Cairo Gang
Tim Pat Coogan's biography of Michael Collins asserts that the "nom de guerre" of the British unit derived from a common history of service in the Middle East,[1] but that is disputed by some Irish historians, such as Conor Cruise O'Brien, and it has been suggested that they received the name because they often held meetings at Cafe Cairo, at 59 Grafton Street in Dublin.
The officers received training in London, most likely under the supervision of Special Branch, which had been part of Britain's Directorate of Home Intelligence since February 1919.
Another IRA penetration source, participating in the nightly repartee with the D Branch men at Cafe Cairo, Rabiatti's Saloon, and Kidds Back Pub, was Dublin Metropolitan Police Detective Constable David Neligan, one of several moles Collins had recruited to infiltrate the G-Division.
The IRA recruited most of the Irish domestic servants who worked in the rooming houses where the D Branch officers lived, and all of their comings and goings were meticulously reported to Collins's staff.
All the members of the D Branch were under IRA surveillance for several weeks, and intelligence was gathered from sympathisers, for example, who was coming home at strange hours, thereby indicating that they were allowed to violate the military curfew.
The IRA Dublin Brigade and the IRAID then pooled their resources and intelligence to draw up a hit list of suspected Cairo Gang members, and set the date for the assassinations to be carried out as 21 November 1920, at 9:00 a.m.
The operation was planned by several senior IRA members, including Michael Collins, Dick McKee, Liam Tobin, Peadar Clancy, Tom Cullen, Frank Thornton and Oscar Traynor.
Woodcock was not connected with intelligence and had walked into a confrontation on the first floor of the Pembroke Street house as he was preparing to leave to command a regimental parade at army headquarters.
[8][9] Just 800 metres away, at 92 Lower Baggot Street, another Gang member, Captain William Frederick Newberry, and his wife, heard their front door come crashing down and blockaded themselves into their bedroom.
[10] Two key members of the Gang, Lieutenant Peter Ashmun Ames and Captain George Bennett, were made to stand facing the wall on a bed in a downstairs rear bedroom and shot by Vinny Byrne and others in his squad.
Peel, hearing the shots, managed to block his bedroom door and survived even though more than a dozen bullets were fired into his room.
At 119 Baggot Street, a three-man unit killed Captain Geoffrey Thomas Baggallay, a barrister who had been employed as a prosecutor under the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act 1920 regulations and who had appeared for the prosecution in multiple military tribunals that sentenced alleged IRA volunteers to death.
A listing in The Times for McCormack and Wilde does not indicate any rank for the latter – in fact, he was a discharged army officer who had been a British consul in Spain.
[18][19] Captain John Scott Crawford, in charge of motor repair of the British Army Service Corps, narrowly escaped death after the IRA entered a guesthouse in Fitzwilliam Square where he was staying, looking for a Major Callaghan.
[20] According to the prim Todd Andrews, Dolan took revenge by giving King's half-naked mistress "a right scourging with a sword scabbard", and setting fire to the room afterwards.
[21] Major Frank Murray Maxwell Hallowell Carew, an intelligence officer who, with Captain Price, had almost cornered 3rd Tipperary Brigade commander Seán Treacy a month before, was on the list.
Ames, Angliss, Baggallay, Bennet, Dowling, Fitzgerald, McCormack, MacLean, Montgomery, Newberry, Price, Wilde, Smith, Morris and Garniss were killed.
The dead included members of the "Cairo Gang", British Army Courts-Martial officers, the two Auxiliaries and a civilian informant.
He was later tried for shooting a member of the National Army, and convicted for killing a man for bringing a bag of tomatoes into the bar at the Theatre Royal, Dublin.
[28] Patrick Moran and Thomas Whelan were arrested later and, despite their protestations of innocence and 19 false witnesses attesting to alibis, were convicted and hanged for murder on 14 March 1921.
The Igoe Gang consisted of RIC personnel drawn from different parts of Ireland who patrolled the streets of Dublin in plain clothes, looking for wanted men.
Igoe later conducted secret service operations for Special Branch over many years in other countries, but never returned to his farm in Mayo out of fear of reprisal.
Brigadier General Winter appeared on Igoe's behalf to obtain an increase in his pension in view of his many services to the Crown in Ireland and elsewhere.
