An Cosantóir

An Cosantóir March 2019 www.dfmagazine.ie 22 | BY DR. PÁDRAIG ÓG Ó RUAIRC PHD T he 'intelligence war' was un- doubtedly one of the most important military aspects of the Irish War of Independence. For the Brit- ish forces, the best way to defeat the republican insurgency was to acquire accurate intelligence information about Irish Republican Army (IRA) personnel, their supply of arms and operations. Prior to the 1916 Rising the British Government had relied on the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) to gather such information. However the widespread closure of RIC barracks following IRA attacks, the success of Sinn Féin's police boycott and the consequent mass resignation of Irish-born Constables meant that from 1919 the British forces became increasingly dependent upon civilians for information. Given the role of spies and informers in compromising the republican insur- rections of 1798 and 1867, the IRA was acutely aware of the importance of stopping the flow of information to the enemy by identifying British intelligence agents. During the War of Indepen- dence, the republicans inflicted a variety of punishments on those suspected of being British spies. Some received threatening notices, others suffered economic boycott, had their property destroyed or were forced into exile. In the extreme cases, the IRA captured and killed civilians they claimed were spies. As a guerrilla army, relying on secrecy and mobility the IRA could rarely afford to take alleged spies' prisoner for extended periods. The chief of IRA intel- ligence in Cork, Florence O'Donoghue, commented on the dilemma this posed: "The absence of any facilities for the de- tention of prisoners made it impossible to deal with the doubtful cases. In practice, there was no alternative between execution and complete immunity." Given the damage that an active spy could inflict in terms of the capture and execution of IRA Volunteers, the killing of suspected British intelli- gence agents was a necessary military action and a total of 196 civilians ac- cused of spying were killed by the IRA during the War of Independence. Today most Irish people hold a fairly positive view of the War of Indepen- dence regarding it as a 'just war' fought in a mostly chivalrous manner by the IRA, which eventually led to in- dependence for southern Ireland and es- tablished the main pillars of our modern democratic state - Dáil Éireann, the Irish Defences Forces and An Garda Síochana. However the military struggle for Irish freedom was far more complex than the history most of us were taught in school Sketch of spy execution - Illustrated Police News.

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