Free Espionage and Assasination with Michael Collins' Intelligence Unit: With the Dublin Brigade by Charles Dalton Page A

Volunteer), which was printed and circulated secretly, I was amazed to find a paragraph quoting the incident as ‘a splendid example of initiative’.
    This was the first occasion on which troops had been deliberately fired on since the Rising, though in some previous attempts to disarm them some soldiers had been killed. Hitherto we had directed our action solely against their spies, either of the RIC or the intelligence department.
    But now it was realized that to allow the troops to believe that they were immune from the danger of attack was tying our hands. They were raiding and searching and were operating with those who were directly employed to put an end to the National Movement and the men taking part in it.

Chapter XIV
    A few days later one of the Squad called on me and asked me to accompany him. ‘The assistant director of intelligence wants to interview you,’ he told me.
    He brought me into the city and through a number of side streets to Crow Street, an alleyway off Dame Street, quite close to Dublin Castle – the stronghold of the enemy.
    When we came to a small printer’s shop he beckoned me up the stairs, and on the second floor he knocked on the door. On the door a card was fixed, with the words in printed letters ‘Irish Products Coy’.
    After a little delay, a door was opened and we were admitted. There were three or four other Volunteers inside, some of whom I knew slightly. I noticed there were stacks of newspapers lying around.
    Sitting at the table was a tall young man, with dark hair brushed back very smoothly. He had the look of a dominant personality. I recognized him as a Volunteer whom I had seen occasionally when there was something very important on hand.
    He was Liam Tobin, the assistant director of intelligence, working immediately under Michael Collins. As a lad of nineteen he had fought in the Rising under Tom Clarke and was sentenced to death, the sentence being commuted to penal servitude for life.
    After we had exchanged a few commonplace remarks, he asked me if I would like to become a member of his staff. There was nothing on earth I wished for more, but I had looked upon it as an honour far above my reach, and I was hard put to it to hide from him my eagerness and the feeling of surprise which almost overwhelmed me.
    So I replied, as composedly as I could, that nothing would please me better.
    He seemed satisfied with me, and forthwith instructed me in my new duties. I was to report to him the next morning and he would tell me what I was to do.
    When I arrived, very punctually, the following morning, I was given the daily papers to look through. I was told to cut out any paragraphs referring to the personnel of the Royal Irish Constabulary or military, such as transfers, their movements socially, attendance at wedding receptions, garden parties, etc. These I pasted on a card which were sent to the director of intelligence for his perusal and instructions. Photographs and other data which were or might be of interest were cut out and put away. We often gathered useful information of the movements of important enemy personages in this manner, whom we traced also by a study of Who’s Who , from which we learned the names of their connections and clubs. By intercepting their correspondence we were able to get a clue to their movements outside their strongholds.
    I was next shown how to decode telegrams. Liam Tobin received copies of telegrams from some person he had working for him in the Central Telegraph Office. These were all in code and were addressed to district inspectors of the RIC throughout the country. We possessed the key word, so we had no difficulty in deciphering them. The key word was changed at least once a month, but in notifying the change the new key word was telegraphed in the existing code. So that having once got the key word the code was always afterwards decipherable by us.
    The contexts of these messages usually referred to