With the Dublin Brigade: Espionage and Assassination with Michael Collins' Intelligence Unit

Charles Dalton, Carol Mullan [nee Dalton]

• Publisher: Mercier Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781781172674
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de l'Irlande

Charles Dalton was only fourteen years old when he joined the Irish Volunteers in 1917. By 1920 he had been appointed to Michael Collins' elite intelligence unit.In this book he describes his role in the assassination of the 'Cairo Gang', a team of undercover British agents working and living in Dublin, on Bloody Sunday, 21 November 1920. He also details his involvement in the seizure of arms from Messrs Guinness's boat the 'Clarecastle', the filling of home-made hand grenades with gelignite, the attempted shooting of hangmen on their arrival at Dublin to carry out executions, attempted rescues of prisoners in military custody (including Dan Breen from the Mater Hospital, after he had been wounded) and the encirclement of Grafton St. shortly before the Truce.His duties also involved tracing the activities of enemy agents and spies, keeping records of enemy personnel, contact with friendly associates in government and Crown service and organising and developing intelligence in the Dublin Brigade.This account, originally published in 1929, when he was only 26 years of age, is complemented by the inclusion of his statement to the Military History Bureau made 20 years later, which, though not significantly different in terms of fact, is remarkably different in tone.

Chapter I

For us in Ireland ‘1916’ is only another name for the Rising of Easter Week. I was thirteen years old in that year, having been born in January 1903.

I was playing around my home in North Dublin on that Easter Monday, when I heard that the Volunteers had seized the General Post Office and other buildings in O’Connell Street, and that they had erected barricades across the streets leading to the positions they occupied.

The news of the Rising came as a great surprise to me, and I was most anxious to go into town and find out what was happening. When we sat down to dinner, my father told us that a party of Lancers had ridden down O’Connell Street and that they had been fired on by the Volunteers, a few of the soldiers and horses being killed.

He said there would be terrible work now, and, perhaps reading my thoughts, he told me that on no account was I to go into town. He advised my mother to lay in provisions and to buy two hundred-weight of flour.

‘God knows how long this trouble will last,’ he said. ‘It may be a case of every ha’penny being needed to buy food.’

I had a ha’penny in my pocket, and I put my hand in and gripped it tightly, as I was greatly affected by my father’s words.

After dinner, I went out again and found my playfellows, and we decided that it would be dangerous to go into the city. We could hear the sound of the firing. So we began to play cards. The boys all condemned the Rising; they called the Volunteers ‘hot-heads’ and other insulting names. This made me very angry. However, at the cards – in which I had been rather unwilling to join after my father’s words, fearing to lose my ha’penny – I had the satisfaction of winning and increasing my capital by two pence. It gave me even greater satisfaction that I, who was for the ‘Rebels’, had beaten those who were against them. I felt almost as if I were helping my heroes who were making the real fight not far away.

As the days passed, the noise of the guns grew louder and temptation got the better of me, so that I decided that I would venture to find out for myself what was happening.

I had not gone very far towards the city when I found my way barred by a cordon of military stretched across the North Circular Road. They would not allow anyone to pass except those who had entered the city to get bread at the bakery. There were no deliveries of bread made at all during that week.

I felt that I should love to join the ‘Rebels’, but the sound of the firing frightened me. If only I had been older I would have helped in the fight, because maybe then, I thought, I would not have been afraid of the terrible noise made by the rifles and machine guns.

I rambled along close to the military line, not able to tear myself away. I was greatly disgusted to see women coming out of the houses to give jugs of tea to the British soldiers. That picture remained in my mind for a long time.

On the fourth or fifth morning I was talking to my mother in her bedroom. All the younger children were there too, for some reason. Suddenly the windows shook with the noise of a deafening explosion. I thought the city was being blown up and I found myself trembling. Then I heard my mother laughing. ‘Look, Charlie,’ she said, ‘your hair is standing on end.’ I was far too frightened even to smile.

What had happened? Everyone in our road ran to their hall doors to ask each other the same question, which none of them could answer. But they all expressed some opinion. One said: ‘It is the artillery. The Rebels will all be killed now, and the fighting will be over. That will be a good thing, anyhow.’

Another said: ‘It is the Germans landing at Howth to help the Rebels.’

The next day we learned that the explosions were caused by the gunboat Helga, which had been brought up the Liffey to shell the buildings occupied by the Volunteers.

That night, when we were all, as usual, gathered together upstairs to say the Rosary and to pray for the Volunteers, we did not light any lamps, thinking it too dangerous to show a light. In the dark, with the unaccustomed feeling it gave me of something solemn and mysterious, I prayed with great fervour, beseeching God to let my heroes win.

When we had finished praying I looked out of the window towards the city, where my thoughts always were, and I saw the sky all lit up with a red blaze. We thought the whole city must be on fire. This sight added to my feeling that everything was changed; that all that was safe, familiar and commonplace had disappeared.

We had to wait until the next morning to find out the meaning of it. A man who passed by our house told us that the General Post Office was in flames and that the Volunteers had surrendered. He had seen them lined up on the footpaths, he said, with a military guard around them.

I was terribly disappointed at this news. I had hoped with my whole heart that the Volunteers would win.

Chapter II

With the surrender, the newspapers began to appear again, and everyone rushed to buy them to read all about the ‘Rebellion’.

A British General named Sir John Maxwell issued an official statement, telling how he had crushed the Rebels and executed their leaders.

We were horrified at this news and it created a reaction of feeling among those who had been condemning the Volunteers. Everyone now spoke in their favour. They were referred to as ‘those brave men who had the courage to face untold odds for an ideal’. The ‘hot-heads’ were now called ‘patriots’ and ‘idealists’. ‘They were Irishmen, anyway,’ they said, though some of my friends still used the word ‘misguided’.

I began at once to collect souvenirs and papers dealing with the Rising. Whenever I could get a photograph of one of the dead leaders I treasured it with a kind of sacred interest.

I could now go into the city and walk among the ruins. This became my favourite occupation for a long time. I walked amongst them with a feeling of sadness, and at the same time of holiness and exultation. The streets were now so changed in appearance that to visualize what they were like before the Rising I had to look at the photographs labelled ‘Before’ in the souvenir albums. I made mental pictures of what the fight must have been like when it was in progress. I reconstructed the whole of the Rising, with loud rifle fire from the Post Office, and the English falling killed and wounded in the street. I searched the lanes and alleys in the area of the fighting, thinking how the Volunteers might have used them to make their escape. In Moore Lane, I looked for a long time at the spot where The O’Rahilly fell. He had been killed by British machine-gun fire while retreating from the burning General Post Office. It was in this building that the Volunteers had had their headquarters, and from which the Republican declaration was issued and Pádraig Pearse had given his order to his followers to lay down their arms.

I felt now that I would like to meet some fellow sympathizers, who would share my feelings, but I did not know where to find them. Then, one day, some weeks, or maybe a month or two after, I read in the paper that a Mass was to be offered for the dead patriots in Church Street Church at 11 o’clock on the following Sunday.

When I arrived I found the church filled with people. After Mass, I waited outside, and the congregation, mainly women, gathered round a young, red-haired man who began to sing ‘Rebel’ songs, in which the crowd joined whenever they knew the words. I recognized the young man as a senior schoolfellow of mine, whose sympathies I had not suspected until that moment. He was Ernie O’Malley, who afterwards played a great part in the fight in the country.

When the songs were finished, someone produced a tricolour flag. This was the signal for cheers. The crowd then formed up behind the flag-bearer and we marched in processional order through the city by College Green. That was a day of great happiness for me. I had a wonderful, proud feeling, walking in the procession. There were only a few hundred of us, and nobody seemed to mind us or take any notice of us; only a young lady who passed by linking a British officer in uniform gave us a scornful look.

These Masses were held frequently and enabled me to become one of the crowd who attended them, though I knew no one but O’Malley.

Chapter III

Besides the sixteen leaders who were executed after the Rising, thousands had been shipped to England, some to serve sentences of penal servitude, others for imprisonment in internment camps.

When it became known in December 1916 that an amnesty had been declared, there was great excitement in Dublin. The prisoners were to be released and were to be sent home at once.

Though no civic or public welcome was arranged, a great crowd of people assembled at Westland Row railway station to see the homecoming. I left home that day, not to go to school as I pretended, but to see for myself the men I so much admired and whom I hoped to join some day soon.

I waited outside Fleming’s Hotel in Gardiner Place. I heard that the prisoners would come there, and others must have heard it too, because there were hundreds waiting in the road and on the pavements.

Suddenly a voice shouted: ‘Here they are!’

Immediately several brakes filled with laughing, hatless men came rattling up the street. Some of them were waving their convict caps and shouting madly and singing ‘The Soldier’s Song’, which is now our National Anthem.

They went into the hotel. We were cheering ourselves hoarse, and I never thought I could have made my voice shout so loud.

Then a tall, dark, spectacled man appeared at one of the hotel windows. When we saw him, the shouting increased. I thought he would make a speech and I was disappointed when he moved back from the window without taking any notice of our cries.

He was de...

Table of contents

• Foreword
• Introduction
• Author’s Preface
• Chapter I
• Chapter II
• Chapter III
• Chapter IV
• Chapter V
• Chapter VI
• Chapter VII
• Chapter VIII
• Chapter IX
• Chapter X
• Chapter XI
• Chapter XII
• Chapter XIII
• Chapter XIV
• Chapter XV
• Chapter XVI
• Chapter XVII
• Chapter XVIII
• Chapter XIX
• Chapter XX
• Chapter XXI
• Chapter XXII
• Chapter XXIII
• Chapter XXIV
• Chapter XXV
• Chapter XXVI
• Chapter XXVII
• Chapter XXVIII
• Chapter XXIX
• Chapter XXX
• Chapter XXXI
• Chapter XXXII
• Chapter XXXIII
• Bureau of Military History, 1913–21 Witness Statement 434
• About the Author
• About the Publisher