It was David Neligan who gave himself the soubriquet "The Spy in the Castle." When his account of his work for Michael Collins was published in 1968, it was greeted as a significant contribution to the history of the troubled 1916-1921 period in Ireland. But the story which it told is only a part of his life, spanning just a few years of the decade-and-a-half over which he was centrally involved in the evolution of a new Ireland. He was born in Templeglantine, Co Limerick, in 1899, where his parents were national school teachers. At 18 he decided to become a policeman, taking a path which was customary for many a young Irish countryman with the foundations of a good education and a bit of ambition. His career began in the Dublin Metropolitan Police, patrolling the streets of the capital, unarmed, in the days before the Irish War of Independence. He graduated relatively quickly to the detective branch and it was in his role as a member of `G' Division that he found himself uniquely placed to play a key role in Collins's intelligence war.
His exploits in assisting Collins are the subject of this book. It tells an extraordinary tale of nerve and bluff. From within the centre of the British security machine he fed information to Collins, enabling the IRA to stay ahead of its enemies in intelligence matters. Neligan was one of a number of Irish-born members of the detective branch operating for Collins over this period. The best-known two others, Eamonn "Ned" Broy and James McNamara, also come into this narrative.
When the War of Independence ended the Civil War began. David Neligan transferred to the National Army with the rank of colonel. He was a tough soldier, assigned to Kerry where the fighting against anti-Treaty forces was bloody and dirty. Men under his command were involved in actions - reprisals, perhaps - which led to the deaths of helpless prisoners. Anti-Treaty forces had rigged roadblocks with booby-trapped mines which killed several Free State soldiers as they endeavoured to clear them.
The Free State forces henceforth decided that prisoners would be used to clear barricades. In two incidents, at Ballyseedy and Countess Bridge, mines exploded, killing and maiming prisoners. Neligan's name was invariably linked to these incidents in anti-Treaty accounts of the Kerry fighting. The extent to which he might or might not have been involved has never been publicly documented. But it is certain that his subsequent career gave every incentive to opponents of the Treaty to blacken his reputation. He led the men of Oriel House, an ad hoc assemblage of gunmen operating as a secret police on behalf of the Provisional Government. After Kerry he served as Director of Intelligence until the end of 1923. He then returned to the Dublin Metropolitan Police.
When the Garda was amalgamated with the DMP in 1925, Neligan was transferred, with the rank of chief superintendent, to take command of a new, State-wide, armed detective branch. He was given the task of pacifying those elements throughout the State which refused to come to terms with the new order.
He established the Special Branch throughout the State. Small groups of two and three detectives, often ex-IRA men, were dotted here and there. They were armed and mobile. The S-Branch met with vigorous resistance from unreconstructed republicans who resolved to continue the struggle against the Free State or, in some instances, from opportunists from both sides who had simply turned to crime.
They were turbulent years. Neligan was seldom directly involved in operations. He directed his network from the Crime Branch at Garda Headquarters at the Phoenix Park Depot. He reported to Commissioner Eoin O'Duffy, but had direct access to the Minister for Justice and, as necessary, to the head of the Government, William T Cosgrave. His influence was considerable. His estimation of the public mood and of the state of crime and subversion formed the basis of the Government's day-to-day security policy.
In 1927, members of the IRA assassinated the Minister for Justice, Kevin O'Higgins. It was a hammer-blow to the security forces and it was a serious reverse for Neligan's reputation. But by the early 1930s, he could look at the map on the wall of his office at the Phoenix Park Garda headquarters and reassure himself that only a few rural districts, principally in the west, the south and along the border, still presented overt problems to his detective force.~
But the outer appearances of tranquillity concealed continuing deep resistance to the Treaty and gathering political hostility to the government which had backed it. In 1932 a new Fianna Fail administration under Eamon de Valera came to office. Neligan was relegated to an obscure post in another Government department and worked out his service there.
In 1973, while researching for a post-graduate thesis, I called and introduced myself to David Neligan, then in his 70s and living quietly in retirement at Booterstown, on the south Dublin coastline. He received me courteously and we spent a succession of evenings drinking tea in his drawing room while I probed him on the security policy of the Free State Government.
He had a formidable recall of detail. I also remember his modesty in describing his work for Collins. He had a humorous, self-deprecatory way of telling a story or detailing some operation in which he might have been involved. He had a strong sense of humanity and I recall his desire in all of his narratives to put an end to old animosities. He spoke of men who had lost their lives through his actions or the actions of those who worked under his command, always sympathetic to the vulnerable or wretched human being caught up in the turmoils of war.
He was proud of his patriotism. He was clear that he had done the right thing for his country, whether working for Collins in the Civil War or as head of the Garda crime branch. Yet I always felt - and it is clear from this book - that he was prone to the regrets and doubts which often afflict those who are engaged in the work of espionage. He achieved his objectives for Collins by deceiving his superiors and colleagues in the detective branch, not a few of whom were to die because they thought him one of their own.
For the most part they were men like David Neligan himself, farmers' and shopkeepers' and teachers' sons from rural Ireland, caught in a conflict of duties between their nationality and their job. Neligan's own nationalism is often muted in the book, and it is clear that he was torn, at times, between loyalties to his comrades in the police and his task in support of Collins's guerrilla campaign.
The Spy in the Castle explores an important dimension of the Irish War of Independence, and is a significant historical document. Accounts of Irish history for many years after independence shied away from the bloody reality of guerilla warfare, preferring to focus on the almost glamorous exploits of the men of the Flying Columns or those who took part in the set-piece battles with Black and Tans or Auxiliaries. David Neligan's account tells of back-street shootings, ambushes and assassinations. When he wrote it in the late 1960s, few could have anticipated that the same sordid script would shortly be played out again in Northern Ireland. The Spy in the Castle refers to events more than 70 years ago. But in a way, it is also a contemporary tale of Ireland.
Conor Brady is editor of The Irish Times. He is author of Guardians of the Peace (1974, Gill & Macmillan) and a number of papers on the security policy of the Irish Free State 1922-32.