Paddy Daly
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Paddy Daly, sometimes referred to as Paddy O'Daly, served in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence and subsequently held the rank of Brigadier in the National Army in the period 1922 to 19??.
Daly was born in Dublin.
In the War of Independence, he served in the "Squad", Michael Collins' assassination unit. In 1919, he participated in an abortive ambush on British general Sir John French near the Phoenix Park. He and the men under his command were responsible for the killing of many British intelligence officers as well as informers and alleged informers -notably on Bloody Sunday (1920), when they killed 14 British agents. Daly himself personably killed several people, for instance, Frank Brooke, director of Great Southern and Eastern Railway, who served on an advidory council to the British military, in June 1920. Towards the end of the war, in May 1922, the two principle fighting units of the IRA Dublin Brigade, the "Squad" and the "Active Service Unit" were amalgamated. Paddy Daly was put in command of this new unit, which was named the Dublin Guard.
After the Anglo-Irish Treaty split the IRA, Daly and most of his men sided with the pro-treaty party, who went on to found the Irish Free State. He was appointed to the rank of Brigadier in the newly created Irish Army, which was inaugerated in January 1922. When the Irish Civil War broke out in June 1922, Daly commanded the Free State's troops who secured Dublin, after a week's fighting. He was subsequently put in command of the Dublin Guard a unit of pro-treaty IRA men from Dublin, who proved to be the best troops available to the Free State. In August 1922, during the Irish Free State offensive that re-took most of the major town's in Ireland, Daly commanded a landing of 1000 troops at Fenit, County Kerry which went on to capture Tralee from the anti-treaty forces.
As the Civil War developed into a vicious guerrilla conflict, Daly's men were implicated in series of atrocities against anti-treaty prisoners (see Executions during the Irish Civil War), culminating in a series of killings with landmines in March 1923. Daly claimed that those killed were accidentally blown up by their own mines, but this has since been questioned.
He married a sister (first name unknown) of Elizabeth (Cissie) Murtagh who was the first wife of Michael Love who also served in the IRA and Irish Free State Army.
