Irish American News Ohio

by J Michael Finn
During the Irish War of Independence, Michael Collins was helped by a network of spies and informants who worked inside the British intelligence machine in Ireland. Although these individuals risked their lives as informants, amazingly, none of them were ever detected. They helped Collins break the back of the British spy ring whose chief goal was his demise. The information they provided helped to bring the British to the bargaining table. We will look at just three of Collins spies: Eamon (Ned) Broy, David Neligan and Nancy O’Brien.
In those years, the main seat of English authority in Ireland was in Dublin. Here the combined efforts of British Intelligence, the British military and the Dublin Municipal Police joined together to gather dossiers on any individual or group they deemed in conflict with the Crown. Information was accumulated as the spies from these organizations combed the streets and pubs of Dublin in an effort to arrest and imprison the rebels.
The most active of these intelligence units was the Dublin Municipal Police (DMP). The intelligence unit was known as G Division. The men who worked there were known on the street as G-Men. Most were Irish. They were generally hated and despised by the populace who saw them as traitors to Ireland.
Eamon (Ned) Broy – Ned Broy was born in 1887 at Rathangan, County Kildare, Ireland. Broy joined the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) and rose to the rank of Detective Sergeant. He worked as a clerk inside the DMP G Division which was located on Great Brunswick Street. In 1918, Broy approached Michael Collins and offered to serve as a double agent. Collins accepted and Broy copied sensitive G Division files for Collins. The files were passed to Collins through Thomas Gay, the librarian at the Caple Street Library. On April 7, 1919, Broy smuggled Collins into the G Division’s archives. This enabled Collins to identify G-Men, six of whom would later be killed by Collins.
When the war ended, Broy supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and joined the Irish Free State Army during the Irish Civil War, reaching the rank of Colonel. In 1925, he left the Army and joined the Garda Síochána (the Irish national police). He served as Commissioner of Gardaí from 1933 to 1938.
In 1934 Broy oversaw the creation of the “The Auxiliary Special Branch” of the Garda. This was formed mainly of hastily-trained anti-Treaty IRA veterans. It was nicknamed the “Broy Harriers.” The unit was first used against the Facist Blueshirts. The “Broy Harrier” nickname persisted into the 1940’s, though Broy himself was no longer in command. He also served as President of the Olympic Council of Ireland from 1935 to 1950. Eamon Broy died in 1972.
Neil Jordan’s film, Michael Collins (1996), inaccurately depicts Broy (played by actor Stephen Rea) as having been discovered, tortured and killed by the British. Broy was once detained on suspicion, but, thanks to Collins quick action, no evidence was found and he was released. In addition, the film inaccurately depicts G Division as being based in Dublin Castle.
David Neligan – David Neligan was born at Templeglantine, County Limerick, Ireland in 1899. Against his father’s wishes, David joined the Dublin Metropolitan Police in 1917, and he was recruited into the G Division in 1919. In May 1920, David’s brother Maurice, a member of the IRA and friend of Michael Collins, convinced him to resign his position with the DMP. Already disillusioned with his work, he returned to his home in Templeglantine.
Shortly after his return, Maurice was killed in a motorcycle accident. Neligan received word that Michael Collins wanted to see him. Collins persuaded Neligan to return to the DMP, this time as a double agent who would supply intelligence information to Collins. Neligan returned and became a spy.
In 1921, Neligan was recruited into British Intelligence. He used this as an opportunity to memorize their passwords and the identities of their agents. All of this was passed on to Collins. He thus became Collins’ most important mole inside Dublin Castle. The information he supplied was instrumental in allowing Collins to kill fourteen British Intelligence officers on Sunday, November 21, 1920.
Neligan left the intelligence service in June 1922, and joined the Free State Army, with the rank of Commandant. He was involved in the seaborne assault on Fenit and spent the remainder of the war serving as the local intelligence officer.
In 1923, Neligan was promoted to Colonel and succeeded Diarmuid O’Hegarty as National Army Director of Intelligence. In 1924 he handed over his post to Colonel Michael Costello and took command of the DMP (which still continued as a separate force within the newly established Garda Síochána), with the rank of Chief Superintendent. In 1925 he transferred to the Garda when the two police forces were united. When Eamon de Valera was elected to power in 1932, his Republican followers demanded Neligan’s dismissal. He was subsequently transferred to an equivalent post in the Civil Service.
Until Neligan’s death in 1983, Neligan drew pensions from the DMP, the British Secret Service, the Garda Síochána and the Irish Civil Service. During the time he served as one of Michael Collins spies, he was never discovered. He wrote a book about this exploits titled Spy in the Castle.
Nancy O’Brien – Not too many things amazed Michael Collins; however, when his second cousin, Nancy O’Brien, was hired as a clerk in the General Post Office, Collins was said to have been amazed. He was heard to comment, “In the name of Jasus, how did these people ever get an empire?!”
Of course, Collins recruited his cousin as a spy, and she began smuggling communications from the GPO that went directly to Collins. In fact, Collins often found out about troop movements before the officers in the field. Nancy smuggled the messages out of the GPO hidden in her hair.
At the time of the War of Independence, the General Post Office was the main communications center for the British Army. All military dispatches and communications passed through or were generated by officers in the GPO. In late 1919, Nancy O’Brien had received rapid promotion in the Post Office. She was sitting in her office when she was sent for by the head of the British Post Office (she thought then that her work as a mole had been discovered).
He said to her, “We are aware of your dedication and your work. To get to the point, Miss O’Brien,” he said, “Whitehall is now so worried (about leaks) that they are going to send the vital information necessary for running this outpost of our Empire in code, and we have decided, because of your dedication… that you will be the person to decode all of these messages.” Nancy had done such a good job the British were promoting her to decode all of their secret messages, completely unaware that everything she typed went directly to her second cousin, Michael Collins.
Nancy retired from spying, married Michael Collins’ brother John and raised a family. She died sometime in the 1960’s.
These were only three of Collins many spies. Some of his operatives remain unknown and each operative did not know of the others existence. The resourcefulness of Collins was remarkable. He kept the pilfered information out of the hands of the British, thus protecting his spies from discovery. These individuals have never been fully recognized for their significant contributions to Irish freedom.
*J. Michael Finn is the Ohio State Historian for the Ancient Order of Hibernians and Division Historian for the Patrick Pearse Division in Columbus, Ohio. He is also Chairman of the Catholic Record Society for the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio. He writes on Irish and Irish-American history; Ohio history and Ohio Catholic history. You may contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .