Decoding the IRA (12 page)

In May 1925 the Army Executive called for the convening of a general army convention that November.
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Aiken, as sanguine as ever, wrote about the upcoming convention: ‘I believe there is no cause for the slightest worry in the matter.'
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1925 IRA army convention

On 14 and 15 November, IRA delegates from across the country attended the general army convention at the (inconveniently namely) Queen's hotel, Dalkey, County Dublin. This crucial meeting was to determine the direction of the IRA for many years.

The convention approved a new IRA constitution that asserted the organisation's primary aim as the establishment of a thirty-two county republic through the use of force. It also decreed that the general army convention was ‘the supreme army authority', but that the Army Council fulfilled this role when the convention was not in session. The convention would elect the twelve members of the Army Executive, which in turn selected the seven members of the Army Council. However, aside from selecting the Army Council, the Executive (which had been such a powerful body during the Civil War) was now largely powerless and was
rarely convened. Even in early 1925 all Aiken could say of it was that: ‘[The] Army Executive is still in existence.'
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In practice the IRA was governed by the chief of staff working with the Army Council and the senior officers at General Headquarters.

The second major development at the convention was the passage of Peadar O'Donnell's resolution that: ‘The army of the Republic severs its connection with the [Second] Dáil and act [
sic
] under an independent executive, such executive to be given the power to declare war when, in its opinion, a suitable opportunity arises to rid the Republic of its enemies'. This signalled the IRA's formal split with de Valera and Sinn Féin, and was additionally a vote of no confidence in Aiken's leadership. O'Donnell wanted to break away from the legalistic and socially conservative attitude of Sinn Féin and for the IRA instead to develop its own radical social and economic policies, leading to a revolution that would be both nationalist and socialist.

The atmosphere became acrimonious when Aiken admitted that he had been involved in discussions about entering the Dáil. The delegates then elected the members of the Army Exectuive, with those that opposed Aiken – such as Andy Cooney, Moss Twomey and Peadar O'Donnell – topping the poll, while Aiken himself was barely re-elected. The Army Council soon afterwards selected Andy Cooney as chief of staff.
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The historian Richard English has described the army convention as marking the ‘birth of a new, autonomous IRA'. However, it was those that were to soon resign and join with de Valera, such as Aiken and Lemass, who had tried to change the IRA, while Andy Cooney and his associates wanted a return to its traditional autonomy.
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The convention's assertion that the IRA was primarily committed to physical force was certainly not a new departure, and aside from the period of Aiken's tenure, political control of the organisation was tenuous at best. For instance, during the Anglo-Irish War Cathal Brugha, the republican Minister for Defence, was largely ignored and sidelined by the leadership of Richard Mulcahy and Michael Collins.

A few days after the convention, Frank Aiken wrote a prescient letter to Cooney laying out his (evolving) position. In it he implied that the new leadership lacked ‘foresight and common-sense' as it pinned its hopes on
‘the extremely remote possibility of a successful
coup d'etat
' and argued that the IRA needed to retain both a military and political strategy: ‘I think the fight before our country should appear difficult enough … without seeking to limit our tactics [to a purely military solution].' Aiken warned the leadership of the danger of withdrawing from political participation and becoming ‘a society of select brethren who will admire one another'. He continued to support the existence of the IRA: ‘Without the Army, Ireland cannot gain her freedom', and ended with an appeal for the Army Council to tolerate volunteers who supported republicans entering the Dáil, once they could do so without taking the oath.
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Rather ironically (in the light of subsequent events) he proclaimed: ‘I haven't the slightest sympathy in the world with the people who would … take the oaths or declarations [of] allegience [
sic
].'

The IRA's new leadership

The appointment of Cooney heralded a virtual complete change in the IRA's senior leadership. Unlike Aiken and his supporters, who were looking at alternatives to armed action, the incoming leadership envisaged the IRA seizing power at an opportune moment. Many were also inspired by the Russian Bolsheviks and saw the IRA as the vanguard of a social revolution. Though not significantly younger in years, these Young Turks represented a new generation. With the exception of Seán Russell, few of them had held senior positions during the Anglo-Irish War. The IRA's legendary leaders who fought the British had now largely left: Michael Collins had gone Free State and was shot dead in an IRA ambush in the Civil War, Tom Barry was no longer actively involved and wasn't to return until the 1930s, Seán Moylan supported de Valera and Seán MacEoin was now a senior officer in the Free State army.

Andy Cooney as chief of staff was ‘supreme in all military matters'. He chaired the Army Council and oversaw the staff at GHQ.
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The Army Council decided on policy and strategy, while the headquarters staff were responsible for the day to day running of the IRA. As has already been noted, the Army Council had subsumed most of the responsibilities previously accorded to the Army Executive. This occurred during Frank Aiken's tenure and was likely due to his disagreement with several of its
members, particularly over the circumstances of the ending of the Civil War. In turn Cooney had no reason to resurrect the power of the Executive as several members remained loyal to Aiken and de Valera, whereas the Army Council fully backed Cooney and his allies.

After the chief of staff, the second most senior officer was the adjutant general, who was responsible for discipline and administrative matters, including the keeping of records and communications with local units. The quartermaster general (QMG) oversaw the importation, supply and distribution of arms, equipment and explosives. Other headquarters officers included the director of intelligence and the finance and accounts officer.

Cooney voluntarily relinquished his position as chief of staff to Moss Twomey in the first half of 1926. Tom Daly of Kerry was adjutant general in 1926 and was likely replaced by Donal O'Donoghue the following year.
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Seán Russell was QMG.
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Peadar O'Donnell was editor of the IRA's newspaper,
An Phoblacht
(The Republic) and a member of the Army Council. Frank Kerlin was director of intelligence. Mick Price was OC of the Dublin brigade and also a member of the Army Council. Other senior leaders included Donal O'Donoghue, George Gilmore, Jim Killeen and Seán MacBride.

In some ways work at headquarters resembled that at any other office (aside from the constant risk of a raid by the gardaí!). Moss Twomey wrote to George Gilmore telling him of the difficulties caused by resignations and the lack of money:
‘[Staff captain] Wilson is now with me here. You see we are pretty short handed. Bridie left suddenly a few weeks ago and has a job. Wilson tries to type'
,
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while Andy Cooney sent a secret communication to the OC in Britain telling him not to visit over Christmas:
‘We will be closed for [the] Holidays from the 22nd [of December], but you can come before that date.'
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Even revolutionaries need a break!

During this time there was a significant decline in the organisation's income, due to the drying up of funds from America, the break with de Valera and the decrease in Soviet funding. The IRA was perennially strapped for cash and had difficulty paying its full-time officers at headquarters. Due to the (illegal) nature of its business, financial records were
often inadequate and there were frequent allegations of misappropiation of funds by officers. Moss Twomey was continually asking officers to account for their use of IRA monies. He wrote to the finance officer telling him not to ‘certify any other account without receipts' but was forced to qualify his statement: ‘that is in cases where it is possible to get them'.
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There still remained money that had been dispersed during the Civil War to prevent its seizure by the Free State. Twomey wrote to the OC of the Dublin brigade:
‘See Donal O'Donoghue's mother who has some brigade funds. I do not know exact amount.'
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An inner circle existed within the leadership composed of Andy Cooney, Moss Twomey and Seán Russell. Cooney and Twomey were staunch allies and worked closely together, while Peadar O'Donnell gave Twomey advice and assistance on political initiatives and was influential in this regard – though he was unable to persuade the Army Council to adopt his more revolutionary Marxist ideas. Seán MacBride, who was close to Twomey, was also a key player.

Additionally the leadership could be broken into three groups, each with a broadly different outlook. Twomey and Cooney represented the centrists, who felt that the IRA needed to have a social and political policy to support its military strategy. The socialist republicans, as exemplified by Peadar O'Donnell, advocated both a nationalist and social revolution. Militarists like Russell, on the other hand, were committed to the IRA as purely a physical force movement; they regarded any political entanglement or alliance as likely to compromise the organisation and corrupt the membership.

Andy Cooney was originally from Nenagh, County Tipperary. During the Anglo-Irish War, while still a medical student at University College, Dublin, he was active in the Dublin IRA. He was a member of Michael Collins' hand-picked unit, the ‘Squad', and in November 1920 participated in the assassinations of British intelligence agents on Bloody Sunday. In 1921 he strongly opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty and wanted to have Collins and the other negotiators arrested on their return to Ireland. In the months leading up to the Civil War, while many of the IRA officers (who were to go on to fight against the Free State) desperately tried to avert war, Cooney was one of the few who advocated the IRA go
on the offensive and attack Beggar's Bush barracks in the capital. During the conflict he was appointed OC of the grandiosely sounding 1st Eastern division. Following the war he disapproved of Aiken's drift towards politics and at the 1925 army convention topped the poll for the Army Executive.
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Cooney, at six foot two, towered over most of his comrades. He was a strict disciplinarian, not renowned for his charisma. A colleague described him as ‘withdrawn, definitely not the sort you would crack jokes with', though his friend, Todd Andrews, painted a more sympathetic picture: ‘All women, young or old, liked Cooney.'
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Cooney's stint as chief of staff was to prove brief, as in April 1926 he received permission from the Army Council to visit America for the purpose of meeting with representatives of the IRA's main support group there – Clan na Gael. He planned to bring them up to date on developments in Ireland and to ensure their continued financial backing. Moss Twomey was appointed interim chief of staff, and was confirmed in that position later in October.
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Cooney was happy to relinquish the post to Twomey who was the ‘overwhelming choice' of the Army Council as his replacement.
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On Cooney's return from the US he resumed his medical studies in Dublin. He retained the chairmanship of the Army Council until January 1927 when that too was assumed by Twomey.
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As Twomey wrote in cipher:
‘The late chairman asked to be relieved temporarily of [the] chairmanship, to give him [a] chance of getting [his] exam. He should either go for it now, or abandon [the] idea of [the] profession.'
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The exact date of the handover of the chief of staff's position in 1926 is uncertain. There is some evidence it may have occurred in April before Cooney's departure in late May or early June.
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One piece of evidence that supports an April handover is a letter written on 12 April by the ‘Chief of Staff' to the ‘Chairman of the Army Council'.
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Unless Cooney was writing to himself, or was deliberately trying to be deceptive (which was possible) then Twomey had already become chief of staff. Also in April the IRA's representative in America wrote to Cooney: ‘tell M. I can supply him with gold braid should he need it in his new office'. Given that ‘M' likely stands for Moss, this appears to be a reference to Twomey's appointment.
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Additionally, the encrypted documents (on which James
Gillogly and I have based this book) were from Moss Twomey's personal collection and the papers signed ‘chief of staff' start in April 1926, not in November 1925 or June 1926, further suggesting that the handover occurred in April. Therefore it's likely that letters signed ‘chief of staff' from 12 April on were written by Moss Twomey. This is of relevance as a number of important orders were sent to Britain from the chief of staff in May 1926 (see Chapter 6). In confidential correspondence Cooney was frequently referred to as ‘Mr Smith' and in the minutes of the Army Council as ‘A'.
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Maurice (or Moss) Twomey was chief of staff from 1926 to 1936. His ten-year tenure was the longest of any IRA chief of staff, by virtue of which he had a very significant influence on the organisation. Twomey was from Fermoy, County Cork and during the Anglo-Irish War he served under Liam Lynch with the North Cork brigade. In the Civil War he followed Lynch to GHQ, where he was a staff officer, eventually rising to the rank of adjutant general. He was very closely associated with Lynch and was with him when he was shot dead in 1923.
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