Cairo Gang

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The "Cairo Gang", also known as the "Cairo Group", was a group of 18 elite British Intelligence MI5 agents sent to Dublin during the Anglo-Irish War. Most were assassinated on November 21, 1920 by the IRA in a meticulously planned series of simultaneous daylight/early morning strikes engineered by Michael Collins.

They were called the Cairo Gang because they often held meetings at the Cairo Cafe on Sackville Place in Dublin. Many historians (see Tim Pat Coogan, Conor Cruise O'Brien) dispute assertions of a common history of service in the Middle East as the reason for the unit's nom de guerre. Some were Irish or of Irish descent.

[edit] Background

By 1920, the considerable success of the IRA, in particular its Intelligence Department under Michael Collins, was a cause of concern in Dublin Castle, the then headquarters of the British administration in Ireland. Colonel Sir Ormonde Winter commanded the gang. The IRA's unprecedented success led to the British government's demand that it be eliminated. This was the reason for the Cairo Gang's formation.

The Cairo Gang's members were put up in boarding houses across Dublin, where they lived unobtrusively while preparing a "hit list" of known republicans. However, the IRA Intelligence Department (IRAID) was one step ahead of them and was receiving information from a well placed source in the Dublin Metropolitan Police, one Sergeant Mannix, stationed in Donnybrook. Mannix provided the IRAID with a comprehensive list of names and addresses for all the members of the Cairo Gang.

From then on, all the members of the gang were kept under surveillance for several weeks, and intelligence was gathered from sympathisers (for example, concerning people who were coming home at strange hours, which would indicate that they were being allowed through the military curfews). The IRA Dublin Brigade and the IRAID then pooled their resources and intelligence to draw up their own "hit list" of suspected gang members and set the date for the assassinations to be carried out: November 21, 1920 at 9.00am sharp.

[edit] Assassinations

The operation was planned by several senior IRA members, including Michael Collins, Dick McKee, Liam Tobin, Peadar Clancy, Tom Cullen, Frank Thornton and Oscar Traynor. The killings were deliberately planned to coincide with the big Gaelic football match between County Dublin and County Tipperary because the large crowds around Dublin would provide easier movement and less chance of detection for the members of Collins' "Squad" carrying out the assassinations.

The operation began at 9.00am when members of the Squad entered 28 Pembroke Street. The first British agents to die were Major Dowling and Captain Leonard Price. Andy Cooney of the Dublin Brigade removed documents from their rooms before three more members of the Gang were shot in the same house: Captain Keenlyside, Colonel Woodcock and Colonel Montgomery. As Keenlyside was about to be shot a struggle ensued between his wife and Mick O'Hanlon. The leader of the unit, Mick Flanagan, arrived, pushed Mrs. Keenlyside out of the way and shot her husband.

At 119 Morehampton Road, Donnybrook, not far from the scene of the first shootings, another member of the Cairo Gang, Lieutenant Donald Lewis MacLean, along with a known informer by the name of T.H. Smith and McLean's brother-in-law, John Caldow, were taken into the hallway and about to be shot, when McLean asked that they not be shot in front of his wife. The three were taken to the roof where they were shot by Vinnie Byrne and Seán Doyle. However, Caldow survived his wounds and fled to his home in Scotland.

Next, at 92 Lower Baggot Street, another member Captain Newbury, and his wife heard their front door come crashing down and blockaded themselves into their bedroom. Newbury rushed for his window to try and escape but was shot while climbing out by Bill Stapleton and Joe Leonard after they finally broke the door down. Newbury's body lay hanging out of the window for several hours as the Black and Tans (a British paramilitary police body) did not move it, fearing it might have been booby-trapped.

Two key members of the Gang, Colonel{?} Peter Ashmunt Aimes {?}{Lt. Peter Ashmun Ames} and Captain George Bennett, were shot and killed after a sympathetic maid let their attackers into 38 Upper Mount Street. After a short gun battle both men lay dead in their rooms.

Captain Fitzgerald, alias Fitzpatrick, was shot and killed at 28 Earlsfort Terrace. He was the son of a Tipperary man and had survived a previous assassination attempt when the bullet only grazed his head. This time he was shot twice in the head. The documents found in his house detailed the movements of senior IRA members.

Meanwhile an IRA unit led by Tom Keogh entered 22 Lower Mount Street to kill Lieutenant Angliss, real name McMahon, and Lieutenant Peel. The two intelligence specialists in the Gang, McMahon and Peel had been recalled from Russia to organise British Intelligence in the South Dublin area. McMahon survived a previous assassination attempt when shot at a billiard hall. He was targeted for killing Sinn Féin fundraiser John Lynch, mistaken for Liam Lynch, Divisional Commandant of the 1st Southern Division. McMahon was shot as he reached for his gun.

Peel, hearing the shots, managed to block his bedroom door and survived even though more than a dozen bullets were fired into his room. When members of Fianna Éireann on lookout reported that Auxiliary Division were approaching the house, the unit of eleven men split up into two groups, the first leaving by the front door, the second leaving through the laneway at the back of the house.

At 119 Baggot Street, Captain Bagally, who had been a member of military courts that sentenced many IRA members to death, was killed by a three-man IRA unit, one of whom was a future Fianna Fáil Taoiseach, Seán Lemass.

Some members had decided that they would be safer residing in hotels. Captain McCormack and Captain Wilde were in the Gresham Hotel. The IRA unit gained access to their rooms by pretending to be British soldiers with important dispatches. When the men opened their doors they were shot and killed.

Captain Crawford narrowly escaped death after the IRA entered a guesthouse in Fitzwilliam Square where he was staying, looking for a Major Callaghan. On not finding their target, they debated whether or not to shoot Crawford. They decided not to shoot him as he was not on the hit list; instead they gave him 24 hours to leave Ireland, which he promptly did.

In the Eastwood Hotel the IRA failed to find their target, a Colonel Jennings, as he, along with Major Callaghan, had spent the night in a local brothel.

[edit] Aftermath

The remaining Cairo Gang members, along with many other valuable spies, fled to either Dublin Castle or England, fearing they were next on the IRA's "hit list". This dealt a severe blow to British intelligence-gathering in Ireland, from which it did not recover until after the war.

The Auxiliaries (a British paramilitary force created, along with the Black and Tans, in response to the IRA) took revenge on the local population, opening fire on the crowd during the football match between Dublin and Tipperary (see Bloody Sunday (1920)).

Eventually another group of intelligence operatives led by a Head Constable Eugene Igoe from County Mayo would take the fight to the IRA. The Igoe Gang consisted of RIC personnel drawn from different parts of Ireland and patrolled the streets of Dublin plain clothes, looking for wanted men (according to Tim Pat Coogan in his book "Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland").

The Igoe Gang would then proceed to eliminate some of the Republican movement's most active members in Dublin and was more effective than the Cairo Gang ever was in combating the IRA.