Micheal Collins and 'The Squad'.

[rathmore]

Michael collins site: http://www2.cruzio.com/~sbarrett/mcollins.htm
http://generalmichaelcollins.com

Piara Beaslai's wrote: Michael Collins Solder and Statesman in 1937
and - Michael Collins - The making of a new ireland in 1926

Piara Beaslai's was born in Liverpool to Irish Parents (1883-1965) member of the IRB, he was a Easter Rising Survivor who turned writer.

[rathmore]

sorry missed a (i) out of soldier

[corisande]

He promptly replied, Alan Wilde, British Intelligence Officer, just back from Spain.

Don't you just love that part of Cahill's story. 

Thanks for that WS cpm

It is interesting that Foley (who was a section leader at the Gresham) and later became Capt of this IRA company on Moran's death, gave a list of 13 participants in the operation, which did not include Cahill - one of the many inconsistencies one get in Witness Statements. It is difficult to know if Cahill made the whole thing up from stories told to him by others, or whether Foley just forgot Cahill was there when he wrote his WS

[capel street man]

The origin of the W.S.
The Bureau of Military History was formed in 1947 to assemble and co-ordinate material to form the basis for the compilation of the history of the movement for Independence from the formation of the Irish Volunteers on the 25th November 1913 to 11th July 1921.
Witnesses were interviewed by specially trained people and officers of the Bureau, the information given at the time was checked and verified .
Most of the W.S. were taken late 1940,s early 50,s, some 30 years after the original events, so discrepancies and mistakes are bound to occur.
Also many Volunteers did not want their names mentioned for obvious reasons.
I have no reason to doubt Cahills W.S. regarding Bloody Sunday
In Colonel J.V.Joyce,s W.S. Chief of Investigation Staff of the Bureau, he lists Cahill as a definite member of No.2 Section of the Active Service Unit, a brave soldier and a man of honour.
Yes, I agree you should check all the facts, new information is becoming available all the time and you have to check and double check, hopefully this site will help to make that happen
C.S.M.
.

[corisande]

The third Intelligence Officer had not slept in the Gresham the previous night, and so escaped the purge. 

That is the chap I am trying to track down at the moment, as nobody either knows, or is prepared to tell, his name

My own feeling is that this chap was the one Collins had put on the original list, before it was augmented by Dublin Brigade

[rathmore]

It possible that there will not be a full list of Michael Collins squad, the IRA was a (secret squad) nobody mention  names.  And it is possible nobody is going to tell you who was in this Squad.

[rathmore]

on the following site it says Dennis Byrne was a gunmen in Michael Collins Squad.

http://idea.library.drexel.edu/bitstream/1860/1209/1/2006175027/pdf

Drexel University

[tommobecket]

thankyou for this source rathmore. but I can't seem to access the site with that link, and the drexel website does not provide any link to the code. Do youhave a title or author of the source please?

[corisande]

I got it by putting "Byrne " into the site search engine on the place that the broken link takes you to.

You get a list of Byrne references but it is fairly clear from the list the one you want.