amount of economics, and quite a lot of history. Sir James smoked and smoked, a perfect picture of the strong, silent man…’25
The two men agreed on a brief statement to the press to record the fact that they had met. Craig wrote the statement on a piece of paper torn from a copy of the Freeman’s Journal newspaper and de Valera wrote the agreed text on another piece of paper. Emmet Dalton would describe later how Craig, after the meeting, told him that he found de Valera ‘impossible’.26 Craig was driven back to the home of Sir James O’Connor, where O’Connor and Cope were waiting anxiously for his return. Craig and Cope travelled on to the Secretary’s Lodge in the Phoenix Park, where Lady Craigavon was waiting even more anxiously for her husband to come back. Years later, after her husband’s death, she still retained the scrap of paper from the Freeman’s Journal on which Craig had written the statement.
Dalton’s companion on this occasion, Sean Harling, went on to win his own place in the history of Irish intrigue. Harling, who was interned during the Civil War, apparently went on to work as an undercover intelligence agent for the Free State police force, the Garda Síochána. He claimed that on returning to his Dublin home at Dartry Road one evening in January 1928, he was fired on by two men, and that he returned fire, mortally wounding one of his assailants. The dead man was Timothy Coughlan, an IRA man believed to have been part of the three-man gang who had assassinated Government Minister Kevin O’Higgins the previous year. It was found that Coughlan had been shot in the back of the head and still had a cigarette in his mouth. A tribunal of inquiry found that Harling had acted in self-defence.
Meeting Michael Collins, and Attempted Rescue of Sean MacEoin
Some time after he had joined the IRA Emmet Dalton met the man who was to have a profound effect on his life – Michael Collins. Dalton was introduced to Collins at Devlin’s public house, one of Collins’s regular haunts. Dalton was very impressed by the man known affectionately as the ‘Big Fellow’. Apparently Collins was introduced to Dalton only by his nickname – the name ‘Michael Collins’ was not used at all during this first encounter. There were also code names for the various hostelries that Collins frequented. So far as Dalton could recall, Vaughan’s Hotel was ‘joint number one’, Devlin’s was ‘joint number two’ and nearby Kirwan’s pub was ‘joint number three’. It appears that the two men did not have much to talk about during that first meeting but Collins said they would meet again.27
The next meeting with Collins resulted in Dalton taking a lead role in one of the most hazardous episodes of his career – the attempt to rescue senior IRA commander Sean MacEoin from Mountjoy Prison. It was an operation that also involved Emmet’s brother Charlie. Even though Charlie was a member of Collins’s intelligence apparatus, and had taken part in the Bloody Sunday operation, he only knew Collins to see. His first face-to-face meeting with Collins did not happen until April 1921, when the operation to ‘spring’ MacEoin from prison was being organized.
Collins was particularly anxious to rescue MacEoin. Known as ‘The Blacksmith of Ballinalee’, MacEoin was one of the more notable guerrilla fighters during the War of Independence. He operated in County Longford and was facing trial by military court and an almost certain death sentence. Ironically, he was an IRA leader who acted with particular chivalry towards enemy prisoners. Emmet Dalton described MacEoin as having ‘brought a glimmer of decency into a dark and sordid era’.28
To ‘spring’ MacEoin from Mountjoy Prison, Collins came up with the idea of hi-jacking a British Army armoured car and have one of their people impersonate a British officer in the prison. MacEoin would then be taken away to safety. Collins devised the plan after being told that the crew of an armoured car regularly breached security regulations by emerging from the vehicle at a particular location and leaving the door open. This made the car’s seizure a real possibility. But who could impersonate a British officer?
Traynor suggested Emmet Dalton to Collins, who asked to meet him. As mentioned, the two had previously been introduced at Devlin’s pub. When the war hero met the Big Fellow once again, Collins was immediately struck by the fact that Dalton was ‘made for the job’.29 According to Traynor, Dalton spoke with the required ‘affected accent’ of the British officer, was very neat and debonair and wore a small, fair moustache, of the type favoured by the officer class. Collins explained that Dalton would dress up as a British officer and bluff his way into Mountjoy in a hi-jacked armoured car to rescue MacEoin. Privately, Dalton thought the plan was ‘insane’, according to his later account, but such was Collins’s enthusiasm that he decided to go along with the proposal.30 When Dalton agreed to take part, Collins shook his hand warmly, and assured him he would have the backing of the entire Volunteer organization. Collins went on to have regular meetings with Dalton as part of the planning process for the rescue.
A bond developed between the two men. Clearly, Collins saw in Emmet Dalton a brave, dynamic young man who could handle major tasks. He obviously respected Dalton’s military experience, his coolness and his ‘can-do’ attitude, and would entrust Dalton with a range of crucial tasks over the following year. Dalton, for his part, looked up to Collins. Dalton would write later of Collins that he never knew a man to possess such an amazing personality – he described Collins as a severe taskmaster but with his mesmeric personality the Big Fellow ‘could make the weakest of us feel strong with the overflow of his courage’.31
In late April 1921 Charlie Dalton was called in by the Assistant Director of Intelligence, Tom Cullen, to discuss with Collins his part in the upcoming rescue. Charlie recalled later that he was ‘overawed’ to be in the presence of Collins, and felt annoyed with himself that he was not at ease as he wanted to make a ‘good impression’.32
Collins had received information from Michael Lynch, the Superintendent of the Dublin Corporation abattoir, who was also an on-the-run Volunteer officer. British soldiers in lorries, escorted by an armoured car, called to the slaughter house on Aughrim Street, off the North Circular Road, early every morning to collect meat.33 The military killed their own cattle at the abattoir, prepared the meat there, which was then taken back in lorries to military base facilities to feed the soldiers. The fact that the crew had a habit of leaving the armoured car while soldiers were dressing the meat or having breakfast meant that the vehicle was vulnerable to seizure. Charlie Dalton’s role was to keep surveillance on the soldiers at the abattoir, and to assess the feasibility of the car’s seizure. He reported back to Collins that he believed the operation could be successful.
A rescue plan was drawn up. Dressed as British officers, Emmet Dalton and Joe Leonard would enter Mountjoy in the hi-jacked armoured car and convince the prison authorities that they were transferring MacEoin. The two rescuers would wear uniforms that Dalton retained from his service as an officer in the British Army. Emmet Dalton would lead this part of the operation. As part of the preparation, Collins held a meeting at Jim Kirwan’s public house. Dalton and Leonard attended, and met a sympathetic Mountjoy Prison warder – probably Peadar Breslin. The warder gave them full information about the position of military guards, meal times and relief times for police and Auxiliaries.34
When Dalton found that the armoured car to be hi-jacked was a Peerless model, equipped with two Hotchkiss machine guns, he set about trying to locate two Volunteers who would be capable of using the Hotchkiss.35 This was a weapon which, he knew from experience, was mainly used by the British Cavalry in the Great War. He had no personal experience of using the weapon himself. He knew a man called Jack McSweeney who had been a pilot in the British air force and found that McSweeney had a working knowledge of the Hotchkiss and, more importantly, was ‘sound’ as regards his national outlook. McSweeney went along with Dalton to a meeting with the two Volunteers who were to act as gunners in the armoured car, and with the aid of blackboard diagrams, instructed them in the operation of the gun. Dalton admitted it was the best that could be done in the absence of an actual Hotchkiss machine gun. (McSweeney later helped Dalton procure an aircraft during the Anglo-Irish Treaty talks held in London during late 1921, which would fly Collins back to Ireland in the
