British Intelligence
Before 1919, there were only two small groups within the boundaries of Irish law enforcement that resembled anything like an intelligence service. The two groups were: the crime special branch of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), and the ‘G’ division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police.
Despite becoming excluded from large parts of society due to the Sinn Féin campaign to boycott the police force, the RIC still managed to successfully apprehend a large number of nationalists by relying on human intelligence and word of mouth. All information that was gathered was logged in the ‘occurrence book’.
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When it was known that members of a family held information that was useful to the RIC, constables would often visit their house on bicycles. En route, sometimes officers would intentionally puncture one of their tires, and then proceed to enter into the house of interest to ‘get the tire fixed’. Whilst inside, officers would enter into conversation with the family members who would go on to innocently supply officers with local gossip.
In May 1920, Ormonde de l’Epree Winter was appointed as Chief of Police. Still heavily reliant on word of mouth, Winter established a method of enemy identification referred to today as document exploration (DOCEX). Based in Dublin, the system compiled photographs and documents of suspected members of nationalist organisations and relayed the information gathered across the country.
To collect this data, Winter formed a raid bureau that seized documents and Irish Republican Army (IRA) rotas. This practice greatly contributed to the location and arrest of individuals who had previously been able to travel across the nation virtually undetected.
Similar to the police’s efforts, the army’s intelligence force was also becoming more structured, with each company around the country aiming to train at least one intelligence officer to conducted raids.
However, the introduction of the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries had a detrimental effect on the RIC’s efforts to gather information. The strong actions of the new recruits instilled fear into communities across the country and soured public opinion of the administration, thus making individuals less likely to inform the authorities of any information that would help their cause.