birth of the Irish Air Corps. Dalton later stated with pride, ‘From this beginning grew what is now known as the Irish Air Force.’10
Dalton Joins the IRB and Goes to London with Collins
Before Emmet Dalton departed for London with Michael Collins for the Treaty negotiations, he went through an important procedure. He was sworn into the secret, oath-bound organization, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). It was decided at a meeting of the Dublin County Board of the IRB on 6 October that Dalton should be accepted as a member.11 Founded in the nineteenth century, the IRB was dedicated to the establishment of an Irish republic by any means necessary. Collins had become President of the Supreme Council of the IRB in the summer of 1920, and perhaps he wanted Dalton to join the organization before assisting with the sensitive Treaty talks. The Catholic Church did not approve of secret, oath-bound societies such as the IRB. Dalton later told of being refused Confession by a priest on the basis of his IRB membership. However, during the revolutionary period a man refused the Sacraments by one priest could often find another willing to turn a blind eye. In Dalton’s case the obliging cleric who heard his Confession and gave absolution happened to be a Jesuit.12
Most of the Irish delegation, of which Arthur Griffith was chairman, arrived in London on 8 October for the Treaty talks that would decide the future relationship between Ireland and Britain. Collins, accompanied by Dalton and a small entourage, travelled on the mail boat from Dun Laoghaire the following evening. Collins had brought some of his most trusted intelligence operatives and members of the Squad. They would act as bodyguards and couriers. Collins, full of nervous energy, found it difficult to sit still on the voyage. Dalton remembered him pacing the ship deck, full of his own thoughts, and looking gloomy. Dalton spent time with him on deck, and one of Collins’s remarks stuck in Dalton’s memory: ‘How am I expected to get people out of the strait-jackets they have themselves secured?’13 No doubt Collins recognized that he would disappoint uncompromising republicans back home.
Two senior officials from Dublin Castle, Under-Secretaries Sir John Anderson and Alfred Cope, crossed on the same mail boat. When Cope found Collins could not get a sleeping compartment on the train from Holyhead to London (the party did not book in advance), he insisted Collins take his. Dalton and Cope spent the night in the reserved compartment of a first-class carriage. Dalton said he often wondered who had learned most from the other during the long journey to London.14 Cope probably knew already about Dalton’s background as a British Army officer and holder of the Military Cross – perhaps during the night he found out more about the motivation of a young man who had fought for the British and then changed sides. They arrived in Euston, London about five o’clock on the morning of 10 October, the day before Collins was to meet British Prime Minister David Lloyd George at his residence, 10 Downing Street.
The Irish had rented two houses for the Treaty talks. Most of the delegation and the staff were based at 22 Hans Place, near the renowned Harrods department store. Collins and key members of his own circle, including Dalton, were based at Grosvenor House, 15 Cadogan Gardens, Kensington, a short walk away from Hans Place. Though he had been reluctant to attend the London talks, Collins appeared pleased to be surrounded by men who were part of his close circle. A member of the Irish delegation, Robert Barton, said that meetings of the delegation were held in Hans Place but Collins carried out his functions as Director of Intelligence in Grosvenor House. He recalled that those based with Collins at this location were Emmet Dalton, Diarmuid O’Hegarty, Tom Cullen, Ned Broy ‘and a number of others’. In his statement to the BMH, Barton said: ‘Collins took all these over himself, partly by way of protection and partly by way of keeping in touch with things at home. They were passing backwards and forwards with information all the time. Remember, you could not trust even the postman, the King’s messenger.’15
Collins availed of Dalton’s military expertise in side-talks with the British on defence matters. Dalton also acted as adviser on IRA and British compliance with the Truce, which was still in place. On the opening day of the Treaty negotiations, the Irish delegation, with their staff members, set off for 10 Downing Street, in a fleet of Rolls Royce cars. Most of the delegates were in the first car. Collins travelled in the second car with Dalton and key members of the intelligence staff – Liam Tobin, Tom Cullen, Joe Dolan and Joe Guilfoyle. When Collins and the other delegates arrived at the barricaded entrance to 10 Downing Street, they found a big crowd of Irish exiles assembled, many of them on their knees praying. Dalton received special attention from some of the press cameramen. He did not realize that they had noticed the butt of his revolver protruding from his hip pocket.16 Observing the arrival of Collins and his men was one of the Irish delegation secretaries, Kathleen Napoli McKenna, who remembered seeing ‘Emmet Dalton, handsome as a Wild West cinema star, the butt of a service rifle [sic] peeping from his hip pocket, all alert.’17
It might have been assumed that Dalton, in addition to his advisory duties, was acting as a bodyguard for Collins, in light of the fact that he was armed with a .45 service revolver. However, according to Dalton’s daughter Audrey, Dalton always insisted that he was not there as a bodyguard, but as a member of the defence committee. Nevertheless, Dalton was concerned about Collins’s security while in London, as evidenced by his role in the air escape plan. Even as an adviser, Dalton would have been useful to have around in the event of a threat to Collins. Dalton was frequently at Collins’s side. One of the photographs from the period shows Dalton and Collins, smiling shyly for the camera, sitting in the open-topped back of a motor car, looking like dashing, well-dressed young men about town.
Talks with the British
As they negotiated on the future of Ireland, the Irish delegates were up against a British side headed by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, genial, charming but ruthless. Collins had side meetings with the British on finance, defence and observance of the truce. For the defence talks, apart from Dalton, Collins’s team included other senior military men, Eoin O’Duffy and J.J. ‘Ginger’ O’Connell, and the Irish delegation secretary, Erskine Childers. The latter wrote the best-selling thriller Riddle of the Sands, had delivered the Volunteer rifles to Howth in 1914 and also had considerable expertise from his service as a Royal Navy officer. Dalton and Collins came to distrust Childers, who later took an anti-Treaty stance.
On the issue of defence, Collins spent much time arguing with Air Marshal Hugh Trenchard, head of the Royal Air Force, and Admiral David Beatty, head of the Royal Navy. He tried to convince them that controlling Ireland in a naval war was not very important. Security cooperation with Ireland, he argued, would be best achieved on the basis of Irish neutrality, rather than as a subordinate country within the British empire.18 Dalton attended his first meeting on defence on 13 October. He accompanied Collins to a meeting at the Colonial Office with the formidable and very abrasive Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill. Erskine Childers also attended this informal meeting of the Air and Naval Defence Committee. Churchill was accompanied by the Royal Navy’s Admiral Beatty and Captain B.E. Domville.19 Dalton took advantage of the opportunity to break the ice with Churchill and to make a personal assessment of the man.
A further meeting of the committee was held on 17 October at the Offices of the Cabinet, 2 Whitehall Gardens. On this occasion Collins brought his full defence team – Dalton, O’Connell, O’Duffy and Childers, with Diarmuid O’Hegarty as secretary. Churchill was accompanied by Sir Laming Worthington Evans, Secretary of State for War. The two had a formidable array of advisers – Sir Hugh Trenchard, Vice-Admiral Sir Osmond de Beauvoir Brock, Captain F. E. Grant and Captain Domville, with Tom Jones and Lionel Curtis acting as secretaries. The two sides met again the following morning at the Colonial Office.20 In later years Dalton reflected that on facing Churchill’s team across the conference table, he reckoned his own side could have done with some reserves. Nevertheless he believed that what they lacked in numbers they made up with Collins’s ‘dominant courage and determination’.21 Dalton indicated in a letter how busy he had been in recent days, ‘looking after Mick’, and arguing with Winston Churchill and Admiral Beatty.22
In pursuing talks with the British
