"IT has been said that no European can fathom the mind of an Oriental, and it that might equally well be said Englishman can fully grasp the psychology of the Irish rebel character.

Thus Major Ormond Winter, director of British Intelligence in Dublin Castle in the years before the Treaty, explained the less than unqualified success of his forces from May 1920 to July 1921. His report is one of a number of documents just released to the Public "Records Office in London and runs to almost 100 pages.

The files provide a fascinating insight into British thinking around the time of the War of Independence, a period in Irish history looming large in the public mind as debate rages over Neil Jordan's film Michael Collins. The files show that the head of British Intelligence in Dublin was largely preoccupied with making excuses for failing to penetrate the ranks of Sinn Fein and the IRA.

"Two broad fundamental facts have to be taken into consideration," it begins. "First, Ireland is an island and second, that there are no physical characteristics to distinguish the loyalists from the rebels.

"Two things are remarkable about the rebellion. One, it has produced no great men and two, for the first time the Irishman has not succumbed to the temptation of gold."

He pointed out that rewards were offered, including £10,000 for information leading to the arrest of the murderers of a Mr Bell and £2,000 for the whereabouts of "the murderer Daniel Breen". But, although these were vast sums at the time, there was "not a nibble at the bait".

Major Winter described how in September 1920, his forces formulated a scheme for obtaining information by way of anonymous letter. But, he lamented, practically all those received were written either by "irresponsible jestors or active rebels" and were "for the most part accusations against well known loyalists".

Informers among the Irish Republican Brotherhood were almost impossible to obtain, he wrote. Nor was the "religious factor" helpful. "In Ulster the Protestants saw a rebel in every papist . . . but in the rest of Ireland the Protestants, both laymen and clergy, did little to assist the forces of the Crown."

Some success came from planting "moutons" in the cells of genuine suspects. They were arrested "with due pomp and circumstance" and the information gleaned helped in securing convictions.

Major Winter referred to "the indefatigable Michael Collins" who he believed became director of intelligence in 1920. In his office the Major's operative found a number of intelligence reports, descriptions of individuals and plans and sketches of police barracks.

Ultimately, however, Major Winter blamed the failure of British policy on lack of political will. In a brief history of the IRB appended to his report, he wrote: "The rebellion was summarily suppressed and ... the country would probably have learned a lesson and remained quiet had any consistent policy been maintained. The mistaken policy of conciliation arising out of weakness, timidity and vacillation which had led to the rebellion, again, however resumed its sway and played into the hands of the extremist element."

The documents released to the Public Records Office also include a large leather bound ledger containing handwritten records of money paid to informers. Most of the amounts are for sums below £30, but one large payment, of the unusually round figure of £1,000, was made to a Sir Basil Thomson on February 12th, 1920. No specific reason was given for the payment, which is also unusual.

Other documents include lists of people arrested and deported in 1918 along with their intelligence files. The files reveal an obsession with links between Sinn Fein and Germany and reports of speeches of various Sinn Fein figures which refer to Germany or the empire are underlined in red.

For example, they quote Constance Markievicz as saying on April 7th, 1918: "Let them try and conscript Ireland, they will have another western front . . . if they were conscripted when they would get to the front line they would turn their fire on England and not on the Germans.

This preoccupation seems to have been well founded. According to an intelligence report on a convention of the Irish Volunteers its president, Edward (sic) de Valera said there had already been too much bloodshed without success and he would never advocate another rebellion without hopeful chances of success. They could see no hope of that in the near future except through a "German invasion of England and the landing of arms and munitions in Ireland".

IN January 1918, British intelligence was reporting that, according to "a source which has proved reliable" communication is being carried on with Germany by Darrell Figgis, who gets the correspondence through "the master of a fishing boat off the west coast of Ireland, which is known to a German submarine commander".

But the intelligence reports acknowledge that the majority of Sinn Fein and especially Mr de Valera do not want another rebellion. The report of the Irish Volunteer convention concludes: "De Valera is cool and calculating. He is without means and his friends know that he is looking forward to his prospects in an Irish parliament. He is looking at his own future first and the country's afterwards."

Perhaps Alan Rickman had access to these files while preparing for his portrayal of Mr de Valera in the Michael Collins film?