Sean Lemass and the Bloody Sunday shootings

[kristof]

corisande,
Are you referring to: http://cairogang.com/

I thought that was pretty good stuff?  I was especially interested in the discussion around the famous photo of the cairo gang and just who was actually in it.

[corisande]

Yes, that is my site.

I have established now that the "Cairo Gang" photo is nothing to do with Bloody Sunday, and is in fact a photo of named people in F Company ADRIC. It is probably "posed" for the camera, and may well have been fed to the IRA to establish the credentials of a double agent who fed it to them.

Anyway the NLI tell me that they will amend their records to refer to it as that. I doubt that I can get all the errors removed from history books  but the "Cairo Gang" never existed

I went on to look at Bloody Sunday as a whole. The myth was that the men in the photo were the men shot on Bloody Sunday, which never seemed a runner to me, but took some time to prove who they really were.

One of the untold stories of Bloody Sunday is the raids that were unsuccessful - because the target had moved or was not at home when they called. And also the ones where the wrong man was shot. These are the ones nobody wants to talk about.

Collins intelligence gathering machine was good, but certainly not perfect - the myth that is was perfect is another myth that takes time to shine a light on.

The you get an odd raid like the one where Lemass was involved in, about which little is spoken. I am not sure if this is because Lemass was involved, or because they shot the "wrong" man.

They may have hit the correct target (the man they murdered, Baggallay, was a courts martial judge, but there were a lot more than him in Dublin at that time - and no particular reason for him to be singled out). However the IRAs reason given for Bagallay's murder is his involvement in the death of Lynch some time earlier is somewhat tenuous. Baggally was not working in intelligence.

So one can take one's pick as to why little is said of this raid (the same argument is true of the murder of Fitzgerald at Earlsfort Terrace). Collins objective on Bloody Sunday was undoubtedly to hit the British Intelligence machine hard - Baggallay and Fitzgerald were "merely" British officers and not intelligence. The men murdered in the Gresham Hotel (MacCormack and Wilde) were civilians with nothing to do with intelligence, neither was Smith the landlord at Morehampton Road.

I do not have any axe to grind, but I do feel that much about this period in Irish history has been written in a way that now needs to be looked at afresh. Collins infiltration of Dublin Castle was a classic in the annals of intelligence gathering, but he did make mistakes

[kristof]

corisande,

Thanks for that; that's really interesting stuff. 

Have you any plans to write an article or book on the subject of the "real story" of the "Cairo Gang" and the Bloody Sunday killings? 

[corisande]

Have you any plans to write an article or book on the subject of the "real story" of the "Cairo Gang" and the Bloody Sunday killings?   

Not when I started. Did think of it as I got into the subject, but still too much to do.

I did an interview with RTE a couple of weeks ago on Casements Irish brigade, another of my subjects. Don't know when it is going out yet. But when it does, should bring out of the wood work people who have family information

Same applies to Bloody Sunday shootings. There is a lot of info still to bring out. Human recollections are suspect either memory or their own spin of an event, so one needs several recollections to get near he "truth"

[capel street man]

Good afternoon Corisande, reference to S.Lemass taken from Dermot McEvoys introduction to the book - Bloody Sunday by James Gleeson
Quote---- Also among the assassins that morning was a quiet, dark haired twenty - three year old who would one day be Taoiseach ( prime - minister) of Ireland when President Kennedy visited in 1963, Sean Lemass, perhaps because of his close association with Eamon De Valera - who was in America when Bloody Sunday occurred - did not like to mention that he had worked for Collins on that day. In John Hogans biography, Sean Lemass: The Enigmatic Patriot, when Lemass is asked why he wont speak about his participation on Bloody Sunday, the Taoiseach succinctly replies, - " Firing squads don't have reunions " Un - quote
CSM

[corisande]

" Firing squads don't have reunions "  is about the only thing Lemass ever said about Bloody Sunday

Whether anything ever comes up under the 100 year rule or whatever on secrecy, we will have to wait and see