Michael Collins S Intelligence War

Michael Collins is often thought of as Ireland's lost leader: a man born into a revolutionary environment who became a skilled statesman and military leader. This book looks in at Collins' key role in the Anglo Irish War using primary sources which have not previously been available.

As leader of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and then the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Michael Collins developed a bold, new strategy to use against the British administration of Ireland in the early twentieth century. His goal was to attack its well-established system of spies and informers, wear down British forces with a sustained guerrilla campaign, and force a political settlement that would lead to a free Irish Republic. Michael Collins and the Anglo-Irish War reveals that the success of the Irish insurgency was not just a measure of Collins’s revolutionary genius, as has often been claimed. British miscalculations, overconfidence, and a failure to mount a sustained professional intelligence effort to neutralize the IRA contributed to Britain’s defeat. Although Britain possessed the world’s most professional secret service, the British intelligence community underwent a politically driven and ill-advised reorganization in early 1919, at the very moment that Collins and the IRA were going on the offensive. Once Collins neutralized the local colonial spy service, the British had no choice but to import professional secret service agents. But Britain’s wholesale reorganization of its domestic counterintelligence capability sidelined its most effective countersubversive agency, MI5, leaving the job of intelligence management in Ireland to Special Branch civilians and a contingent of quickly trained army case officers, neither group being equipped—or inclined—to mount a coordinated intelligence effort against the insurgents. Britain’s appointment of a national intelligence director for home affairs in 1919—just as the Irish revolutionary parliament published its Declaration of Independence—was the decisive factor leading to Britain’s disarray against the IRA. By the time the War Office reorganized its intelligence effort against Collins in mid-1920, it was too late to reverse the ascendancy of the IRA. Michael Collins and the Anglo-Irish War takes a fresh approach to the subject, presenting it as a case study in intelligence management under conditions of a broader counterinsurgency campaign. The lessons learned from this disastrous episode have stark relevance for contemporary national security managers and warfighters currently engaged in the war on terrorism.

Based on recently-released interviews, The Squad throws a considerable amount of new light on the intelligence operations of Michael Collins.

Drawing from Irish intelligence records, This book fills a gap in the history of Irish intelligence and some twists and turns in Anglo-Irish relations.

Details how Michael Collins dismantled the system of British counter-intelligence in Ireland and was the architect of the war against the Black and Tans and British empire. Many have questioned whether Collins ever fired a shot at the enemy, but he did order the deaths of people standing in his way, and even advocated kidnapping a US president.

There is no crime in detecting and destroying in wartime the spy and informer...I have paid them back in their own coin. - Michael CollinsMichael Collins' development of a formidable intelligence network transformed, for the first time in history, the military fortunes of the Irish against the British. The Dublin Brigade of the IRA was pivotal to this defining strategy. In 1919, Collins formed members of the brigade into two Special Duties Units. They eventually joined to form his 'Squad' of assassins tasked with immobilising British intelligence. Eyewitness testimonies and war diaries lend immediacy and insight to this thrilling account of the daring espionage and killings carried out by both sides on Dublin's streets. Dominic Price reveals how the IRA developed Improvised Explosive Devices, and experimented with chemical weapons in the form of poison gas and infecting water supplies.When the Civil War erupted, the devotion of a significant cohort of the Dublin Brigade to Collins, forged during the darkest of days, was unbreakable. Many of them, identified here for the first time, formed the backbone of the Free State in key intelligence and military roles. While not shying away from the revulsions of the Civil War, neither does Price abandon the brigade's story at its conclusion. As well as revealing the disenchantment of some, who took part in the 1924 army mutiny, he exposes the personal horrors that awaited in peacetime, when psychological trauma was common. This is the stirring and poignant story of the human endeavour and suffering at the core of the Dublin Brigade's fight for Irish freedom.

The Atlas of the Irish Revolution is a definitive resource that brings to life this pivotal moment in Irish history and nation-building. Published to coincide with the centenary of the Easter Rising, this comprehensive and visually compelling volume brings together all of the current research on the revolutionary period, with contributions from leading scholars from around the world and from many disciplines. A chronological and thematically organized treatment of the period serves as the core of the Atlas, enhanced by over 400 color illustrations, maps and photographs. This academic tour de force illuminates the effects of the Revolution on Irish culture and politics, both past and present, and animates the period for anyone with a connection to or interest in Irish history.

In this completely revised and updated book, T. Ryle Dwyer, offers a fresh perspective on Collins' activities. With new information about his role in organising the IRB in London in his youth right through to his death in 1922, Dwyer's analysis supports the case for Collins as the chief architect of the Irish victory over the British Empire. Michael Collins co-ordinated the sweeping Sinn Féin election victory of 1918 and put structure on the organisation of the IRA. He was the prototype of the urban terrorist and the architect of the war against the Black and Tans. While many have questioned whether Collins ever fired a shot at an enemy of Ireland, he did order the deaths of people standing in his way, and he even advocated kidnapping a US President.