fatalities of 56,000 accounted for over half the total number of deaths from gas on all fronts throughout the war.8 During the Civil War the British reportedly used mustard gas against Soviet troops in Siberia.9 In the inter-war years many in the west as well as Russia continued to believe that poison gas would play a decisive role in future wars, and the Soviets devoted considerable energy to developing chemical warfare capability. Mustard gas was regarded as one of the most promising agents.
The Soviets were also interested in acquiring data on mechanised warfare (particularly tanks), airplane engines and military communications equipment.
The Soviet Union and Ireland, 1917 to 1925
The overthrow of the Russian Tsar was greeted by many in Ireland with great enthusiasm. People were able to relate to the toppling of a monarchy that was perceived by many to be foreign and that exploited an impoverished people. They were delighted when the communists called for an end to the First World War and for national self-determination. In February 1918 some 10,000 people attended a rally at Dublin’s Mansion House in support of the revolution.10 Later, in the Ireland of the 1920s, while only a small number of people were enthusiasts for the Soviet Union, there remained a tolerance of communism in many sections of society. This acceptance disappeared in 1930 when the Catholic Church took a strong stance against the USSR and its militant atheism.11
The Comintern’s attempts to build a mass Irish communist party were failures and the first Communist Party of Ireland was dissolved in 1924 with fewer than fifty members.12 Jim Larkin (the hero of the 1913 Dublin Lockout) was the only Marxist in Ireland with a large base of popular support. However, Larkin refused to be subservient to Moscow or anyone else; he proved extremely difficult to work with, and can be described as unpredictable, egocentric, paranoid, litigious, intolerant and with a history of misappropriating funds. By 1927 the Russians were beginning to look elsewhere, until he finally broke with them in 1929.13
