Sinn Fein devised a plan to help German soldiers land on the west coast of Ireland during the first World War. However, members were arrested before the Germans arrived, according to MI5 reports released by the Public Records Office in London yesterday. Sketchy details of Sinn Fein's plan were written by MI5 agents in The First World War Historical Reports, commissioned in 1916 by the Committee on Imperial Defence, and added to a detailed record of German espionage in Britain and Ireland being gathered by MI5. After the first World War, the 48-volume Historical Reports became a comprehensive record of MI5 from 1909 until 1919.
In 1918, an MI5 agent wrote of a plan by Sinn Fein's "Inner Circle" to assist the landing of German troops and arms on the west coast. In the report the agent was not specific about the location of the proposed landing, but MI5 was certain that Sinn Fein had planned to lure British troops away from the coast. The agent wrote: "All volunteers along the coast were to march inland, drawing the military after them and so leaving a clear field for the landing."
However, despite the arrest and internment of unnamed senior Sinn Fein figures, MI5 knew it had not disrupted Sinn Fein's plans to make life difficult for Britain during the first World War. The report added that even the arrest and internment of Eamon de Valera did not dampen the resolve of the Sinn Feiners.
"Sinn Feiners openly deny the German plot but secretly deride the suggestion that the government can learn anything about it. They say that even de Valera's place will be adequately filled . . . It is stated that all plans are submitted to Germany and that German approval of the arrangements made to assist a landing was received."
MI5 also uncovered a notebook belonging to de Valera with references to raising an army in Ireland after a successful rebellion. The MI5 report stated that de Valera's memo on an Irish army was forwarded to the secret service's Irish Command but that it was unconnected with Sinn Fein's plans to assist a German landing in Ireland. An MI5 agent dismissed the memo, saying: "It was concerned with the army which was to be raised after a successful rebellion had established the Irish republic."
All the reports of German espionage and MI5's suspicions about Sinn Fein were sent to branches of the secret service concerned with military operations, and to Scotland Yard and the Home Office.
The Irish section of the same report discloses that Sinn Fein members were known to have been buying surgical dressings and British firms were being warned not to supply them.
In its pages about individual suspects, the report notes that a "Sinn Fein boy scout," was arrested on a fishing boat at Queenstown, carrying a pencil sketch showing a military hut used to guard the local water supply.
"He confesses that he was looking for arms for the IRA - he will be tried by district court martial," the report says.