IRELAND. ORIEL HOUSE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT DETECTIVE OFFICER'S WARRANT BADGE, an openwork badge in nickel plated bronze, enamelled in green and gold (pale, bright yellow), the badge comprising an "OH" monogram, the letter O superimposed on the letter H, for Oriel House, beneath a gold (pale bright yellow) half sunburst with the letters SE", for Saorstat Eireann, at centre of the half sunburst in green enamel, the letter "O" in the monogram bearing the legend "C.I.D DETECTIVE OFFICER" around, and the letter "H" struck with warrant number "4" on its central cross-bar, reverse of badge plain, with single pin north-south for fixing to inside the left breast of a jacket or coat when worn.
NOTE: the enamel half-sunburst on this badge is in the correct shade of gold, pale bright yellow (see below).
Contained in a customised, contemporary, silk lined, gilt leather folding identity and business card wallet, the outer cover of which has had the matching warrant number "4" affixed in brass.
The badge with some light surface rubbing and some light overall wear to outer surface of wallet, otherwise good condition and very rare, one of only a small number of Oriel House C.I.D. Detective Officer's warrant badges recorded as having survived.
The Oriel House detectives warrant badges were originally intended to be worn affixed to a brown leather diamond shaped backing patch and pinned to the inside of the left breast of a detectives jacket or coat, thus allowing the officer to identify himself without having to put his hand in his pocket and give the impression that he was about to produce a weapon. The badge was designed by Captain Patrick Moynihan, Chief of Staff of the Criminal Investigation Department, the design based on the flag of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which comprises a gold (pale bright yellow) half sunburst on a green background.
Michael Collins was President of the Irish Republican Brotherhood when he founded the Oriel House Criminal Investigation Department in February 1922. Following the establishment of the Oriel House Criminal Investigation Department, a total of 205 detective officers warrant badges were ordered, 150 numbered and 55 un-numbered. Only a small number of these badges are known to have survived, the known surviving numbered badges being in various stages of completion and with variations in their enamel decoration. In addition to this badge, badges numbered 1, 41, 46, 48, 63, 93 and 144 are also known to exist and are currently in private collections, along with at least one un-numbered badge with no enamelling, which is also in a private collection. Of the surviving numbered badges, the badge numbered 63 is perhaps the most complete with regard to its enamel decoration.
Initially, the order for 205 badges was placed with O’Callaghans of Dame Street, the Republican outfitters and tailors, and then suppliers of uniforms and military accoutrements to the Irish Free State Government.
When it transpired that O'Callaghan's could not fulfil the order because they were unable to make enamelled badges to the specified design, the contract was instead placed with the Irish Jewellery and Enamelling Company of 47 Lower Kevin Street, Dublin, the award of the contract being announced in the Irish Times of Thursday 21st September 1922, the list of "Irish Government Contracts Placed" announced on that day including an order for "metal numbered badges" to be produced by the Irish Jewellery and Enamelling Company. However, before the order could be completed, an anti-Treaty IRA unit raided the Irish Jewellery Companys premises on 5th December 1922, stealing a quantity of the numbered badges. By the time of the raid, the 150 numbered badges on order had been numbered and were in various stages of completion, while the un-numbered badges were still awaiting enamelling. During the robbery, the Anti-Treaty raiders stole 49 of the numbered badges. Following the raid, the Irish Jewellery Company's premises were inspected by Oriel Houses Adjutant General, Superintendent Sean Tumbleton, who took possession of the remaining badges, both numbered and un-numbered, and brought them back to Oriel House. The surviving badges which were not stolen during the raid include this badge, number 4, and the badges numbered 41, 93, 144, 146 and 147, while the numbered badges recorded as having been stolen and which have also survived include numbers 1, 46, 48 and 63.
When Superintendent Tumbleton returned to Oriel House from the Irish Jewellery Company’s premises, he brought with him the badges that had not been stolen, numbered and un-numbered, and wrote a report giving details of the raid and listing the numbers on the stolen badges. That report, a copy of which accompanies this badge, reads as follows:
“5th December 1922. While on duty at 7.45 p.m. to-night, I received a telephone communication from the Irish Jewellery Coy., 47 Lower Kevin St. stating that three young men armed with revolvers had took away a quantity of C.I.D. badges, which were in the final stages of manufacture for use of this Department. Accompanied by.a party of men I immediately proceeded to the scene of the occurrence, and on instituting enquiries there I was informed that at 7.30p.m., three young men armed with revolvers knocked at the front door of the premises and on being admitted, they rushed up-stairs to where the badges were in the course of completion, and after hurriedly putting some of them in their pockets they immediately decamped. There were in all 205 badges in course of manufacture. Of these 150 were numbered, the remaining 55 not being numbered. Hereunder I give. particulars of the numbers of the badges taken during the raid: 1, 2. 8. 9. 12. 17. 21. 27. 29. 36. 38. 39. 42. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 50. 56. 58. 59. 60. 63.71. 73. 77. 78. 82. 84. 86. 91. 94. 97. 98. 100. 107.108, 109. 110. 116. 119. 127. 129. 135. 137. 149. 150. As I did not, think it advisable to leave the remaining badges on the premises I brought them to Oriel House with me (including the 55 blank badges). From the manner in which the raid was carried out it is evident that there must have been considerable collusion between the staff engaged on the premises and the raiders. (Signed) S. Tumbleton Supt.”
When Superintendent Tumbleton returned to Oriel House with the badges he had retrieved from the Irish Jewellery Company, Captain Moynihan, the designer of the badges, pointed out that some of the badges had the wrong shade of gold enamel on the half sunburst, being dark yellow as opposed to the pale bright yellow depicted on the Irish Republican Brotherhood flag that had been the inspiration for his design. As a result, there are two varieties of the surviving enamelled numbered badges, some with the half sunburst having the correct shade of pale bright yellow and others with an incorrect dark yellow half sunburst. Examples of badges with both shades of enamelling have survived. Badge number 4, this example, which was not stolen, has the correct pale bright yellow half sunburst, whereas badge number 63, which was stolen during the raid, has the incorrect dark yellow half sunburst. Since Tumbleton was of the opinion that the raid on the Irish Jewellery Company premises was an inside job, and that there had been collusion between the raiders and some or all of the management and staff of the company, the government of the day refused to pay for the badges and as a result never formally took possession of them. In addition, there is no record of the badges ever having been issued for use, and they were subsequently disposed of. It is believed that some members of the Oriel House Detective Unit obtained examples of the badges when they were disposed of, and this badge, number 4, perhaps being retained by the Oriel House detective to whom it was issued as a souvenir.
Soon after the theft of the Oriel House badges, Anti-Treaty units of the IRA began using the stolen badges when carrying out robberies disguised as plain clothes Oriel House detectives. As a result, Oriel House issued a warning to the public, designed to discredit the stolen badges, which was published in the Irish Times of 11th December 1922:
“Bogus CID men. Warning to the public. Robber gangs are at work in the city who display silver coloured metal badges alleging that the wearers are Oriel House men. Oriel House detective officers do not wear badges of any kind and the citizens are requested to report to the nearest police station or by telephone to Oriel House should any case of displaying such badges come under their notice.”
A similar notice was published in the Freemans Journal of 16th December 1922.
During the following months, many of the stolen badges, along with additional copied bogus badges were recovered during raids on premises connected with the Anti-Treaty forces. On February 5th 1923, Oriel House detectives raided a shop in Harolds Cross, Dublin, where they recovered, in addition to over two thousand rounds of ammunition and several tons of propaganda literature, what were described as 50 “bogus” CID badges.
It is believed that these 50 bogus CID badges were subsequently destroyed, and none of them are believed to have survived.
In a follow-up raid on another premises in Harolds Cross Oriel House detectives seized several revolvers, a rifle, several hundred rounds of ammunition and a box containing a number of stolen CID badges. Hardly surprisingly, very few of the stolen badges have survived.
The Oriel House Criminal Investigation Department was set up by Michael Collins in February 1922 as a plain clothes, counter-insurgency, armed crime, criminal investigation detective unit. Following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Truce on 11th July 1921 there was a marked decrease in military activity in Ireland by both the IRA and Crown Forces. The signing of the Anglo-Irish peace treaty on 6th December 1921 and the subsequent withdrawal of Crown Forces from Ireland, however, created a power vacuum, one which was rapidly filled by Eamon DeValera and Michael Collins competing Anti-Treaty and Pro-Treaty forces. Collins, realising that he would soon be at war again, this time against many of the men he had fought alongside in the War of Independence, expanded his intelligence gathering and counter-insurgency operations, setting up, among other units, the Oriel House Criminal Investigation Department. The nucleus of this unit was the Squad that he had used in the War of Independence to combat Crown intelligence and counter-insurgency operations. That nucleus was augmented by drafting in officers and men from the Army Intelligence Department and other government departments, recruiting trusted associates and drafting in volunteers from the Irish Republican Police. Major-General Liam Tobin, who had been a member of Michael Collins's "Squad" during the War of Independence, was appointed Director-General of Collins' counter-intelligence and counter-insurgency units, with headquarters at Oriel House.
Michael Collins appointed Patrick Moynihan, previously an investigator in the postal service, and his contact in the Post Office during the War of Independence, as the first commanding officer of the Criminal Investigation Department, with the rank of Captain. He also recruited Peter Ennis of the Irish Republican Police, who transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department with the rank of Captain, and brought with him some of his police personnel. Liam Tobin's Oriel House Department was also the headquarters for two other armed, plain clothes security units, both of which came under the command of the Criminal Investigation Department the Protective Corps, tasked with guarding government buildings, financial institutions and homes of government ministers and senators, and the Citizens Defence Force, comprised mostly of ex-British army soldiers, who were used to guard banks and for covertly patrolling the streets. The members of these two latter units were largely anonymous and did not use their names when submitting reports, instead using their personal warrant numbers. The members of the Citizens Defence Force wore numbered warrant badges which, like the C.I.D. badges, incorporated a half sunburst in gold (pale bright yellow). A small number of these badges are also known to have survived. During its first 6 months of its existence the Criminal Investigations Department was under the control of the Army Intelligence Department, and initially organised along military lines, with a Major-General in command, Captains as his deputies, and the lower ranks comprising Lieutenants, Sergeants, Corporals and Privates. The unit had the use of army vehicles and regularly commandeered cars from the public as and when required. The Criminal Investigation Department was placed on a more formal footing after the surrender of the Four Courts on 30th June 1922. In July 1922 Major-General Joseph McGrath took over command of the C.I.D. and on 21st August 1922 the C.I.D. transferred from the Army Intelligence Department to the Ministry of Home Affairs under Kevin OHiggins, the personnel from that point on adopting police ranks. From the outset the C.I.D. adopted a no-holds-barred attitude when dealing with Anti-Treaty activists, its members regularly kidnapping and torturing suspects and taking part in numerous extra-judicial killings, the organisation becoming particularly ruthless once McGrath and OHiggins took charge, O’Higgins arguing that the department needed to adopt extreme measures, at one point stating that the department needed to put down the irregulars by means of carrying out more executions and adding that in his opinion the department just needed to kill the irregulars anyway. During the latter stages of the civil war the C.I.D. is believed to have summarily executed more than two dozen prisoners (for details of the Criminal Investigation Department whilst part of OHigginss department see file S1411, Taoiseachs Department, National Archives).
The Oriel House Criminal Investigation Department transferred to 88 Merrion Square in February 1923 and was disbanded in November 1923. Three members of the C.I.D. were killed whilst on duty during the Irish civil war. The history of the Oriel House Criminal Investigation Department is largely shrouded in mystery to this day, as a result of a cover-up operation that took place immediately prior to the regime change in 1932 following the election of Eamon DeValera, the outgoing government destroying as much evidence as possible about the unit, and only a small number of files relating to it have survived. Sean McEntee stated in the Senate in 1933 that over 100,000 files formerly housed in the Justice Department had been destroyed by former Oriel House officers. Additionally, and hardly surprisingly given the score-settling that went on following the regime change that took place on the election of Eamon DeValera in 1932, former members of the Oriel House C.I.D. were henceforth reluctant to admit membership of the unit, and disposed of documents and items associating them with that unit. This perhaps accounts for the low survival rate of the numbered badges retrieved by Superintendent Tumbleton ten years earlier, in December 1922. Oriel House, located on the corner of Westland Row and Fenian Street, Dublin, was built in 1872 and prior to being occupied by the Criminal Intelligence Department had at one time been the head office of the Dunlop Tyre Company.
The building was perfectly suited to its new function, since there was an unobstructed view from it along Merrion Square to Merrion Street and the various government buildings located there. It had no rear entrance, was thus easy to defend and there were a number of cells in the basement in which to hold prisoners. The building contained an extensive armoury, National Archives papers recording that at one stage the buildings armoury housed 52 revolvers, 6 Lee Enfield rifles and a Lewis light machine gun for issue to the C.I.D. At its height the C.I.D. employed a total of 120 officers and men.
Oriel House still stands today and over the front door is a name plate, placed there at the time of the buildings construction, identifying the building as Dunlop Oriel House.
Founded in 1858, the Irish Republican Brotherhood was a secret oath-bound revolutionary organisation, which from the outset campaigned for Irish independence from the United Kingdom, and played a prominent role in the various Home Rule and social reform campaigns during the second half of the 19th century, staged the Easter Rising in 1916, established the first Dail Eireann in 1919 and played a leading role during the Irish War of Independence. Michael Collins became a member of the IRB in 1909 and was the organisations penultimate President, serving as President from November 1920 to his death on 22nd August 1922, and being succeeded by General Richard Mulcahy. General Mulcahy resigned following the Irish Army mutiny of 1924, the IRB being dissolved that same year.
No roll appears to have survived indicating which numbered badge was issued to a particular detective. However, if the numbered warrant badges were to have been issued with the number on the badge indicating the seniority of the officer to whom it was intended that it be issued, this raises the intriguing possibility that this badge was originally intended for issue to Superintendent Tumbleton, the fourth most senior member of the CID department. And since Superintendent Tumbleton was the C.I.D. officer responsible for retrieving the badges and bringing them back after the raid on the Irish Jewellery Company's premises, he was obviously in a position to retain the badge that might have been issued to him, as a souvenir. The badge thus, perhaps, worthy of further research in this regard, with a view to confirming the identity of the detective to whom it was originally intended to be issued.
Sean Tumbleton was born in Tinahely, Co. Wicklow, on 25/10/1895. Prior to seeing service as an Oriel House detective he had seen service as a Temporary Lieutenant in the Irish Free State Army’s General Headquarters intelligence staff from 1920. He joined the Oriel House Criminal Investigation Department with the rank of Superintendent on 21/8/1922. Tumbleton transferred to the Dublin police (Polini Ath Cliath) on 1/4/1925, being posted for service with the Garda detective branch on the same day. During the 1920s he lived at 6 Powers Quay, Dublin. Superintendent Tumbleton, as the units Adjutant-General, was the fourth most senior officer in the Oriel House Criminal Investigation Department.
The following brief account of the Oriel House Criminal Investigation Department is taken from Conor Brady's history of policing in Ireland from 1812, "Guardians of the Peace" (Gil & Macmillan, Dublin, 1974).
"From August 1921 until November 1923 when they were disbanded Oriel House and its detectives became a feared institution, not only in Dublin but throughout the country. They were headed by Pat Moynihan, one of Collins's most trusted agents, who had played a vital role in his intelligence network while employed in the investigation branch of the Post Office. Moynihan had three lieutenants, Joe Kinsella, a 1916 veteran who had acted as arms and explosives distribution organiser during the war from his office at the Inchicore Rail Yard, Finion O'Driscoll, a tough intelligence officer from Cork, and Peter Ennis, who was subsequently to become head of the Gárda Síochána's Special Branch. Moynihan was conferred with the title of Director, Ennis with that of Superintendent, and O'Driscoll, Kinsella and several others with the title of Inspector. The men's pay ranged from £6 to £3 a week with keep in Oriel House. With ruthless and often brutal efficiency Oriel House began to put down crime not only in Dublin but anywhere within striking distance of a fast car. Their brief was an open one and they co-operated variously with the R I C, the Republican Police, the British Army, the D MP and, on at least one occasion, with the Black and Tans. Their statutory basis was doubtful and it was unclear for a time to which government department they were responsible-Defence or Home Affairs. For the most part they simply reported to Collins. Their standing orders fell somewhat short of a blanket 'Shoot first and then ask questions' but members frequently considered it necessary to equip themselves with Lewis guns and Mills bombs before setting out to make arrests or sometimes merely to conduct interrogations. Oriel House swiftly assumed a reputation for effective, if unorthodox methods for the suppression of crime. In late 1922 and early 1923 evidence came to light of the maltreatment of prisoners and Republican supporters were to allege that a number of murders and assassinations had been committed or instigated by Oriel House men. The building itself became a focal point for nightly attacks both by Anti-Treatyites and loyalist elements and the Lewis gunners on the roof of Oriel House were engaged in more or less constant sniping with the Officer Training Corps of Trinity College and with Anti-Treaty IR A men on the roofs of buildings in nearby Brunswick Street. In October 1921 four landmines were placed at the rear of the building which, had they gone off, would certainly have buried alive approximately seventy prisoners and staff inside at the time. In the event only one of the mines exploded, plunging the building into darkness, bringing down ceilings, floors and even internal walls. Joe Kinsella, flung from his desk on the first floor, emptied his revolver into a ledger which came flying up the stairs with the force of the blast, thinking it was the first of an attacking party coming through the door. In the basement, detectives who had been guarding a number of prisoners were rescued by their charges who had literally been blown out of their cells. In the event the only casualties were three of the attacking party who were captured at Westland Row station and executed by firing squad."
