Bloody Sunday on 21 Nov 1920

About 15 hits squads, each with on average 15 men, were ordered to attack their targets at precisely 9am on the morning of Sunday 21 August 1920. Each address had on average 2 targets. The full list of addresses raided and their results is given on this page (this includes British officers who are known to have escaped execution that morning)

The targets originallly came from "The List" of Collins, which has not survived, so we do not know exactly who was targets, and in addition Dublin Brigade appear to have added extra targets of their own - I suspect in houses that originally had at least one, and that Dublin Brigade upped this to two at each address. It is difficult to be precise on the scale of the operation, as little, apart from the odd clue, can be found on the operations that were not sucessful.

The Illustrated London News 4th December 1920

The men who were murdered across Dublin on the morning of 21 November 1920. The ones in bold are the Intelligence Officers.

The conclusion is that it was not a particularly sucessful operation against British Intelligence. Of the 15 men who died as a result of the shootings, 6 were intelligence officers, 3 were civilians, 2 were courts martial officers, 3 were police officers, and one a normal staff officer.

It is difficult to know which were on "the list". The two Auxiliaries certainly were not, and I do not think that Smith or Montgomery were, they were just in the wrong place whern the gunmen arrived. Fitzgerald may have been a mistake, they may have been looking for a Col Fitzpatrick, and certainly Fitzgerald was not an intelligence officer. Wilde and MacCormack appear to have been Dublin Brigade addition to Collins original list. Then there are the two Courts Martial officers Baggallay and Newberry who may or may not have been added by Dublin Brigade.

A full analysis of Britsh Intelligence in Ireland can be found here.

Cairo Gang