David Neligan

After service as a uniformed constable with the DMP, Neligan was promoted to Detective and transferred into the Department's widely hated counterintelligence and anti-political-subversion unit, the G Division, in 1919.

In May 1920 Neligan's elder brother Maurice (1895–1920), an Irish Republican Army (IRA) member and friend of Michael Collins, persuaded him to resign from the DMP.

[4] Along with Detectives Eamon Broy and James McNamara, Neligan acted as a highly valuable agent for Collins and passed on reams of vital information.

On the outbreak of the Civil War in June 1922, Neligan joined the Irish Army in Islandbridge Barracks with the rank of Commandant, and was attached to the Dublin Guard.

He was involved in the seaborne assault on Fenit and spent the remainder of the war serving as a military intelligence officer operating between Ballymullen Barracks, Tralee & Killarney.

In 1924 Neligan handed over his post to the youthful Colonel Michael Joe Costello and took command of the DMP (which still continued as a force separate from the newly established Garda Síochána) with the rank of Chief Superintendent.