Cairo Gang

[corisande]

I don't want to get into a political discussion here about the Cairo Gang. There is a write up about them here in Wikipedia.

What I am trying to establish is the provenance of this photo that is invariably used to depict them


(note to copyright editor, the image is in public domain according to Wikipedia)

I have been researching J J Fitzgerald who was one of the men shot in November, on the grounds that he was a member of the gang

You can get a full write up of J J Fitzgerald that I have done here This is not actually relevant to this thread, which is about the photo!

What I am trying to establish is information about the above photo

1. Do any other photos exist of the Cairo Gang in Dublin. This is the only one I have ever seen.

2. Does anyone know that this actually was them. Where does the photo come from, who took it and when.

3. There is the odd question of numbering. I have not been able to find who is attached to each number, apart from the fact that 1,2 1nd 3 were Irishmen - the implication being that the rest were English

4. If they were the spies, why on earth would they have had their photo taken together - asking for trouble.

5, Can anyone identify positively any of them from the photo

6. 14 people were shot in Nov 1920 as being the Cairo Gang! There are 10 in the photo.

7 Anyone any ideas as to where the photo was taken. If it was them, then one would think Dublin Castle, but I don't recognise the background.

So if we stick to the photo, it will stop any heat arising in the thread

[corisande]

I have the background here, click this link

It is the photograph that I am trying to identify. Everyone uses it, nobody has a list of names to the numbers, nobody knows when or where it was taken.

Many years ago I used to work for an an American tobacco company Philip Morris, they make Marlboro. I was giving a talk at a sales conference and needed a photo of the founder, one Philip Morris who came from UK. Nothing existed, I got hold of a suitable old photo of Joe Doe and used that. I was amused years later to see it being used in the companies accounts as the real Philip Morris.

I wonder if the same sort of thing happened here. If it is genuine, then someone has to know where and when it was taken. Seems very odd for a group of spies to have a group photo taken at a time when the British authorities did not even have a photo of Collins!

[corisande]

I have now found the email address of a TCD academic who has written a paper on the psychological effects in later life on the Squad members who carried out the killings.

I am trying her to see if see knows anything about the photo. It must have come from somewhere.

I thought it was worth trying here just in case anyone could pin it down!.

[corisande]

I have now  been contacted by someone who is doing a TV documentary on this episode. Although they have not seen it there, they believe that the original of the Cairo Gang photo is owned by The National Library of Ireland

I have had a go at the NLI on line catalogue, but could not ascertain whether they have it or not

If they do it should be possible to find the key to the numbers against each person.

Anyone able to say if the NLI have it?

[Ms. Smokestoomuch]

I have now found the email address of a TCD academic who has written a paper on the psychological effects in later life on the Squad members who carried out the killings.

If that's available online I'd love a link. If it's just an email addr maybe it's best not putting that up.

(Sorry the pictures origins is a mystery to me too.)

[shanew147]

dont know if you've already seen this ..but  the image is included in the Getty Image Archives (http://www.gettyimages.com/) and is credited to a Sean Sexton, who seems to have been a photo archivist based in Dublin.

There's a book of his work listed on Amazon - The Irish: A Photohistory, 1840-1940



Shane

[corisande]

Shane

Thanks for adding that info. I knew from Wikipedia that it was a Getty Image, but knew that they would not be the originators

Sean Sexton, was he the actual photographer, do you reckon, or did he just compile a photo archive collection from works of others.?

[shanew147]

it looks like he was more a collector than a photographer..

I'll check the directories to see if there is any mention of him .. as a photographer or otherwise



Shane

[shanew147]

Sean seems to have started his collection in the 1970s - the PhotoHistory book was published recently (c2003) and he is mentioned as buying items at various auctions around the same time.

there's more details on the book and him here  and here

the publishers have a website at - http://www.thamesandhudson.com maybe they could pass on a query ..



Shane