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Bloody Sunday: How Michael Collins's Agents Assassinated Britain's Secret Service in Dublin on November 21, 1920

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The Irish struggle for independence from Great Britain still stirs great passion and controversy. Michael Collins's successful strategy to achieve Irish independence from Great Britain has served as a model for similar insurrections for others across the world, particularly the Jewish struggle for independence in Palestine. James Gleeson's Bloody Sunday puts the struggle for Irish independence in a broad historic context and provides personal accounts that make the historical perspective come alive. By adding lesser-known anecdotes to the larger narrative, Gleeson captures the emotions and mentality of the time to explain the actions and motives of all the key forces: the I.R.A., the Royal Irish Constabulary, and the Black and Tan as well as insights into the motives and mentality of the key players. With this more personal perspective, Bloody Sunday nicely complements more academic histories, such as Michael Collins's Intelligence War by Michael Foy, that examine the same events.

Prior to being sent to Eireann, the "Cairo Gang" had been stationed for a while in Cairo, Egypt (This was at a time when the British thought they owned most of the planet). During the Great War (W.W.I), Egypt, and especially Cairo, was teeming with smugglers, assassins, revolutionaries, telemarketers and other "undesirables" who weren't very respectful to British interests. Egypt was critical to British control of the region and thus the situation called for experienced and capable agents.

The "Cairo Gang" as they became known was the cream of the British intelligence agencies. They had been handpicked for their skill and it was in Cairo that they established a reputation that rivaled the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for 'getting their man'.

It seems that Michael Collins and his flying columns were producing feelings of consternation in Dublin Castle (the seat of British power in Eireann) which the local agents had been unable to remedy. The local agents had also developed a tendency of being found dead thus more stringest measures were obviously needed. Enter the "Cairo Gang".

The Cairo Gang was suspicious of everyone in Eireann and kept to themselves but Collins had cultivated a spy network of incredible reach. Michael Collins was a master at what he did and it was only a matter of time before he got the lowdown on the Gang. On 21NOV1920 the Cairo Gang went bye-bye.

I intend to buy this book for the history of Eireann, circa 1916-1923, is simply incredible.

Michael Collins' hit squad was nicknamed the "Twelve Apostles" and Mr. Gleeson unfolds the events that would lead to Bloody Sunday at Croake Park later that day.Unfortunately, Mr. Gleason does not delve into the formation and members of the "Cairo Gang" the English terrorists who were eliminated by the Twelve Apostles. Were they recruited from British intelligence in Cairo, Egypt? An unanswered question worth scholarlly research.

Not only does this book do a great job of contextualizing the original Bloody Sunday assassinations of the British secret service but there's an immediacy involved where you feel what it's like to be paranoid in Britain. The author tries to be fair in discussing the roles of the British Black & Tans and the IRA but he's definitely on the side of the IRA. When the British Black and Tans are murdered one by one, there's a lot of confusion but he makes sure to play up the atrocities that the British perpetrated.

Most of the information in the book goes from the Easter Uprising to the Bloody Sunday. He writes about how Michael Collins built up the IRA. HOw he worked in many groups and how he managed to hide in plain sight.

The book is structurally limited to this time period. Not much information about how Ireland became mostly independent from Britain and what happened to the rebels afterwards. But it's limitations serve to strengthen the book throughout. Great story. Great piece of history. Definitely recommended.

On November 21, 1920, Michael Collins sent a team of hand-picked assassins to destroy the brains behind Britain's war against an Irish Republic first declared in 1916 and resurrected in January 1919. Opinions vary as to exactly how serious a blow was struck against British forces that day, but by the following July a British truce offer ended the Irish War of Independence.

Like many of his countrymen, journalist and author James Gleeson has a personal connection to this conflict through his father, then a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary. His father was Head Constable at Lanesborough, County Longford, as the conflict broke into the open in 1919. Struggling to maintain a balance in performing his duties, his revulsion at the excesses of the Auxiliaries and the Black and Tans soon led him to resign.

The opening chapter presents the sad truth that Ireland has actually seen three "Bloody Sundays." The first came in 1913 when the Dublin Metropolitan Police broke up a meeting of the then-striking Transport Workers Union; the 1971 incident when British soldiers fired on demonstrators in Derry; and the November 21, 1920 incident when the IRA killed fourteen British intelligence agents in Dublin and the Black and Tans retaliated by firing on spectators and players at a football match in Dublin's Croke Park, killing 14. This lattermost incident is the subject of James Gleeson's book.

However, Gleeson doesn't limit his 13 chapters to just one day in Ireland's often tragic story. He opens with a discussion of the creation by the Crown of the police force that would become the Royal Irish Constabulary. He then carries the story forward through the events of 1916 and the war of liberation beginning in 1919 and spreads across Ireland. Much of this book is more memoir than history as the author presents the recollections and anecdotes of actual participants to tell the story. While the use of such anecdotes might weaken this as a work of history, it greatly enhances it as an account of the 1919-1921 conflict.

Having set the stage in the first half of the book, the author uses the remaining half to traces the events immediately leading up to, surrounding, and following, Collins's blow against the heart of Britain's war in Ireland - the destruction of its central intelligence cell in Dublin. The latter part of the book traces the planning, execution, and aftermath of Collins's' assault on the British intelligence agents. Most of the attacks are covered in detail, as is the retaliatory Black and Tan assault on the football crowd. The final chapter assesses the impact of the attack and its influence upon the conclusion of the Irish war of liberation, as well as the question of whether Collins was right or wrong in carrying out his brutal war against the British forces in Ireland.

(I found it interesting to learn that this episode would ultimately lead to a meeting between a U.S. President and a "terrorist." In 1963, President John F. Kennedy met Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Sean Lemass who had been one of Michael Collins's gunmen on Bloody Sunday. Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin, who participated in the bombing of Jerusalem's King David Hotel in 1948, was the other. And depending upon how you feel about Joseph Stalin, the count might conceivably rise to three.)

This edition is a 2004 reprint of the original and long out of print 1962 publication by the author. It includes a foreword by historian WR Rodgers and an introduction by author Dermot McEvoy. This represents an excellent supplement to more general histories and memoirs of the Irish struggle for independence.

The perfect book to pull together one lost in a sea of information. This book goes into great detail about not only the IRA but its adversaries and what both sides where capable of. It has humerous quotes and bits of information but doesnt miss all the terrible detail. I would recomend this to anyone interested in troubles

This is one of the first works about the subject back in print. This is a must read for anyone interested in the subjects of Michael Collins or the Irish war of independence. This work sheds a great deal of light on one of the most important days in the Irish struggle for independence from the British Empire. This book elucidates one of the most secret operations of Michael Collins' war of attrition against the British Secret Service.