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[[File:Cairo gang.jpg|250px|thumb|A photo purportedly of the Cairo Gang, but more probably the [[Igoe Gang]]]]
The IRA Intelligence Department (IRAID) was receiving information from numerous well-placed sources, including [[Elizabeth Mernin|Lily Mernin]], who was the confidential code clerk for British Army Intelligence Centre in Parkgate Street and Sergeant Jerry Mannix, stationed in [[Donnybrook, Dublin|Donnybrook]]. Sgt. Mannix provided the IRAID with a list of names and addresses of all the members of the Cairo Gang. In addition, Michael Collins's case officers on the intelligence staff – [[Liam Tobin]], Tom Cullen and Frank Thornton – were meeting with several D Branch officers nightly, pretending to be informers. Another IRA penetration source, participating in the nightly repartee with the D Branch men at Cafe Cairo, Rabiatti's Saloon, and Kidds Back Pub, was [[Dublin Metropolitan Police]] Detective Constable [[David Neligan]], one of several [[mole (espionage)|moles]] Michael Collins had recruited to infiltrate the G-Division. Additionally, the IRA also recruited most of the Irish [[domestic servant]]s who worked in the rooming houses where the D Branch officers lived, and all of their comings and goings were meticulously reported to Collins's staff.
All the members of the D Branch were under IRA surveillance for several weeks, and intelligence was gathered from sympathisers, for example, who was coming home at strange hours, thereby indicating that they were allowed to violate the military [[curfew]]. The IRA Dublin Brigade and the IRAID then pooled their resources and intelligence to draw up their own hit list of suspected Cairo Gang members, and set the date for the assassinations to be carried out as [[Timeline of the Irish War of Independence|21 November 1920]], at 9:00 am.
==Assassinations==
The operation was planned by several senior IRA members, including Michael Collins, [[Dick McKee]], Liam Tobin, [[Peadar Clancy]], [[Tom Cullen (Irish nationalist)|Tom Cullen]], [[Frank Thornton (Irish nationalist)|Frank Thornton]] and [[Oscar Traynor]]. The killings were planned to coincide with a [[Gaelic football]] match between [[Dublin GAA|Dublin]] and [[Tipperary GAA|Tipperary]], because the large crowds around Dublin would allow the members of Collins's [[The Squad (IRA unit)|Squad]] to move about more easily, and make it more difficult for the British to detect them before and after they carried out the assassinations.
Clancy and McKee were picked up by Crown forces on the evening of Saturday, 20 November. They were tortured and later shot dead "while trying to escape". Tortured and killed with them was Conor Clune, the nephew of Archbishop [[Patrick Clune|Clune]] of [[Perth]], who had been senior chaplain to the Catholic members of the [[First Australian Imperial Force|Australian Imperial Force]] in World War I.<ref>''The Irish War of Independence'' by Michael Hopkinson ({{ISBN|978-0717137411}}), page 91</ref> Clune was manager of the seed and plant nursery owned by [[Edward MacLysaght]] near Quin, and Clune and MacLysaght travelled to Dublin on the morning of Saturday, 20 November 1920, bringing with him the books of the Raheen Co-op for its annual audit. Clune was arrested in a raid on Vaughan's Hotel in Dublin, where he was a registered guest.
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Eventually another group of intelligence operatives, known officially as the Identification Branch of the Combined Intelligence Service (CIS), took the fight to the IRA. The group was known informally as The Igoe Gang, named after its leader [[Head Constable]] Eugene Igoe, who was from [[County Mayo]]. Igoe reported to Colonel Ormonde Winter.
The Igoe Gang consisted of RIC personnel drawn from different parts of Ireland who patrolled the streets of Dublin in plain clothes, looking for wanted men.<ref>Tim Pat Coogan, ''Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland''.</ref> The Igoe Gang posed a serious threat to Collins's apparatus and even caught a Volunteer whom Collins had brought to Dublin to identify Igoe.<ref>William Henry [2012] Blood For Blood: The Black and Tan War in Galway. Mercier Press, Cork p.178–181</ref> The Igoe gang has been accused of using [[excessive force]] while interrogating prisoners – prior to his hanging, IRA man [[Thomas Traynor]] (a member of [[The Forgotten Ten]]) was badly beaten by members of the gang.<ref>{{cite book |last=O'Farrell |first=Padraic |date=1997 |title=Who's Who in the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, 1916-1923 |url=https://archive.org/details/whoswhoinirishwa0000ofar/page/98/mode/1up?view=theater |publisher=Lilliput Press Ltd |page=98 }}</ref> The Gang was never penetrated by the IRA. Igoe later conducted secret service operations for Special Branch over many years in other countries, but never returned to his farm in Mayo out of fear of reprisal. Brigadier General Winter appeared on Igoe's behalf to obtain an increase in his pension in view of his many services to the Crown in Ireland and elsewhere.<ref>Ormonde Winter, ''A Report of the Intelligence Branch of the Chief Police Commissioner'' 1921, Public Record Office (PRO).</ref>
==See also==
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