Stories of the revolution: Woman praised for her ‘cool daring’ in accessing files

A woman who infiltrated the Free State government in 1922 and passed classified intelligence to the anti-Treaty side was described as “almost unbelievable” and a “genius”.

Madge Barnes won the confidence of Desmond FitzGerald, the minister for External Affairs in the first Free State administration, and was able to pass valuable information on to the anti-Treaty rebels.

In 1922 the executive of Cumann na mBan issued a strongly worded instruction to its members, stating that acceptance of the Treaty was a “denial of the Republic and hence treason to it”.

Barnes was not a member of Cumann na mBan, which took the anti-Treaty side during the Civil War. She was advised not to join lest she be suspected of republican activities.

This allowed her to be trusted with access to the most sensitive files that the Free State government had.

Barnes accessed the new government headquarters and copied what she could of material that would be of interest to the rebels. Some of it was used for intelligence purposes. Other information was used in propaganda leaflets.

After a while Barnes became a suspect and risked being executed if she was caught. However, she carried on regardless and managed to allay the suspicions of the government and continue her intelligence work.

Remarkable spirit

Writing on her behalf in 1945 for a military service pension, Sigle nic Amlaoib, a member of the Cumann na mBan executive in 1921-1922, described Barnes as “almost unbelievable, and it was only the remarkable spirit of cool daring combined with her personality that made it possible for her to carry on such extremely dangerous work.

“The continued production of Free State Government confidential documents convinced me that she was just a genius at getting into the enemy’s camp and scouring for information.”

Barnes received recognised military service from April 1st, 1918 to September 30th, 1923, when she was attached to intelligence operations in Cork and Dublin. She received a service pension from November 1945 at the lowest E grade. She was unsuccessful on appeal for a higher rank.

Barnes’s file is released along with 106 others relating to women and the revolutionary period. It has been described by archivist Cécile Gordon as the most substantial release from the military pensions archives to date relating to women.

The women were mostly involved in IRA intelligence, diplomacy and arms smuggling. Many were awarded the rank of captain in recognition of the dangerous work undertaken.

Lily Mernin was another who carried out valuable intelligence work. She got a job as a typist in Dublin Castle, the centre of British administration in Ireland, and used her contacts to pass valuable information to Michael Collins, including the names and addresses of British agents.

She worked within Dublin Castle for seven years. One of her roles was identifying British officers to Tom Cullen, who reported directly to Collins and who was involved in Collins’s famous “squad” that carried out the assassinations of British agents on Bloody Sunday 1920.

“On several occasions we paraded Grafton Street and Dame Street together spotting officers,” Mernin wrote in her pension application.

She received a grade E service pension for her activities between 1919 and the truce in July 1921 and was awarded for 3¼ years service.

Intelligence circles

The wartime activities took a toll on many of the women involved in the national struggle.

The Wallace sisters, Nora and Sheila, were prominent in intelligence circles in Cork. Their shop on Augustine Street was well known for being a dispatch centre.

The shop and home were constantly raided and finally closed by the British in May 1921.

Nora Wallace successfully claimed that her health had broken down due to the stresses of her involvement in the conflict and she was treated for pulmonary tuberculosis in a sanatorium in Switzerland from 1923-1926 and again in 1928-1929.

It was found that the disease was attributable to pre-truce military service with the IRA and post-truce service with Cumann na mBan. Wallace subsequently received a disability pension of £150 per annum.

She and her sister were also awarded military service pensions for almost six years, each at the D grade.

Safe house

A woman with 12 children, six of whom served in the Easter Rising, was also awarded a military pension. Catherine Byrne delivered haversacks she had made to one of her sons who was in the GPO during Easter Week.

Her home became a centre for activity during the War of Independence and was a safe house.

“I fed and housed the members of the ASU [active service unit], several of whom had latch-keys of my house,” she wrote to the pensions board. She was the first person to smuggle a Thompson machine gun into Ireland.

She also sheltered several republican prisoners who had escaped from Mountjoy jail. She received a pension at E grade in July 1942 for 3¾ years of service.