Decoding the IRA

by Tom Mahon

  Overall, men like Moss Twomey and Andy Cooney were a restraining force in the organisation. Though the IRA considered using chemical warfare, in practice it didn’t resort to it (nor did it realistically have the capability to do so), and if it had, was it any more to blame that the nations that used it in the First World War?

  This is one of the first (if not the first) attempts to present a picture of a revolutionary group through the decryption of its internal correspondence, in the process giving a more nuanced and fuller picture. It raises ethical and moral questions with no easy answers and shows that Irish society can’t easily distance or separate itself from the IRA. The IRA had a formative infuence on Irish society and additionally had supporters and sympathisers throughout all sections of the community.

  In international terms the IRA at the time was an important and highly advanced revolutionary group. Only a few years earlier it had prevented the British forces from defeating it, and had led one of the first successful modern anti-colonial struggles, a struggle that combined military and political strategies in a way that set the pattern for the remainder of the twentieth century.

  Epilogue

  In the years following 1927 the IRA continued to decline. There was little in the way of coordinated military activity and the organisation failed to develop a political programme with popular appeal. As the leadership drifted further to the left, it helped found the radical (and short-lived) socialist organisation Saor Éire (Free Ireland) in 1931. 1

  That year there was an upsurge in activity, with shootings – including the killing of a garda superintendent in Tipperary – intimidation of juries and reports of widespread drilling.2 In the run-up to the general election of March 1932 Frank Aiken approached Moss Twomey with a proposal that the IRA merge with Fianna Fáil, which Twomey rejected.3 The IRA supported Fianna Fáil in the election campaign, and with the party’s victory and formation of a government the IRA was on a crest of a wave. Membership increased to around 10,000 and the organisation openly recruited and paraded in public.4 Many in the IRA thought that the organisation and Fianna Fáil would work together to bring about a republic. However, the excitement was short-lived and Fianna Fáil continued to attract members and support from the IRA.

  At the same time, with the Catholic Church in the vanguard, the mood in the country became stridently anti-communist and the socialists in the IRA came under increasing attack from within the movement.5 This led in 1934 to the departure of most of the leading socialist republicans – including Peader O’Donnell, Michael Price and George Gilmore.6

  Two years later two brutal killings shocked the country. Henry Boyle Sommerville, an elderly retired British admiral, accused of encouraging local men to join the British navy, was shot at his home in Cork. And in Waterford a local volunteer, John Egan, was killed after it was alleged he had cooperated with the gardaí’s investigation of illegal drilling in the county. This resulted in de Valera’s government banning the IRA in June.7 Moss Twomey was arrested and sentenced to three years in jail and was replaced by a rapid succession of chiefs of staff including Seán MacBride.8 In 1938 Seán Russell, allied with IRA members from the north and Joe McGarrity of Clan na Gael, became chief of staff in what was virtually a coup d’etat. Russell committed the organisation to a disastrous bombing campaign in Britain and an ill-chosen alliance with Nazi Germany. In 1940 he died on board a German u-boat on his way to Ireland.9

  Under Russell’s leadership the IRA was reduced to fewer than 2,000 members in the Free State,10 and during this time Moss Twomey, Tom Barry, Seán MacBride and Donal O’Donoghue left the organisation.11 The IRA was never again to be a force to be reckoned with in the south of Ireland. Fifteen years after the 1925 army convention, Frank Aiken and Éamon de Valera were in government and the IRA was largely irrelevant.

  What was the legacy of the IRA from the time of Moss Twomey’s leadership? As with anything, it depends on one’s perspective. In military and moral terms it was a failure, epitomised by Russell’s sordid death. However, it also produced men (as it rejected the participation of women) who made an important contribution to the new state. Peadar O’Donnell, Mick Price and others continued to campaign on behalf of the disadvantaged during a time of awful poverty. Somewhat ironically, Seán MacBride achieved an international reputation as a champion of human rights. He was a founder of Amnesty International and a co-recipient of the 1974 Nobel Peace prize. Presumably when he visited Moscow in 1977 to receive the Lenin Peace prize he travelled on a legitimate government-issued passport!12

  Fianna Fáil grew directly out of the IRA and must be considered part of the IRA’s legacy. It took with it the IRA’s tradition of egalitarianism and of active participation (and dissent) by its membership. While Cumann na nGaedheal founded the democratic institutions of the state and assured the rule of law, Fianna Fáil became the state’s first mass political party and ensured public participation and full support for the state. It was de Valera who realised Michael Collins’ dream of using the Treaty as the stepping stone to a republic. And it was the gunmen of Fianna Fáil who finally helped marginalise the IRA and the men of violence in the south, just as the gunmen of Sinn Féin were to do so in the north sixty years later.

  APPENDIX 1

  Organisations, groups and technical terms

  American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic (AARIR): Irish-American organisation that supported Fianna Fáil and Éamon de Valera.

  An Timthire: title of the full-time IRA representative in America. In December 1926 Connie Nennan succeeded ‘Mr Jones’ in this position.

  Army, the: informal term for the IRA, used by its membership.

  Army convention: held every few years and attended by delegates from units throughout Ireland. When in session it was the IRA’s ‘supreme authority’. It elected the Army Executive, which in turn elected the Army Council.

  Army Council: the seven-member committee, which was the governing body of the IRA, except when an army convention was in session. Decided on IRA policy and strategy.

  Army Executive: an IRA committee which elected the Army Council. Following the Civil War it lost most of its other powers and was largely by-passed by the Army Council and chief of staff.

  Cable: telegram.

  Call house: a house or business where a caller could be put in contact with the IRA or make a delivery for the IRA.

  Chief of staff: commander of the IRA – supreme in all military matters. In command of GHQ and usually chaired the Army Council.

  CID (Criminal Investigation Department): derogatory term used by the IRA for the Garda Special Branch. The term originated with a notorious Free State ‘police’ division disbanded in 1923.

  Cipher: a system for concealing plain text, by replacing the letters of the text with assigned letters and/or rearranging the letters

  Clan na Gael: secret and militant Irish-American organisation in alliance with the IRA.

  Clan na Gael and IRA clubs: local clubs in America that formed the base of Clan na Gael. Members included IRA veterans.

  Code: a method for concealing plain text, by replacing it with new complete words, phrases or sentences.

  Covering address: an address to which communications, books and other media were sent to and from here forwarded to the intended recipient – either an IRA member or unit. Most covering addresses received letters, while others were designated for telegrams, magazines or newspapers etc.

  Dump: also arms dump. Secret and secure storage place for arms, explosives or confidential documents. IRA quartermasters had overall responsibility for the storage of munitions.

  Fenian: popular (but inaccurate and sometimes derogatory) name for members of Clan na Gael and the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Derived from the ‘Fenian Brotherhood’, a radical Irish-American organisation of the 1860s.

  Fianna Fáil: political party founded by Éamon de Valera in 1926. Most of the leadership had been senior officers in the IRA and its establishment badly split the IRA.
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  Friends of Irish Freedom (FOIF): Irish-American organisation, led by Judge Daniel Cohalan, and allied with John Devoy. By 1922 it opposed both the IRA and Éamon de Valera.

  General Headquarters (GHQ): the IRA’s headquarters in Dublin, overseen by the chief of staff and responsible for the day-to-day running of the IRA.

  Hand delivery: despatches or money were often carried by an IRA courier rather than risking the postal system.

  IRA units: in order of descending size: brigade, battalion and company.

  Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB): secret revolutionary organisation which helped found the IRA. IRB members formed an elite within the IRA. In 1924 the IRA disbanded the organisation due to the number of Free State supporters among the IRB’s leadership.

  Keyword or keyphrase (key): a word or phrase shared between the sender and recipient of a cipher and used as part of the encryption and decryption processes.

  MI5: British secret service, responsible for protecting the UK’s national security.

  Officer commanding or OC: commander of an IRA unit. The OC of a brigade was known as a brigadier-general, while the OC of a company was a captain.

  Officer commanding Britain (OC. Britain): the senior IRA officer in Britain. Based in London and in contact with Soviet agents. ‘M’ held this position in the first half of 1926. ‘HS’ or George succeeded him.

  Plain text: a message that isn’t encrypted.

  Potassium chlorate: the main ingredient in most explosives manufactured by the IRA.

  Précis: a plain text summary of a message written in cipher or code. Usually it’s very difficult to understand the full meaning of this summary without prior knowledge of the original ciphered document.

  RU: Razvedupr, Red Army intelligence. The IRA provided intelligence to two of its agents: ‘Stephen’ and ‘James’.

  Safe house: a house or business where the IRA could meet, store documents and supplies or where a volunteer could safely spend the night.

  Sinn Féin: the dominant republican political party in the Free State, until the resignation of its president Éamon de Valera in 1926. From then on it became increasingly marginalised and had a strained relationship with the IRA.

  Special Branch: armed detective section of the gardaí, responsible for combating the IRA.

  Stuff: cryptic term used by the IRA. Usually meant ‘explosives’, occasionally arms and ammunition or other equipment.

  Volunteer: term for a member of the IRA. It usually referred to the equivalent of a ‘private’, but could also be used to include officers.

  APPENDIX 2

  The Mystery Woman

  Cutting from a British newpaper on the case of the Soviet spy, Kate Gussfeldt (alias Ethel Chiles) for whom the IRA obtained an illegal passport. The article was filed among Moss Twomey’s papers at GHQ, but without any accompanying comments or explanation.

  One of the more intriguing stories in the documents is that of the ‘mystery woman’. In the Twomey papers there’s an undated newspaper clipping with the headline: ‘Mystery woman at the Old Bailey’. There’s no direct reference to her in the other papers. Just two short sentences which appear to be indirect references.

  Who was she? What was her connection to the IRA? Some of the clues can be found in British secret service (MI5) files which were recently made public.1

  Kate Gussfeldt was a 28-year-old German communist, who first came to the attention of the British authorities in the winter of 1924 in Cologne, which was then under British military occupation following the war. She was found in the company of a British soldier in a café and arrested by the ‘British Morality Police’ as a suspected prostitute.

  In 1924 the secret service observed her as she made three trips to Britain to attend and address meetings of the Comintern front organisation, the Workers’ International Relief Committee or WIR. On her second visit she stayed in Glasgow and met with the well known activist, Helen Crawford. They travelled together to a communist women’s conference in Manchester, and realising that she was being tailed, she swapped clothes with Crawford, allowing her to elude the police and return to the continent using a German passport in a false name. Helen Crawford had spent time in Ireland as a communist organiser in 1925 and remained in close contact with the IRA supporter Charlotte Despard.

  In 1925 Gussfeldt travelled to New York, returning to Europe in January 1927. That year she attended the League Against Imperialism meeting in Brussels, acting as an interpreter at secret meetings.

  In March 1927 MI5 sent details to customs with instructions to arrest a woman with a British passport in the name of ‘Ethel Chiles’ on her arrival in the country. Gussfeldt, was observed arriving at Dover by boat from Calais and was followed to London, where Scotland Yard detectives arrested her at Victoria Station. She gave her name as ‘Ethel Chiles’ of Clapton and refused to give further information or make a statement. The following day she was charged with entering the UK on an ‘irregular passport’ and refusing to answer questions as to her identity and nationality. However, as the passport was found to have been issued by the British Foreign Office, the charge was dropped and a new charge of ‘conspiring with some person or persons unknown to obtain by false pretences a British passport’ was substituted. British intelligence suspected her of arriving in Britain ‘in order to get in touch with a certain suspect group in London’.

  While under arrest she sent a message to Helen Crawford. Meanwhile MI5 went through her belongings in fine detail. Labels on her suitcases showed that she was travelling from Berlin to Britain. All the other labels had been removed so as to prevent tracing her movements – except for one: a small torn piece of a label indicating that she had recently been to New York. Among her luggage were ‘a vast number of pieces of soap and bottles of scent’ which were chemically analysed, but turned up nothing. There was also a deflated rugby ball, which posed a challenge to the secret service: ‘So far no one has been able to offer any solution as to this!’ A first aid kit contained two small tubes of potassium permanganate, which was an antiseptic but could also be used as both an invisible ink and developer.

  There were three notebooks. One included rather mediocre poetry written in German. Another was a diary, which contained information written in secret ink concerning three American ex-Air Service officers. The first was Lieutenant Herbert O’Fahy, who had spent five years in the Air Service but was dismissed in 1923 for ‘flying very low over a Lincoln Memorial meeting while President Harding was speaking’. He was currently employed ‘sky writing’ and dropping pamphlets on race meetings, etc. Next was Frank, a pilot who wanted to serve in the Soviet Air Force. And lastly, George, a member of the American Communist Party, was a research engineer with Western Electric, specialising in radios.

  With the aid of an ‘informant’ within the London IRA, MI5 was able to trace the origin of her passport. The passport, issued by the London Passport Office, was obtained through Thomas Cook and Sons and posted to Kate Gussfeldt in Germany. An ‘Englishman’ Frank Mathews had brought the application form to the Thomas Cook office and the referee on the application was a Dr Gately. British intelligence tracked the doctor down and described him as ‘a doctor addicted to low habits and a tippler’. They agreed with him that his signature had been forged. MI5 noted another coincidence; the letter sent to Donnelly, a British military policeman imprisoned for stealing government codebooks, was also signed in the name ‘Dr Gately’. ‘Ethel Chiles’ gave her address as 62 Rendlesham Road, which also happened to be that of the Woods family ‘whose connection with the Irish Republican Movement is well known’. One of the young men of the family had been deported from Britain in 1923 due to his suspected IRA links.

  After Gussfeldt’s arrest the police interviewed Mrs Woods, but she remained unaware of the purpose of their visit, until she read later in the paper of the arrest of ‘Ethel Chiles’. She then sent a message to an IRA man ‘O’Neill’ that she needed to meet him urgently. ‘O’Neill’ told her to ‘say she knew nothin
g’ if asked about the passport. At the same time MI5 were watching the short personal notices (commonly placed in newspapers at the time) for any cryptic message that could be connected with the case. They puzzled over messages such as: ‘Can I have lumble? Tumble. Wumbles’ – which was carefully cut out of The Times by an agent and pasted into the Ethel Chiles file. But the message that caught their attention was one which Helen Crawford was suspected of having inserted: ‘W.- Thanks for message. Longing 2 c u 2. –M. Received. Be more cautious. Not settled yet’.

  At the same time as Kate Gussfeldt’s arrest George reported to Moss Twomey: ‘Things are very hot at present’.2 Twomey replied: ‘Have you any fears for [the] connection on account of [the] matter about which you sent [the] newspaper cuttings?’3 To which George added: ‘I don’t think there is the slightest danger, but you never know what they may come across. I took all the precautions I could’.4

  The informer inaccurately reported to MI5: ‘that this type of work is not being conducted with the knowledge or sanction of the heads of the IRA in Ireland and their funds do not benefit by any money received. It is a private venture on the part of one or two senior IRA officers here who have got in touch with the Russian and German agents and are pocketing the proceeds. They are making use of people like the Woods and Donnelly in a pretence that the work is being done for the Irish cause’.

  MI5’s opinion was that Gussfeldt ‘was acting as an important agent, not only in connection with the Irish Republican Intelligence Service’ and that ‘she had come over for the purpose of working with the German agent [sic] and in his absence taking charge of the business here’. MI5 suspected that both the Russian and German intelligence agencies could have been involved.

  So MI5 was on to something but they hadn’t quite got to the bottom of it. It’s clear from the communications sent to Twomey that GHQ authorised the passport scheme. Who was the IRA informant? Maybe a disaffected or laid off officer? Gussfeldt was a Soviet spy and was involved with military espionage in America. Whether she was going to work with the IRA in Britain or not is not clear. Was ‘James’ the ‘German agent’? There are so many threads to this story: Helen Crawford, Donnelly, the ‘German agent’, etc.