being escorted by the armed policemen. It was claimed that the constables had resisted. In a statement to the BMH, Breen said: ‘Treacy had stated to me that the only way to start a war was to kill someone, and we wanted to start a war, so we intended to kill some of the police whom we looked upon as the foremost and most important branch of the enemy forces which were holding the country in subjection.’2
On his return to Dublin, Emmet had resumed his studies. With the aid of a military education grant he studied engineering for about a year at the Royal College of Science. He also worked for a period as a temporary clerk with the Office of Public Works.3 Return from the war also gave him the opportunity to pursue his sports interests. He joined Bohemians soccer club, located in Phibsboro not far from his Dublin home, and played with the club for a season.
In early 1920 Charlie Dalton was asked to join the IRA’s GHQ Intelligence Unit, reporting to Liam Tobin, Deputy Director of Intelligence, at an office in Crow Street, Dublin. It was to be the beginning of a notable association with Tobin over the following years. His duties were outlined to him by the Assistant Director of Intelligence, Tom Cullen, who was in daily touch with the Director, Michael Collins.4 Dalton’s role included tracing the activities of enemy agents and spies, establishing contacts among individuals in government service, keeping files on intelligence targets and participating in active service operations arising out of intelligence gathering. One of the central aims of the Intelligence Department was to intercept government and crown forces’ communications.
In October 1920 Charlie Dalton and another Volunteer opened fire on British soldiers who were deployed at Binn’s Bridge in his home area of Drumcondra as part of a cordon. Dalton wanted to disrupt the cordon to allow Volunteers returning from an operation in the city centre to get through. Two soldiers were killed, while he and his colleague escaped along a railway embankment and emerged from it close to his home at Upper St. Columba’s Road. Later that evening Charlie was on his way home when he spotted a passing touring car with a number of men in plain clothes. He was astonished to see the car pull up in front of his house. When they could not find Charlie they arrested Emmet instead, although it appears his detention was only temporary. No doubt his discharge papers showing he had been a British officer in the Great War proved useful. Charlie believed a neighbour saw him coming down from the railway and tipped off the authorities.5 Because of the raid, Charlie thought it advisable to stay away from home. The attack resulted in the Dalton family, including Emmet, coming to the attention of the authorities.
Bloody Sunday
As a member of Michael Collins’s intelligence staff, Charlie Dalton was one of the Volunteers closely involved in gathering information on British intelligence officers living at boarding houses, flats and hotels around Dublin. It was a period when Collins was becoming increasingly concerned about what he saw as a major threat from the British secret service. It was decided to launch a pre-emptive strike against members of a group known as the ‘Cairo Gang’. Collins chose 9 am on 21 November 1920 as the moment to strike, targeting addresses across the city, in a day that would go down in history as Bloody Sunday. Members of Collins’s special unit, the Squad, were deployed with Volunteers from the Dublin Brigade. Charlie Dalton was only seventeen years old at the time, an impressionable youth, and he would later recall his great anxiety in advance of the operation. The night before the raids, Charlie shared a hideout with a number of other Volunteers, including future Taoiseach Sean Lemass. Lemass, who participated in the Bloody Sunday shootings, believed that these activities affected Charlie’s nerves.
Charlie was not one of the men who would actually pull the trigger on the day – he was sent to gather up any documents relating to intelligence. He accompanied the gunmen to a house at 28 Upper Pembroke Street where men were to be shot. Charlie had played a particular role in gathering advance information to help target the doomed officers by befriending a young woman who worked as a servant in the house. Two officers were shot dead and four wounded, one of whom died the following December. The memory of the shootings would remain with Charlie. Altogether fourteen members of British intelligence, or suspected members, were shot dead in Dublin that morning. It would later emerge that not all were intelligence officers. Some were shot in their pyjamas or in the presence of their wives. On the afternoon of the Bloody Sunday killings, in revenge for the massacre, the Auxiliaries fired on the crowd at a match in Croke Park, killing ten and injuring about sixty, four of whom later died. In Dublin Castle, two IRA prisoners, Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy, as well as a young man Conor Clune, who was not involved in the IRA, were killed. The classic excuse was given, that they were ‘shot while trying to escape’. In nationalist Ireland, nobody believed it.
After the assassination of the British officers, Charlie Dalton was in a state of great nervous agitation. One of his colleagues Matty McDonald said Charlie could not sleep on the night of Bloody Sunday: ‘He thought he could hear the gurgling of the officers’ blood and he kept awake all night until we told him a tap was running somewhere.’6 Sean Lemass was present and was also concerned about Charlie’s state. In later life Charlie Dalton was a very troubled man, and experienced persistent mental health problems that required spells in hospital under psychiatric care. Emmet attributed Charlie’s troubles to his youthful involvement with the Squad.
Raid on the Dalton Home
In early December, in the wake of the Bloody Sunday killings, there was another raid on the Dalton home. In his memoir, Charlie gave an account of the raid as told to him by his mother.7 It was after midnight, and everyone in the household had gone to bed. Lorries could be heard coming up the road and then a loud knocking on the door. Emmet went down to answer the door. There was a sound of men charging up the stairs. The door to the bedroom of Mr and Mrs Dalton burst open and about a dozen men entered the room. They began searching the room and throwing questions at the couple. They were looking for Charlie. Mr Dalton said, ‘Do you know who I am?’ He informed the raiding party, a mixture of Auxiliaries and military officers, that he was a Justice of the Peace. They did not seem impressed. They took away James F. Dalton and Emmet. Mrs Dalton spent the next couple of days trying to establish the whereabouts of her husband and son. Eventually she found they had been taken to Collinstown Aerodrome north of Dublin for questioning. Emmet later recalled that as he and his father were being taken away, the Auxiliaries fired a couple of shots in the air. His father had a habit of blowing his nose loudly and now proceeded to do so – apparently as a signal to his wife that he was alright, that he had not been shot.8
Prisoners arrested after raids or by military night patrols were often processed at a detention centre at Collinstown. An IRA man who was being held there, Joseph Lawless, who would later serve as an officer in the National Army during the Civil War, recalled two of the prisoners to whom they were introduced in this way – one was Emmet Dalton, and the other Peadar Kearney, who wrote the lyrics for The Soldier’s Song (Amhrán na bhFiann) which became Ireland’s National Anthem. Dalton apparently secured his release by a plea of mistaken identity and a display of his British Army discharge papers.9
The British intelligence officers in Dublin Castle began compiling a file on Emmet. According to this file, Emmet and his father were arrested on 9 December and released on 18 December. ‘Dagger, bayonet, helmet and seditious documents were found in the house when they were arrested,’ the file stated.10 However, no charges were brought against the two. Apart from the documents, the items listed may well have been war souvenirs brought back to Ireland by Emmet. The elder Dalton’s status as a Justice of the Peace and Emmet’s service to the British empire in the Great War may have helped to secure their release. It appears from the intelligence file that while the British were aware of Charlie’s intelligence activities their information was limited. The file noted: ‘Either this man [Emmet] or his brother Charles, who is believed to be an IRA Secret Service man, was with a Flying Column.’ The file added: ‘Sister a courier.’ This may be a reference to Nuala who was aged only seven at the time.
While in detention, James F. Dalton acted as ‘Chaplain’ to the other prisoners by leading the Rosary. Emmet made use of his military training to drill his fellow-prisoners. They were both incensed over being detained. Emmet would later tell, with some amusement, how his father’s role as ‘Chaplain’ was short-lived. They were placed in a hut with up to eighteen other men, and on the first night the Volunteer