on 16 June 1921. It was part of an attempt to carry out a number of attacks so that the British would not know how the ranks of the Volunteers had been depleted by the arrests made during the Custom House operation.69 Charlie Dalton believed it was the first time that the two new Thompson guns that had been smuggled into Ireland were brought into action, although he did not manage to fire his own weapon as the target only presented itself briefly.
Emmet Dalton came to know the boisterous, playful side of Michael Collins. In later years he recalled how, ‘at the very height of the struggle and curfew’, he himself, Collins and Gearóid O’Sullivan were staying the night at the small, private Munster Hotel, run by Miss McCarthy. (The hotel at 44 Mountjoy Street in Dublin’s north inner city, was a favourite Collins ‘safe house’.) Collins sabotaged the bed that O’Sullivan was to occupy, so that it collapsed under his weight, causing the Big Fellow to laugh uproariously. In case Dalton felt left out of the merriment, Collins threw Dalton’s shoes through the open window and into the street.70 Crown forces were patrolling the neighbourhood and Dalton may have had some reservations about the Big Fellow’s prank as he ventured out to recover his footwear.
Truce in the War of Independence
Emmet Dalton would recall in later life that he was surprised when he heard, in the summer of 1921, that there might be a Truce in the War of Independence. Following talks between the leaders on both sides, a Truce was agreed, and it came into operation on 11 July 1921. According to Dalton, he and other members of the IRA general staff were pleased at the decision to call a Truce. He considered that their fighting force in Dublin had been severely reduced as a result of so many of their men being captured in the Custom House operation. He estimated that 60 per cent of the fighting force had been taken prisoner at the Custom House. It was a severe setback.71
As part of the Truce a liaison system was set up between the IRA and the British civil and military authorities in Ireland to monitor the observation of the Truce. Dalton apparently became Assistant Chief Liaison Officer and Dublin Brigade Liaison Officer.72 He would later assume the very powerful position of Chief Liaison Officer. Dalton continued with his role as Director of Training in IRA GHQ. The IRA began to train openly rather than covertly as was the case previously. Dalton organized ‘a complete training programme for the whole country’, according to J.J. ‘Ginger’ O’Connell.73 One of Dalton’s roles was to organize training camps and appoint instructors. For this task Dalton sought Irish Volunteers with British military experience. In his memoir, Dublin Made Me, Todd Andrews recalled going along to meet Dalton in a ‘miserable gloomy’ room in the building known as the Plaza Hotel. He had heard about Dalton but was surprised at how youthful the Director of Training looked. Nevertheless, there was no mistaking the ‘air of authority he exuded’, despite his quiet and pleasant manner.74 Dalton told him to take charge of a training camp for senior officers of the Donegal Brigade, at Dungloe. He was assisted by a former British Army sergeant. Details of the course were set out in the official curriculum. Andrews had his doubts about the sergeant who seemed to have more interest in drink than in republican politics, and the instructor was ultimately sent back to Dublin as ‘unsuitable’.
One of those impressed by Dalton’s performance as Director of Training was Seamus Finn from County Meath, who was Vice O/C and Director of Training of the 1st Eastern Division of the IRA. In his statement to the BMH, Finn said: ‘I believe I have never met anyone so efficient in my life. He was a pale faced, slightly-built man, but gave one the impression of being made of whalebone. I was very impressed by him and I was not alone in that.’ Finn told how, following the Truce, a divisional or central camp was established at Ballymacoll outside Dunboyne, and Dalton sent down two training officers. ‘This camp was kept going right through the Truce period, and was not closed until the British withdrew their troops from the country altogether, and our men took over and occupied the barracks which they vacated.’75 Dalton approached a former schoolmate at O’Connell’s, John Harrington, who had been active in the IRA, to run a training camp at Sligo. Harrington declined the offer, considering that he would be of greater value in an intelligence role in Dublin if hostilities were resumed.76
William Corri, from an Irish-Italian family in Ringsend, Dublin, was one of the men with previous military experience who was recruited by Dalton to give instruction to the Volunteers. Corri, who stood out among the Volunteers because of his Latin looks, came from a most artistic family – his forebears included opera singers, composers and a prominent landscape painter. He had served in the British Army in the Great War in Salonika, Belgium and France. After returning to Dublin he joined the Volunteers, becoming a member of E Company, I Battalion, having previously been rejected by the commander of another unit because of his service in the British Army. He took part in raids and ambushes in Dublin, and was chosen by Dalton for a reformed Active Service Unit (ASU) after the original force’s decimation in the Custom House operation. After the Truce he became a member of GHQ training staff, and instructed officers at training camps in north Roscommon and County Mayo; at Dunboyne, County Meath and at Mulhuddart and Loughlinstown in County Dublin.77 Corri would take the Free State side in the Civil War, and served as governor of the Gormanstown prison camp and of Kilmainham Prison. In later years he continued his contact with Dalton through the Association of the Old Dublin Brigade.
During the summer of 1921 Dalton spent several weeks running an IRA training camp in the Dublin Mountains. Groups of Volunteers would arrive for a ten-day course, centred on a very remote hunting lodge, Glenasmole Lodge, in the scenic, wooded valley of Glenasmole. For many trainees, such training courses, apart from providing military instruction, would have been a welcome break from normal routine, providing a change of scene, a sense of camaraderie, and a stay in a stunning location. Located on the very edge of mountain moorland and heather, the lodge was well chosen for a military training camp. Dalton was pleased with the courses.78
Glenasmole Lodge was the hillside retreat of a prominent Anglo-Irish businessman, Charles Wisdom Hely who had been a Justice of the Peace and whose main residence was at Rathgar, Dublin. It is unclear under what conditions the IRA used his hillside retreat – Hely later re-assumed the use of the lodge. (Wisdom Hely and his printing and stationary business on Dame Street are mentioned in James Joyce’s novel Ulysses. The character Leopold Bloom used to work at Hely’s but was sacked because he kept making suggestions to Wisdom Hely as to how to improve the business.) During 1921 another IRA officer Paddy O’Brien worked as an assistant to Dalton in running courses at the Glenasmole camp and he and Dalton got to know each other well. The two men would take opposite sides in the Civil War. Among the instructors at the Glenasmole camp were the two Americans who had initiated the Volunteers into the use of the Thompson sub-machine gun, Major James Dineen and Captain Patrick Cronin. At Glenasmole, they specialised in instruction in the Thompson gun, and one can imagine how the hillside echoed to the staccato sound of the weapon as it was fired during training. Both men were useful additions to the IRA training staff. Dineen was born in Limerick and had served seventeen years in the US armed forces. He took part in operations against the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa and in the Great War in France he had been wounded.
During the period of the Truce, the IRA continued to maintain its organization in case hostilities resumed, and plans were formulated for a uniformed army. Ernie O’Malley recalled how, in the period following the Truce, he was called to Dublin for a meeting of senior IRA officers, in August 1921. Among those present were Michael Collins, Director of Intelligence; Richard Mulcahy, Chief of Staff; Eoin O’Duffy, Deputy Chief of Staff, and Emmet Dalton, Director of Training. Officers from the provinces gave a report on developments in their areas. The question of wearing uniforms was discussed – most were in favour.79 Elements of the IRA were about to move from a guerrilla force to a conventional army.
Getting to Know Senior Figures in the Republican Movement
After joining the General Headquarters staff of the IRA, Dalton came to know some of the leading figures in the independence movement. He became friends with Harry Boland, who had been imprisoned after the 1916 Rising, later becoming Sinn Féin party secretary, and TD for South Roscommon in the First Dáil. Boland also served for a period as President of the Supreme Council of the secretive Irish Republican Brotherhood and was to be a republican envoy to the United States from May 1919 to December 1921. Dalton witnessed the competition for the affections