Brief review of T. Ryle Dwyer's "The Squad: and the Intelligence Operations of Michael Collins"

Tip of the hat to @WRSABlog for urging acquisition of this book

Michael Collins headed the intel operations of the Irish Volunteers (IRA) during the Irish War of Independence

The author, T. Ryle Dwyer, is an old school columnist for the Irish Examiner. His focus is twentieth century Irish history. There's a tremendous amount of scholarship in the book, and I must note that his writing style is rather dry. Still, the material is fascinating

Michael Collins was the primary driver behind moving Irish resistance to British rule into *effective* kinetic mode

The 1916 Easter uprising was fundamentally unserious. Collins kept toe to toe fighting to a minimum while identifying and, later, eliminating British intel forces

Contents:

19 chapters, bringing us from 1916 to the Truce of 1921

3 pages of Bibliography, hugely reliant on interviews conducted by the Irish Bureau of Military History

8 page Index of Names, as there are so many personalities involved

Thoughts:

Light on gun autism, although there's a dash of detail, such as the transition from .38 S&Ws to .455s and .45 ACPs because of flubbed hits

The hit teams make lots of mistakes, or have just plain bad luck

Lots of Keystone Cops scenes

While the history of the Irish War for Independence is extremely interesting, Michael Collins' methods and operational theories - deduced, as he didn't leave writings, or share his reasoning with other people - are most relevant

The intel teams gathered and vetted info, synthesizing it for the org

Collins picked the targets

The Squad were blooded early, then directed other elements on Bloody Sunday (50 hits all around 9am on the same day) and other big ops

Liam Neeson starred in the Michael Collins biopic, and did a good job, though they played a bit fast and loose with certain details

The Bloody Sunday sequence was great, but the book was better

One aspect of the book that I don't want to underplay is the wildly different era and the impact for a modern reader envisioning these scenes - very early automobiles, bolt action rifles, revolvers

No cameras, no radios, no massive population databases - a boon for these lads

All in all, highly recommended for people interested in political theory and big ideas https://www.amazon.com/Squad-Intelligence-Operations-Michael-Collins/dp/1856354695