WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.520 I want to try a quick word association game with 00:00:02.520 --> 00:00:07.360 you. OK, sure. If I say G -Men, what is the very 00:00:07.360 --> 00:00:09.500 first image that pops into your head? Just be 00:00:09.500 --> 00:00:12.619 honest. It's pretty immediate, actually. I see 00:00:12.619 --> 00:00:14.519 black and white footage right away. Right, like 00:00:14.519 --> 00:00:18.719 the Prohibition era stuff. Exactly. 1930s Chicago, 00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:23.989 fedoras, Tommy guns. and probably Elliot Ness 00:00:23.989 --> 00:00:26.050 smashing a barrel of whiskey somewhere. Yeah, 00:00:26.170 --> 00:00:28.429 that is the pop culture default, for sure. You 00:00:28.429 --> 00:00:30.390 know, we think of the FBI, we think of American 00:00:30.390 --> 00:00:32.909 federal agents chasing down Al Capone. It's a 00:00:32.909 --> 00:00:36.070 really strong brand. It is, but looking at this 00:00:36.070 --> 00:00:38.369 massive stack of source material you've brought 00:00:38.369 --> 00:00:41.250 in for us today, it seems like we have the geography 00:00:41.250 --> 00:00:43.570 and the timeline completely wrong. We really 00:00:43.570 --> 00:00:45.909 do. Because the original G -Men weren't American 00:00:45.909 --> 00:00:48.710 at all. and they weren't federal, and they existed 00:00:48.710 --> 00:00:51.549 nearly a century before the FBI was even a concept. 00:00:51.670 --> 00:00:53.390 That's exactly right. We are actually going to 00:00:53.390 --> 00:00:55.590 Dublin, Ireland for this. And we are going way 00:00:55.590 --> 00:00:58.310 back to the Victorian era. So welcome to today's 00:00:58.310 --> 00:01:01.289 Deep Dive. Our mission today is to trace the 00:01:01.289 --> 00:01:04.209 complete evolution of the G Division of the Dublin 00:01:04.209 --> 00:01:06.750 Metropolitan Police. The original G -Men. The 00:01:06.750 --> 00:01:09.250 original G -Men? And I have to say, just reading 00:01:09.250 --> 00:01:11.629 through the historical documents and the firsthand 00:01:11.629 --> 00:01:14.170 accounts we've pulled together, their arc is... 00:01:14.269 --> 00:01:16.930 They really are. I mean they go from checking 00:01:16.930 --> 00:01:20.370 pawn tickets to fighting a full -blown spy war. 00:01:20.450 --> 00:01:23.950 Yeah. And we're gonna impartially look at exactly 00:01:23.950 --> 00:01:26.370 how that happened based on the historical records 00:01:26.370 --> 00:01:29.390 left behind by both sides. It's a perfect case 00:01:29.390 --> 00:01:32.790 study in how a police force evolves and honestly 00:01:32.790 --> 00:01:35.209 how it can completely collapse from the inside 00:01:35.209 --> 00:01:36.689 out. Yeah, because you have a unit that starts 00:01:36.689 --> 00:01:40.200 out fairly mundane, right? dealing with pickpockets 00:01:40.200 --> 00:01:43.040 and petty theft. But under the pressure of history, 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:45.840 it mutates into this high -stakes political intelligence 00:01:45.840 --> 00:01:48.299 agency. Right. It shifts from criminal policing 00:01:48.299 --> 00:01:50.780 to political espionage. And it's not just about 00:01:50.780 --> 00:01:52.840 the policing. It's about the espionage, the double 00:01:52.840 --> 00:01:55.200 agents, the secret archives. So let's set the 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:57.819 scene for the listener. Let's do it. It's 1842. 00:01:58.700 --> 00:02:01.659 The Dublin Metropolitan Police or the DMP is 00:02:01.659 --> 00:02:03.939 just being set up. How exactly does G Division 00:02:03.939 --> 00:02:06.219 fit into this? Was it just their detective branch? 00:02:06.599 --> 00:02:09.180 It was. But the structural setup is really important 00:02:09.180 --> 00:02:11.740 to understand here. If you look at London at 00:02:11.740 --> 00:02:15.039 the exact same time, their detectives were completely 00:02:15.039 --> 00:02:17.620 decentralized. Meaning what exactly? Meaning 00:02:17.620 --> 00:02:20.780 they were attached to local stations like divisions 00:02:20.780 --> 00:02:23.860 A, B, C and so on. They answered to the local 00:02:23.860 --> 00:02:25.800 boss of whatever neighborhood they were in. Oh, 00:02:25.800 --> 00:02:27.979 OK. So they were just neighborhood cops, essentially. 00:02:28.009 --> 00:02:30.750 Exactly. But in Dublin, the British administration 00:02:30.750 --> 00:02:33.250 did something completely different. They centralized 00:02:33.250 --> 00:02:35.509 the detectives. Interesting. Yeah, they created 00:02:35.509 --> 00:02:39.189 G Division as a single unified force based out 00:02:39.189 --> 00:02:42.210 of Exchange Court in Dublin Castle. And for anyone 00:02:42.210 --> 00:02:44.689 who doesn't know Dublin Castle isn't just a regular 00:02:44.689 --> 00:02:46.870 police station. No, not at all. It's the nerve 00:02:46.870 --> 00:02:50.389 center. It was the absolute seat of British colonial 00:02:50.389 --> 00:02:53.669 power in Ireland. So by physically placing the 00:02:53.669 --> 00:02:56.449 detectives right there, the administration was 00:02:56.449 --> 00:03:00.110 sending a message. They were saying, this unit 00:03:00.110 --> 00:03:02.530 answers directly to the center. They were the 00:03:02.530 --> 00:03:05.750 only plain clothes unit in the entire city. Everyone 00:03:05.750 --> 00:03:08.189 else was in uniform walking a regular beat. So 00:03:08.189 --> 00:03:10.810 G Division was the shadow force from day one. 00:03:11.090 --> 00:03:13.229 Now you'd expect with that kind of intense setup 00:03:13.229 --> 00:03:15.870 that they'd immediately start hunting down revolutionaries, 00:03:16.050 --> 00:03:19.129 right? But I was looking at their early caseload 00:03:19.129 --> 00:03:22.370 from the 1840s and 50s in our sources and it's... 00:03:22.110 --> 00:03:25.050 Well, it's pretty boring. It is incredibly mundane. 00:03:25.289 --> 00:03:27.770 It says here they had a superintendent, two sergeants, 00:03:27.789 --> 00:03:31.069 and 14 constables. And their primary directive 00:03:31.069 --> 00:03:34.030 was literally just watching pawnbroker's offices. 00:03:34.349 --> 00:03:36.610 Yeah, I know it sounds dull, but think about 00:03:36.610 --> 00:03:40.030 the nature of crime in a poverty -stricken city 00:03:40.030 --> 00:03:42.889 in the mid -19th century. Lots of petty theft, 00:03:42.969 --> 00:03:45.870 I imagine. It's almost exclusively property crime. 00:03:46.710 --> 00:03:50.009 Theft burglary. If you steal a silver pocket 00:03:50.009 --> 00:03:54.909 watch in 1845... You can't eat it. You have to 00:03:54.909 --> 00:03:56.669 turn it into cash somehow. You have to fence 00:03:56.669 --> 00:03:59.330 it. Right. And the pawn shop is the absolute 00:03:59.330 --> 00:04:01.669 choke point for that. So the early G -men weren't 00:04:01.669 --> 00:04:03.830 exactly Sherlock Holmes. No, they were just guys 00:04:03.830 --> 00:04:05.789 standing on street corners. Literally standing 00:04:05.789 --> 00:04:07.889 there watching who went in and out of pawn shops 00:04:07.889 --> 00:04:10.270 looking for receivers of stolen goods. Which 00:04:10.270 --> 00:04:12.110 I guess when you think about it is actually a 00:04:12.110 --> 00:04:14.490 pretty amazing foundational training for what's 00:04:14.490 --> 00:04:17.089 to come. Oh, it's excellent training. For 20 00:04:17.089 --> 00:04:20.790 solid years, these guys learned the faces of 00:04:20.810 --> 00:04:23.329 the Dublin underworld. They learned how to blend 00:04:23.329 --> 00:04:25.790 into a crowded street. They learned how to track 00:04:25.790 --> 00:04:28.910 people without being noticed. Exactly. They were 00:04:28.910 --> 00:04:31.129 building a highly sophisticated surveillance 00:04:31.129 --> 00:04:33.589 skill set, even if they were just looking for 00:04:33.589 --> 00:04:36.230 stolen soup spoons. But then the target changes. 00:04:36.569 --> 00:04:41.350 We get to 1858 and 1859 and suddenly stolen spoons 00:04:41.350 --> 00:04:43.889 are not the priority anymore. No, definitely 00:04:43.889 --> 00:04:46.149 not. The Fenian movement begins to rise. This 00:04:46.149 --> 00:04:48.810 is the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Yes. They 00:04:48.810 --> 00:04:51.050 want an independent republic and they're willing 00:04:51.050 --> 00:04:53.649 to use physical force to get it. And based on 00:04:53.649 --> 00:04:55.449 the letters from the administration at the time, 00:04:55.670 --> 00:04:58.410 this must have absolutely terrified the folks 00:04:58.410 --> 00:05:01.269 in the castle. Oh, it did. They realized very 00:05:01.269 --> 00:05:03.829 quickly that uniformed cops on the street couldn't 00:05:03.829 --> 00:05:05.870 fight a secret society. Because you can't arrest 00:05:05.870 --> 00:05:08.230 an idea. Exactly. You need to know what the Finians 00:05:08.230 --> 00:05:10.829 are planning before it actually happens. So they 00:05:10.829 --> 00:05:13.310 looked at G Division, this centralized group 00:05:13.310 --> 00:05:16.170 of very experienced watchers, and they repurposed 00:05:16.170 --> 00:05:19.009 them. They became a full -fledged political police 00:05:19.009 --> 00:05:20.970 force. Right. Which brings us to what we might 00:05:20.970 --> 00:05:24.110 call the first golden age of the G -Men. In the 00:05:24.110 --> 00:05:27.449 1860s, the division is run by a man named Superintendent 00:05:27.449 --> 00:05:30.870 Daniel Ryan. And looking at the operational results 00:05:30.870 --> 00:05:34.110 he got, he seems like an incredibly effective 00:05:34.110 --> 00:05:37.069 operator. He was very effective. And Chief Commissioner 00:05:37.069 --> 00:05:40.009 Sir Henry Lake supported him completely. Ryan 00:05:40.009 --> 00:05:42.370 understood that to fight a network, you need 00:05:42.370 --> 00:05:45.089 your own network. You need spies. And he landed 00:05:45.089 --> 00:05:48.149 a really big one, a guy named Pierce Nagel. Nagel 00:05:48.149 --> 00:05:50.470 is such a fascinating figure in the historical 00:05:50.470 --> 00:05:52.949 record because to the public, he's just a regular 00:05:52.949 --> 00:05:55.050 guy working at the Irish People newspaper. But 00:05:55.050 --> 00:05:57.410 the Irish People wasn't just a regular paper. 00:05:57.610 --> 00:05:59.610 No, it was effectively the Fenian headquarters. 00:05:59.810 --> 00:06:02.410 It was their main propaganda arm. So having an 00:06:02.410 --> 00:06:05.089 informer in there is massive. Secretly, Nagel 00:06:05.089 --> 00:06:07.889 is on Ryan's payroll, feeding information directly 00:06:07.889 --> 00:06:10.750 back to Dublin Castle. Exactly. And in 1865, 00:06:10.990 --> 00:06:13.800 that investment. really pays off. Nagel tells 00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:16.120 Ryan about a specific message sent to Fenian 00:06:16.120 --> 00:06:18.759 units down in Tipperary. The message was simply 00:06:18.759 --> 00:06:21.120 action this year. Wow. So the balloon is going 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:23.819 up. The rising is imminent. It's the smoking 00:06:23.819 --> 00:06:27.199 gun Ryan needed. But then G Division gets a piece 00:06:27.199 --> 00:06:30.699 of pure luck that honestly feels like bad screenwriting. 00:06:30.879 --> 00:06:33.439 You mean the lost luggage incident. Yes. The 00:06:33.439 --> 00:06:35.560 lost luggage. I had to read the source document 00:06:35.560 --> 00:06:37.740 on this three times to make sure it wasn't a 00:06:37.740 --> 00:06:40.290 myth. Tell the listener about this because it's 00:06:40.290 --> 00:06:44.410 crazy. So it's July 15th, 1865. An emissary for 00:06:44.410 --> 00:06:47.250 the Fenian movement is at Kingstown railway station, 00:06:47.610 --> 00:06:50.069 which is what we call Dunlog here today. And 00:06:50.069 --> 00:06:52.730 in the general chaos of traveling, he loses a 00:06:52.730 --> 00:06:55.870 bag. And this isn't just a bag containing a change 00:06:55.870 --> 00:06:58.050 of clothes. No, it contained the highly detailed 00:06:58.050 --> 00:07:00.870 plans for the entire uprising. Written documents. 00:07:01.129 --> 00:07:04.149 Lists of names specific locations imagine that 00:07:04.149 --> 00:07:06.050 feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realize 00:07:06.050 --> 00:07:08.449 you've literally left the revolution Sitting 00:07:08.449 --> 00:07:11.129 on a train platform. It's an absolute disaster 00:07:11.129 --> 00:07:14.910 for them because that bag Predictably finds its 00:07:14.910 --> 00:07:18.029 way straight to G division So now thanks to Nagel's 00:07:18.029 --> 00:07:20.329 tip off from the inside and the lost luggage 00:07:20.329 --> 00:07:22.829 from the outside Daniel Ryan has the who the 00:07:22.829 --> 00:07:25.870 where and the when so he strikes he does on September 00:07:25.870 --> 00:07:28.949 15th He executes a massive coordinated raid on 00:07:28.949 --> 00:07:31.629 the newspaper offices They arrest the staff, 00:07:32.050 --> 00:07:34.930 they seize all the files, and the 1865 rising 00:07:34.930 --> 00:07:37.350 is completely crushed before it can even start. 00:07:37.490 --> 00:07:39.750 It's a total decapitation of the movement. It 00:07:39.750 --> 00:07:42.790 really is. And it's cemented G Division's reputation 00:07:42.790 --> 00:07:46.310 for decades. After that, they look completely 00:07:46.310 --> 00:07:48.589 invincible. They were seen as the all -seeing 00:07:48.589 --> 00:07:50.990 eye of the British Empire in Ireland. And that 00:07:50.990 --> 00:07:53.269 reputation just continues to grow under the next 00:07:53.269 --> 00:07:56.889 superintendent, right? In 1874, John Mallon takes 00:07:56.889 --> 00:07:59.050 over. Now, if Ryan was a solid administrator, 00:07:59.750 --> 00:08:01.709 Mallon seems like a totally different beast entirely. 00:08:01.930 --> 00:08:04.290 Mallon is legendary. He is arguably the most 00:08:04.290 --> 00:08:07.370 famous detective in Irish history, and his background 00:08:07.370 --> 00:08:10.170 is just full of incredible contradictions. Like 00:08:10.170 --> 00:08:12.029 the fact that his father was actually a member 00:08:12.029 --> 00:08:14.250 of the Ribbon Society. Yes, exactly. We give 00:08:14.250 --> 00:08:15.769 the listener a quick refresher on the Ribbon 00:08:15.769 --> 00:08:17.930 Society. They were an agrarian secret society 00:08:17.930 --> 00:08:20.939 in Ireland. Very anti -landlord. anti -authority. 00:08:21.379 --> 00:08:24.439 So Malin actually grows up in a house that is 00:08:24.439 --> 00:08:27.579 culturally opposed to the police. Yet he joins 00:08:27.579 --> 00:08:30.579 the force anyway and becomes the ultimate hunter 00:08:30.579 --> 00:08:33.360 of Republicans. Right. Do you think that specific 00:08:33.360 --> 00:08:36.279 background gave him an edge? Oh absolutely, without 00:08:36.279 --> 00:08:39.980 a doubt. He deeply understood the mindset. He 00:08:39.980 --> 00:08:42.820 knew the families. He knew the local feuds. He 00:08:42.820 --> 00:08:44.600 understood the hidden connections out in the 00:08:44.600 --> 00:08:46.980 countryside. He built up this personal network 00:08:46.980 --> 00:08:49.799 of informers that was just untouchable. But reading 00:08:49.799 --> 00:08:52.460 about his methodology, he had a very strange 00:08:52.460 --> 00:08:55.620 way of operating a modern police force. Very 00:08:55.620 --> 00:08:57.940 strange. He almost never used files. He refused 00:08:57.940 --> 00:09:00.200 to write things down, right? Correct. He refused 00:09:00.200 --> 00:09:02.580 to write down the names of his sources or the 00:09:02.580 --> 00:09:04.799 specific details of his intelligence gathering. 00:09:05.120 --> 00:09:07.669 That sounds incredibly inefficient. I mean, for 00:09:07.669 --> 00:09:09.750 a government bureaucracy, at least. For bureaucracy, 00:09:09.809 --> 00:09:12.590 it's a total nightmare. Right. But for a spymaster 00:09:12.590 --> 00:09:14.909 operating in Dublin, it was brilliant security. 00:09:15.190 --> 00:09:18.190 Because paper trails get leaked. Exactly. Malin 00:09:18.190 --> 00:09:20.950 knew that clerks talk. If he wrote down the name 00:09:20.950 --> 00:09:23.389 of an informer on a piece of paper, that man 00:09:23.389 --> 00:09:25.429 would likely be dead in a week. So he kept it 00:09:25.429 --> 00:09:27.250 all locked in his head. He was just a walking 00:09:27.250 --> 00:09:31.149 human database. Literally. He could walk down 00:09:31.149 --> 00:09:33.809 a street in Dublin, spot a random face in the 00:09:33.809 --> 00:09:36.450 crowd, and instantly know the man's political 00:09:36.450 --> 00:09:39.370 history, his cousins, and what secret meeting 00:09:39.370 --> 00:09:42.029 he attended last Tuesday. That is terrifying. 00:09:42.149 --> 00:09:44.169 And he was incredibly successful with it. He 00:09:44.169 --> 00:09:46.029 took down the invincibles. Oh, those were the 00:09:46.029 --> 00:09:47.909 guys who assassinated the chief secretary in 00:09:47.909 --> 00:09:50.320 Phoenix Park, right? That's them. a very dangerous 00:09:50.320 --> 00:09:52.639 and violent splinter group. Malin rounded them 00:09:52.639 --> 00:09:55.500 all up. He also fought the Land League during 00:09:55.500 --> 00:09:58.440 the agrarian unrest, and he even arrested Charles 00:09:58.440 --> 00:10:01.360 Stuart Parnell in 1881. So as long as Malin was 00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:04.220 in charge, G Division remained this terrifying 00:10:04.220 --> 00:10:07.659 secure force. Yes. But there is an obvious problem 00:10:07.659 --> 00:10:11.460 with relying on a human database. Humans eventually 00:10:11.460 --> 00:10:15.059 retire. Precisely the issue. Malin retires in 00:10:15.059 --> 00:10:19.250 1902. And when he walks out the doors of Dublin 00:10:19.250 --> 00:10:22.289 Castle for the last time, he takes all that institutional 00:10:22.289 --> 00:10:24.549 knowledge with him. So he inadvertently leaves 00:10:24.549 --> 00:10:26.950 this massive blind spot in the intelligence network. 00:10:26.970 --> 00:10:30.029 He does. And this brings us right into the 20th 00:10:30.029 --> 00:10:33.149 century and the absolute core of our deep dive 00:10:33.149 --> 00:10:37.429 today. We skip forward to 1919. The Anglo -Irish 00:10:37.429 --> 00:10:41.600 War begins. But the G division of 1919 is not 00:10:41.600 --> 00:10:44.039 the G division of John Mallon. No, they're in 00:10:44.039 --> 00:10:46.399 serious trouble now. How so? Well, the regular 00:10:46.399 --> 00:10:49.440 uniformed police, the DMP, they saw which way 00:10:49.440 --> 00:10:51.500 the political wind was blowing. They realized 00:10:51.500 --> 00:10:54.779 the IRA was a serious, highly organized military 00:10:54.779 --> 00:10:58.080 force. So the uniformed cops mostly just stepped 00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:00.419 back. They essentially went on strike without 00:11:00.419 --> 00:11:02.960 going on strike. Exactly. They did traffic control. 00:11:03.100 --> 00:11:05.480 They investigated regular burglaries. But they 00:11:05.480 --> 00:11:07.759 tried very hard to stay politically neutral. 00:11:07.980 --> 00:11:10.779 Just don't look at us. We're just directing traffic 00:11:10.779 --> 00:11:13.000 kind of vibe. Right. But G Division couldn't 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:15.379 do that. Their entire reason for existing was 00:11:15.379 --> 00:11:17.580 political. Their one job was to hunt the rebels. 00:11:17.799 --> 00:11:19.600 But they were operating completely in the dark 00:11:19.600 --> 00:11:21.919 now. They didn't have Malin's brain to rely on 00:11:21.919 --> 00:11:23.639 anymore. Right. And the British administration 00:11:23.639 --> 00:11:26.139 tried to fix this intelligence gap by bringing 00:11:26.139 --> 00:11:30.370 in outside help. Ah, the so -called Cairo Gang. 00:11:30.409 --> 00:11:32.929 Yes, which was a fatal miscalculation. Let's 00:11:32.929 --> 00:11:35.090 talk about them, because it's a fascinating choice. 00:11:35.629 --> 00:11:37.750 They recruited all these intelligence officers 00:11:37.750 --> 00:11:40.429 who had served in World War I, often in the Middle 00:11:40.429 --> 00:11:43.370 East, hence the Cairo nickname, or in other parts 00:11:43.370 --> 00:11:45.970 of the empire. Right. Now play devil's advocate 00:11:45.970 --> 00:11:49.269 for me here for a second. These are highly experienced 00:11:49.269 --> 00:11:53.110 military spies. Why is bringing them in a bad 00:11:53.110 --> 00:11:57.019 idea? Spycraft is spycraft, isn't it? You would 00:11:57.019 --> 00:11:59.840 think so, but context is everything in intelligence. 00:12:00.379 --> 00:12:02.659 You cannot take a man who was running local agents 00:12:02.659 --> 00:12:05.720 in Egypt or operating behind German trench lines 00:12:05.720 --> 00:12:08.539 and just drop him into a crowded Dublin pub and 00:12:08.539 --> 00:12:10.440 expect him to function effectively. Because he 00:12:10.440 --> 00:12:13.120 sticks out too much. Like a sore thumb. They 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:15.759 dressed differently. They spoke with very distinct 00:12:15.759 --> 00:12:18.080 upper -class English accents. They didn't know 00:12:18.080 --> 00:12:20.179 local slang, and they didn't really know the 00:12:20.179 --> 00:12:22.460 geography of the city. So they were highly conspicuous. 00:12:22.600 --> 00:12:24.899 Very conspicuous. And in an urban guerrilla, 00:12:25.149 --> 00:12:28.370 War being conspicuous makes you a target. Meanwhile, 00:12:28.809 --> 00:12:31.070 while G Division is struggling to integrate these 00:12:31.070 --> 00:12:33.730 outsiders who don't know the city, the IRA is 00:12:33.730 --> 00:12:36.330 doing something incredibly clever. This is the 00:12:36.330 --> 00:12:38.690 real turning point of the conflict. Yeah, because 00:12:38.690 --> 00:12:40.490 they aren't just hiding from the police anymore. 00:12:40.490 --> 00:12:42.649 They are actively infiltrating them. Exactly. 00:12:42.870 --> 00:12:45.590 This is where G Division truly loses the war. 00:12:46.210 --> 00:12:48.990 They were so intensely focused on looking outward 00:12:48.990 --> 00:12:51.110 at the streets that they didn't bother to look 00:12:51.110 --> 00:12:54.090 at the desks right next to them. Enter Ned Roy. 00:12:54.490 --> 00:12:58.330 Detective Sergeant Edward Broy. A massively pivotal 00:12:58.330 --> 00:13:01.429 figure in all of this. Broy was a confidential 00:13:01.429 --> 00:13:04.470 clerk inside G Division. And clerk sounds pretty 00:13:04.470 --> 00:13:07.129 low -level, but in this specific context, it's 00:13:07.129 --> 00:13:10.070 everything. It is the absolute keys to the kingdom. 00:13:10.870 --> 00:13:13.740 Because Malin was gone, remember. The new administration 00:13:13.740 --> 00:13:16.080 was writing everything down again. They were 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:19.440 typing up detailed reports, compiling huge lists 00:13:19.440 --> 00:13:22.059 of suspects. And Broy is the guy physically typing 00:13:22.059 --> 00:13:24.240 them. He is. So he sees every single piece of 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:27.559 paper, and he quietly starts making carbon copies 00:13:27.559 --> 00:13:30.279 of the most sensitive files. How did he even 00:13:30.279 --> 00:13:32.200 get them out of the castle? I assume he wasn't 00:13:32.200 --> 00:13:33.980 just walking out the front gate with classified 00:13:33.980 --> 00:13:36.259 files tucked under his arm. No, he was very smart 00:13:36.259 --> 00:13:38.600 about it. He used a cutout. There was a librarian 00:13:38.600 --> 00:13:40.740 named Thomas Gay who worked at the public library 00:13:40.740 --> 00:13:43.600 on Capel Street. Breu would subtly slip the documents 00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:47.120 to Gay at the library, and then Gay would secretly 00:13:47.120 --> 00:13:50.220 pass them along to IRA leader Michael Collins. 00:13:50.620 --> 00:13:52.779 It's just so remarkably mundane, isn't it? A 00:13:52.779 --> 00:13:55.580 local public library acting as a deadly intelligence 00:13:55.580 --> 00:13:58.399 pipeline. It was devastating to the British efforts. 00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:01.620 But Broy didn't just stomp at carbon copies. 00:14:02.399 --> 00:14:05.679 On April 7th, 1919, he does something that honestly, 00:14:06.179 --> 00:14:08.519 if you put it in a spy movie, people would say 00:14:08.519 --> 00:14:10.379 it's way too unrealistic. Oh, you mean the lock 00:14:10.379 --> 00:14:12.419 -in? The lock -in. Yeah, tell this story because 00:14:12.419 --> 00:14:14.580 it's incredible. So Broy is working the night 00:14:14.580 --> 00:14:16.519 shift at the G Division headquarters over on 00:14:16.519 --> 00:14:19.159 Great Brunswick Street. And he decides to smuggle 00:14:19.159 --> 00:14:21.320 Michael Collins into the station. Just pause 00:14:21.320 --> 00:14:24.159 and think about that for a second. The most wanted 00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:27.659 man in the entire British Empire. The man literally 00:14:27.659 --> 00:14:30.500 every single police officer in Ireland is actively 00:14:30.500 --> 00:14:32.600 hunting for and he just walks right into their 00:14:32.600 --> 00:14:34.899 own police station. Right through the door. Broy 00:14:34.899 --> 00:14:36.759 brings him straight into the highly classified 00:14:36.759 --> 00:14:39.559 archives room and literally locks the door behind 00:14:39.559 --> 00:14:41.779 them. And Collins just spends the entire night 00:14:41.779 --> 00:14:43.879 in there with a flashlight reading his own files. 00:14:44.259 --> 00:14:46.500 Why take that kind of massive risk though? Was 00:14:46.500 --> 00:14:49.340 it just ego? Did he just want to see what they 00:14:49.340 --> 00:14:52.539 had on him? No. Not at all. It was pure cold 00:14:52.539 --> 00:14:54.700 calculation. He wasn't just in there reading 00:14:54.700 --> 00:14:57.200 the incident reports. He was carefully looking 00:14:57.200 --> 00:14:59.240 at the signatures at the bottom of those reports. 00:14:59.639 --> 00:15:01.759 He needed to know exactly which detectives were 00:15:01.759 --> 00:15:04.259 currently active, which ones were actually efficient, 00:15:04.519 --> 00:15:06.259 and most importantly, which ones were getting 00:15:06.259 --> 00:15:08.659 dangerously close to him. He was connecting the 00:15:08.659 --> 00:15:11.500 names to the faces of the men hunting him. Exactly. 00:15:11.940 --> 00:15:14.960 He was building a prioritized target list. Up 00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:17.940 until that specific night, G Division was essentially 00:15:17.940 --> 00:15:21.059 a faceless, monolithic institution to the IRA. 00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:24.899 But after that night, Collins knew exactly who 00:15:24.899 --> 00:15:27.220 was who. And this intelligence directly leads 00:15:27.220 --> 00:15:29.220 to the formation of the squad. Right. Collins' 00:15:29.500 --> 00:15:32.100 own counterintelligence unit, a dedicated group 00:15:32.100 --> 00:15:35.080 of young men whose sole purpose was assassinating 00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:37.799 the specific G men on that list. And once Collins 00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:39.919 has that verified information from the archives, 00:15:40.179 --> 00:15:42.440 the timeline of events just becomes completely 00:15:42.440 --> 00:15:46.220 brutal. It's immediate. July 30th, 1919, the 00:15:46.220 --> 00:15:49.000 very first name on the list is crossed off. Detective 00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:50.960 Sergeant Patrick Smith. Right. They call him 00:15:50.960 --> 00:15:53.700 the dog. The dog. He was shot and killed near 00:15:53.700 --> 00:15:55.820 Drumcondra. And then it's just the domino effect 00:15:55.820 --> 00:15:59.200 after that. In September 1919, Detective Daniel 00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:02.460 Hoey is killed. In October, Michael Downing. 00:16:03.519 --> 00:16:07.240 In November, Sergeant John Barton. January 1920, 00:16:07.679 --> 00:16:10.200 Inspector William Redmond. It's just a relentless 00:16:10.200 --> 00:16:13.320 pace. It is the systematic destruction of an 00:16:13.320 --> 00:16:15.799 intelligence agency. Collins famously called 00:16:15.799 --> 00:16:18.039 it blinding the British. Blinding the British, 00:16:18.139 --> 00:16:20.379 that makes total sense. Because if you take out 00:16:20.379 --> 00:16:22.320 the plain clothes detectives, the eyes and the 00:16:22.320 --> 00:16:24.740 ears... The whole administration goes completely 00:16:24.740 --> 00:16:27.639 blind. Exactly. They can have tens of thousands 00:16:27.639 --> 00:16:29.879 of armed soldiers stationed in Dublin, but if 00:16:29.879 --> 00:16:32.080 they don't have the intelligence to know exactly 00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:35.279 who to arrest, that entire army is functionally 00:16:35.279 --> 00:16:38.159 powerless. There's one specific incident in the 00:16:38.159 --> 00:16:41.320 source material from April 1920 that really drives 00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:44.179 home just how intensely personal and psychological 00:16:44.179 --> 00:16:46.759 this whole war got. The shooting of Harry Kells. 00:16:47.259 --> 00:16:51.850 Ah, yes. Detective Constable Harry Kells. Now, 00:16:51.909 --> 00:16:53.830 Kelz wasn't just out on the streets investigating. 00:16:54.269 --> 00:16:56.970 He was actively doing something that the IRA 00:16:56.970 --> 00:16:59.669 feared more than absolutely anything else. He 00:16:59.669 --> 00:17:02.389 was conducting the identity parades. Yes. So 00:17:02.389 --> 00:17:04.609 he was physically going into the prisons. He 00:17:04.609 --> 00:17:07.410 would go into Mount Joy Prison, look at the lines 00:17:07.410 --> 00:17:09.990 of Republican inmates, and personally identify 00:17:09.990 --> 00:17:12.509 them for the state. Wow. He'd put and say, that's 00:17:12.509 --> 00:17:14.829 the guy who read at the post office, or that's 00:17:14.829 --> 00:17:16.849 the guy who shot the soldier last month. So he 00:17:16.849 --> 00:17:19.109 was the direct human link between a prisoner 00:17:19.109 --> 00:17:21.529 and a long jail sentence or even a hangman's 00:17:21.529 --> 00:17:24.670 noose. Exactly. So he absolutely had to go. Kells 00:17:24.670 --> 00:17:27.650 was shot on Camden Street on April 14th. And 00:17:27.650 --> 00:17:29.849 the authorities were completely rattled by this, 00:17:29.970 --> 00:17:32.309 right? Because Kells was so uniquely valuable 00:17:32.309 --> 00:17:34.130 to them. They were panicked. They went out and 00:17:34.130 --> 00:17:36.410 arrested over 100 people that very same night 00:17:36.410 --> 00:17:39.759 in mass retaliation. Honestly, the message had 00:17:39.759 --> 00:17:41.339 already been clearly sent to the rest of the 00:17:41.339 --> 00:17:43.180 division. And that message is simply, if you 00:17:43.180 --> 00:17:46.160 do your job effectively, you die. Yes. And think 00:17:46.160 --> 00:17:49.200 about the profound psychological impact that 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:52.579 has on the surviving G -Men. It must have been 00:17:52.579 --> 00:17:54.539 paralyzing. You're sitting at your desk in Dublin 00:17:54.539 --> 00:17:57.279 Castle. You know perfectly well your colleague 00:17:57.279 --> 00:18:00.200 was shot in the street last week. You know the 00:18:00.200 --> 00:18:03.220 IRA somehow seems to know your movements before 00:18:03.220 --> 00:18:06.279 you even make them. Do you really go out and 00:18:06.279 --> 00:18:09.400 aggressively investigate? No way. You stay safely 00:18:09.400 --> 00:18:12.640 inside. You stay inside. You push papers around 00:18:12.640 --> 00:18:15.559 your desk. You actively avoid meeting your street 00:18:15.559 --> 00:18:19.160 informers. And just like that, the entire intelligence 00:18:19.160 --> 00:18:21.599 network completely collapses. They were just 00:18:21.599 --> 00:18:24.220 paralyzed by the fear of assassination. So we 00:18:24.220 --> 00:18:26.660 finally get to the end of the Anglo -Irish War. 00:18:27.059 --> 00:18:30.519 It's 1921. The treaty is signed and the Irish 00:18:30.519 --> 00:18:33.140 Free State is established. What officially happens 00:18:33.140 --> 00:18:35.339 to G Division? Well, this is perhaps the ultimate 00:18:35.339 --> 00:18:38.359 irony of the entire story. The division is formally 00:18:38.359 --> 00:18:42.000 dissolved. And then in 1923, the new Irish government 00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:44.079 decides they need to create their own new detective 00:18:44.079 --> 00:18:47.119 branch out of Oriole House. Right. And obviously, 00:18:47.200 --> 00:18:49.059 they need an experienced intelligence man to 00:18:49.059 --> 00:18:50.960 run it. Oh, don't tell me. They appoint Colonel 00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:53.640 David Nelligan. Nelligan. The exact same guy 00:18:53.640 --> 00:18:56.680 who wrote the critique of G Division being unprofessional 00:18:56.680 --> 00:19:00.799 earlier in our sources. The very same man. Because 00:19:00.799 --> 00:19:02.480 Nelligan was actually another one of Michael 00:19:02.480 --> 00:19:05.940 Collins' top double agents. Wow. He had deeply 00:19:05.940 --> 00:19:08.960 infiltrated G Division right alongside Ned Broy 00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:12.279 during the war. That is quite an ending. So the 00:19:12.279 --> 00:19:14.819 man who spent the entire war actively undermining 00:19:14.819 --> 00:19:17.420 the police force from the inside is now officially 00:19:17.420 --> 00:19:19.720 put in charge of rebuilding it for the new state. 00:19:19.960 --> 00:19:21.900 The Foxes are completely running the henhouse 00:19:21.900 --> 00:19:25.119 at that point. It really highlights the absolute 00:19:25.119 --> 00:19:28.019 total victory. of Collins' intelligence war. 00:19:28.440 --> 00:19:30.500 He didn't just defeat G Division. In the end, 00:19:30.660 --> 00:19:32.720 he absorbed it. That is fascinating. So when 00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:35.079 we step back and look at this whole arc, from 00:19:35.079 --> 00:19:38.660 the guys watching the pawn shops in 1842 to this 00:19:38.660 --> 00:19:41.700 lethal spy war in 1920, what would you say is 00:19:41.700 --> 00:19:44.000 the big historical takeaway here? I think it's 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:46.500 really a lesson about the profound fragility 00:19:46.500 --> 00:19:49.059 of intelligence networks. You know, we tend to 00:19:49.059 --> 00:19:51.000 think of surveillance states as these monolithic, 00:19:51.299 --> 00:19:53.319 incredibly powerful things. And under someone 00:19:53.319 --> 00:19:55.900 like John Malangy division, truly was powerful. 00:19:55.960 --> 00:19:57.799 They completely controlled the flow of information. 00:19:58.059 --> 00:20:00.460 They had total information asymmetry over the 00:20:00.460 --> 00:20:03.519 public. Exactly. But the very moment that flipped, 00:20:04.240 --> 00:20:07.319 the moment Broanel again started sharing those 00:20:07.319 --> 00:20:09.740 secret files with the enemy, that power just 00:20:09.740 --> 00:20:12.180 evaporated overnight. It shows that a state can 00:20:12.180 --> 00:20:15.210 have all the resources. the fortified castle, 00:20:15.269 --> 00:20:17.410 the legal authority. But if you don't have absolute 00:20:17.410 --> 00:20:19.910 internal loyalty, you really have nothing at 00:20:19.910 --> 00:20:22.670 all. It's the classic who watches the watchman 00:20:22.670 --> 00:20:24.869 scenario playing out in real life. And in this 00:20:24.869 --> 00:20:26.930 specific case, the watchmen were quite literally 00:20:26.930 --> 00:20:29.309 being watched by the guys sitting at the exact 00:20:29.309 --> 00:20:31.630 next desk over. That is such a great way to put 00:20:31.630 --> 00:20:34.700 it. Now, as we wrap up this deep dive, I want 00:20:34.700 --> 00:20:37.240 to leave everyone listening with one final provocative 00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:39.799 thought to mull over on your own. We talked a 00:20:39.799 --> 00:20:41.660 lot today about how Superintendent Malin kept 00:20:41.660 --> 00:20:43.839 everything strictly in his head to protect his 00:20:43.839 --> 00:20:46.119 sources' rights. We usually look back at that 00:20:46.119 --> 00:20:48.220 kind of behavior as being old -fashioned, and 00:20:48.220 --> 00:20:51.400 we view writing things down as modern bureaucratic 00:20:51.400 --> 00:20:55.480 progress. But in this specific story, modernization 00:20:55.480 --> 00:20:57.900 was actually the fatal flaw. Think about it. 00:20:58.119 --> 00:21:00.700 If G Division hadn't started systematically creating 00:21:00.700 --> 00:21:03.430 those modern paper files that Ned Broy was able 00:21:03.430 --> 00:21:06.069 to carbon copy Michael Collins never would have 00:21:06.069 --> 00:21:08.109 gotten his hands on that hit list, which means 00:21:08.109 --> 00:21:10.029 sometimes the old -fashioned ways really are 00:21:10.029 --> 00:21:12.490 the safest ways. That is a very provocative thought 00:21:12.490 --> 00:21:14.809 to end on. And that is going to do it for our 00:21:14.809 --> 00:21:17.210 deep dive into the historical sources of the 00:21:17.210 --> 00:21:19.009 G -Men of Dublin. Thanks so much for listening.