The Squad (32 page)

‘You’d better take this too,’ the manager said going to the press and taking out a big ledger. ‘Now you have all the customers’ names and address so don’t blame me for anything, but if you could let me have the books back in a few days you will save me a lot of trouble.’

‘I told him that depended on his own conduct,’ O’Daly said. ‘We were able to let him have the books back when the intelligence staff had gone through them.’

‘The men worked glorious and gallantly, but they just failed to achieve complete triumph,’ Collins wrote to the adjutant of the Longford brigade the next day. ‘It was nobody’s fault. There were no mistakes made. Things went on splendidly up to the last moment, and then there was a mishap. Our men fought their way out of the prison, and sustained only one slight casualty.’

A certain amount of friction developed between Éamon de Valera and Michael Collins over the former’s plan for major military confrontations. Collins did not believe that the IRA could maintain such a campaign. Oscar Traynor, the officer commanding the Dublin brigade, recalled one top level meeting at 40 Herbert Park, the home of the family of The O’Rahilly, who had been killed in the Easter Rebellion. Those in attendance included Cathal Brugha, Austin Stack, Michael Collins, Seán Russell, Traynor and others.

‘Something in the nature of a big action in Dublin was necessary in order to bring public opinion abroad to bear on the question of Ireland’s case,’ de Valera argued according to Traynor. ‘He felt that such an action in the capital city, which was as well known abroad as London or Paris, would be certain to succeed. He suggested that the seizing of the headquarters of the Black and Tans, which was situated in Beggar’s Bush barracks, would capture the imagination of those he had in mind, apart from the serious blow it would constitute to the enemy. As an alternative to this he suggested the destruction of the Custom House, which was the administrative heart of the British civil service machine in this country. It was the headquarters of the Inland Revenue and various tax offices, the assay office, local government and the Companies Registration office. As officer commanding the Dublin brigade, Traynor was given the task of considering the two operations and reporting to the army council.

‘I immediately set to work and was given the help of GHQ intelligence. Two weeks were spent on the investigation and examination of the possibilities of capturing Beggar’s Bush. The experience of the men engaged on this work was such that they reported against such an operation. My activities were then turned to the alternative suggestion – the Custom House.’

Traynor examined the building himself and then took Tom Ennis, the officer commanding the second battalion, into his confidence and asked him to examine the building. He got plans of the Custom House from Liam O’Doherty of the fifth battalion. There was no military guard in the building – they had been withdrawn a short time before.

As it was in the second battalion’s area, Ennis was given the task of burning the Custom House. The first battalion was to protect the outside of the building in the event of a surprise attack by the enemy, as well as deal with any fire station in their area. The third and fourth battalions were likewise to ensure that the fire brigades in their areas were blocked. The fifth was to cut communications between the Custom House and Dublin Castle.

The Custom House operation on 25 May 1921 was the largest single action in Dublin since the Easter Rebellion. Tom Ennis was anxious to have all the former members of the second battalion who had joined the Squad. Collins apparently did not want any of his men to be involved, but Ennis insisted and got his way. Paddy O’Daly was then concerned at what amounted to the break up of the Squad for the operation.

‘I appealed to Michael Collins to have us all included as I was afraid it would cause dissension amongst the men if any of them would be left out,’ O’Daly noted. After consultations with Traynor, O’Daly said that it was decided that the Squad would be the only unit other than the second battalion engaged in the Custom House itself.

‘The Squad was to take charge of all the entrance doors of the Custom House,’ said O’Daly. ‘I posted my twenty men at the various doors. Their instructions were to allow nobody to leave the building once they went into position, but any civilian entering the building on business was to be admitted and then held prisoner so that the outside public would not be given the information that the building was held by the Volunteers.’

The operations were supposed to begin around 12.45 p.m. and the Squad were to take control of all the doors at the same time ‘to prevent anybody finding one door closed getting out by another door,’ according to O’Daly. ‘This was the only job allotted to the Squad.’ It was significant that none of the people from intelligence headquarters were involved. Collins gave strict orders ‘that on no account were we to go near the Custom House, the reason being that he did not want to have everybody involved in it,’ related Dan McDonnell.

Ennis planned the whole thing with each officer having a number of men under him. There were people to round up the civil servants in the building and people to set the fires. The other Dublin battalions and the ASU were assigned the task of frustrating any effort by the crown forces to intervene and volunteers were also assigned to prevent sections of the fire brigade going to put out the fire at the Custom House. Despite O’Daly’s assertions that Ennis had planned the whole thing meticulously, there was obviously a breakdown, because the Black and Tans arrived early, with little difficulty, and surrounded the building.

Vinny Byrne went into the Custom House with Tom Keogh and Jimmy Slattery. ‘As we entered the hall, we met Tom Ennis who said he was short of a couple of men,’ Vinny recalled. Ennis asked if he could take Vinny to burn some of the offices on the second floor. Keogh agreed and Byrne complied.

‘I was assigned the task of holding the Beresford Place door,’ Jim Slattery recalled. ‘My instructions were to collect the policeman outside the door, take him inside, and allow nobody out once they entered the Custom House.

‘I went to the policeman at about five minutes to one on that day, and asked him to come inside with me, which he did reluctantly only after I showed him my gun,’ Slattery continued. The main body of the IRA arrived and carried in tins of fuel and bales of cotton, which had arrived in a lorry driven by Tom Kilcoyne. The fuel and cotton were then brought upstairs.

Vinny Byrne got a tin of petrol and went to the second floor. ‘I opened the office door, and sitting inside were a lady and gentleman, civil servants, having tea,’ he said. ‘I requested them to leave, stating that I was going to set fire to the office.’

‘Oh, you can’t do that!’ the man replied.

‘I showed him my gun and told him I was serious,’ Byrne continued. ‘He got very worried about the whole thing.’

‘You had better get out at once, unless you want to be burned alive,’ Byrne said.

The lady asked if she could get her coat.

‘Miss, you’ll be lucky if you get out with your life,’ Vinny told her.

All the civil servants were ordered to the ground floor, where they were held with their hands on the heads for around half-an-hour.

‘I started on a tour of inspection, entering by the main door facing the Liffey,’ Paddy O’Daly recalled. ‘I could not make my way through the inside owing to the herding of the staff and the various groups of Volunteers running to their positions, so I came out, went round the outside and found that all the men under my charge were in the positions allotted to them. As I came out the main door facing Liberty Hall I saw Oscar Traynor, who beckoned me over. I told him what I knew, that everything was going on perfectly as far as I could see. He took out his watch. He was very anxious at seeing no sign of smoke and said that the building should be on fire by now.

‘As we were speaking a Tan lorry swung around from the quays and pulled up right beside us,’ O’Daly continued. ‘At that moment a young lad, identified as Dan Head, a mere boy, threw a hand-grenade right into the lorry. Before the lorry came I had seen this lad standing near us, but I did not take him to be a Volunteer, he looked about fifteen years of age.’

‘Run,’ O’Daly said to Traynor. ‘I darted towards Abbey Street. ‘With the explosion of the bomb the whole place seemed to rock, and one Tan fell out of the lorry right in front of me as I was running past making for Abbey Street. Shots were fired and struck the wall of Bairds, the big ironmongers. Whether the shots were from the Tan lorry or from our own men firing on the Tan from the Custom House I do not know, as I was right in the line of fire from both parties.’

‘I mingled with the crowd in Abbey Street and saw an armoured car and more lorries,’ O’Daly continued. ‘The Tans were dismounting and spreading out, so I made my way around Marlboro street. Outside the Abbey Theatre I met Oscar Traynor, and I was glad to see him alive. We went round by Talbot Street into Store Street, but could not get near enough even to see the Custom House.’

Things were clearly going awry. The Tans had managed to arrive at the building unopposed. ‘The Tans lay down on the square facing the building, and I went outside and fired a couple of shots from a Peter the Painter,’ Slattery recalled. ‘There is going to be sport here today,’ he told Tom Flood on darting back into the cover of the building. He was making light of the whole thing to boost morale. Shortly afterwards an armoured car arrived and there was general firing.

The signal to set the fires was to be given with a whistle. Somebody blew a whistle but nothing happened. Tom Ennis came down the stairs,’ Slattery noted. ‘I asked him if the fires had been stated and he said no. He wanted to know did I hear the whistle and I told him I did. He started cursing and went back again.’

Vinny Byrne was busy preparing to torch the office he had taken over. ‘I opened the safe and removed all the ledgers, which I placed on the table which was in the centre of the office,’ he explained. ‘I collected all other papers and files I could find and placed them on the table. I then proceeded to pour the petrol all over the office and on the papers. On hearing the signal – the whistle – I stepped outside. I lit a ball of paper, and slightly opening the door, I flung it into the office. In a flick the whole office was ablaze.’

Some of the men got out of the building with the staff when they were allowed to leave. ‘We mixed with the staff and eventually found ourselves outside the Custom House dock,’ James Harpur of the ASU recalled. ‘In passing out there was a gentleman there with some auxiliary officers who was identifying the staff but who did not identify myself, Tom Flood, Tom Keogh, Ned Breslin or Mick Dunne as members of the staff, and we were separated from them and brought down to another party on the Quays … We were searched and during the search a hole was discovered in the lining of Ned Breslin’s pocket and on feeling around at the back of his coat a round of ammunition was discovered and the auxiliaries who were searching him took him out and gave him an unmerciful hiding.’

‘All the men who were upstairs taking part in the burning of the Custom House crowded down the main hall,’ remembered Slattery. ‘Nobody was keen on going out, but I was very anxious to go out because I did not think I would stand a chance if I was arrested. I tried to get the lads to burst out with me. A few of them did, but the Tans opened fire when we got outside the door. Seán Doyle, whose brother had been executed, broke through. He did not want to be arrested because he knew he stood no chance.

‘When we were almost halfway across the square there was a burst of machine-gun fire and I was hit on the hand. I called Doyle, who was slightly in front of me, and I saw blood trickle down his chin,’ Slattery said. He had been shot through a lung.

‘As I was coming down the stairs, I heard a burst of revolver and rifle fire from inside and outside the building,’ Vinny Byrne recalled. ‘When I came to the hall, everyone was dashing from place to place. I ran along the corridor towards the docks and, as I came to the end, I could see the Auxies on the quay, firing. I retreated back to the hall. There was not a soul to be seen.’

There was a glass partition on top of a timber base in the hall, inside the main entrance. There were sandbags behind the timber frame. As Byrne approached the entrance an armoured car drove up and fired a burst of machine gun fire into the hall. ‘I flung myself down to the floor,’ Byrne said. ‘It was a blessing the sandbags were there.’ They saved him and he waited until the car withdrew. ‘I could see the Auxies standing out on the roadway,’ Byrne continued. ‘At this time, the whole building was a raging inferno. It meant either being burned or shot. I decided to have another go to get out. The first time I had fired from my Peter I did not realise that I had emptied it. I had a look to see how many rounds I had left, and I re-loaded the gun. Just then two Auxies appeared a few yards from the doorway. I opened fire on them and missed them. After firing the second time, my gun went silent – no more ammunition. I said to myself: “This is where you finish”. I walked out. As I came to the door, I heard a shout, “hands up”. I threw up my hands and found myself covered by an Auxie with a rifle.’

‘Come over here,’ the auxiliary shouted. He lowered his rifle and struck Byrne in the face. He then ordered him to walk in front of him across a green patch to Brooks Thomas’ premises. ‘Every minute I was expecting a bullet in the back, which never came,’ Byrne explained. ‘He marched me over to Brooks Thomas’ wall and, when another auxiliary joined him, he remarked: “this bastard came out of the building.” I got a few more blows on the face and body. He asked me what I was doing in the building.

‘I was on a message for my boss, sir,’ Byrne replied. ‘He struck me again, saying, “don’t sir me” and when I did not “sir” him, he struck me for not “sirring” him.’

‘You don’t stir from here,’ the auxiliary warned Byrne, turning to the other auxiliary saying a specific colleague ‘got it this time’.

‘The two auxiliaries left me and turned their attention to the body of a dead man a few feet away from me. He was a civilian. Catching him by the hair of the head, they lifted up his body and felt his pockets, letting him fall back again on to the ground.