The Intelligence War & The Squad

In July 1919 Michael Collins, the head of IRA Intelligence, set up a special unit called ‘the Squad’. Their job was to kill British intelligence agents, particularly those nicknamed G-Men. These were a small group of plain clothes policemen from G Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police who operated a network of spies within the IRA.

Unlike their Dublin Metropolitan Police colleagues, G Division was an armed unit. Despite their adoption of bullet-proof waistcoats, many of the G-Men and their informants were eliminated by the pistols of the Squad, who were irreverently nicknamed ‘the Twelve Apostles’. Some G-Men and Black and Tans also acted as spies for the IRA, providing detailed information on G Division’s members and operations.