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By 1919 Collins had become such a thorn in the side of the British Government that they had placed a bounty of £10,000 on Collins, dead or alive, however none could be found to take up this offer. One of their particular targets was the Cairo Gang , also known as the Cairo Group, a deep cover British intelligence group, so called since it had primarily been assembled from intelligence officers serving in Cairo and the Middle East. The Cairo Group was brought in during the middle of 1920 by Sir Henry Wilson explicitly to remove Michael Collins and his organisation from the picture. Given carte blanche to operate by Wilson, the strategy adopted by the Cairo Group was to assassinate members of Sinn Fein unconnected with the military struggle, assuming that this would cause the IRA to respond and bring its leaders into the open. Although the names of the members of the Twelve Apostles have never been formally identified, it is a list which is thought to include: Frank Thornton , Liam Tobin , Joe Leonard , Jim Slattery , Bill Stapleton , Pat McCrae , Sean Doyle , Gearoid O'Sullivan , Charlie Dalton , Paddy Daly , Ben Barrett , Mick O'Reilly , Vincent Byrne , Sean Healy , Francis Healy , James Conroy , Mick McDonnell , Tom Keogh and Tom Cullen . Seán F. Lemass and Stephen Behan (the father of Irish writer Brendan Behan ) have also been put forward as members of the Apostles. Understandably, there is no hard evidence to support any of these names. The most well-known operation executed by the Apostles occurred on " Bloody Sunday ," November 21 1920 , when fourteen British army officers, significantly involved in intelligence or spying, were shot at various locations in Dublin. In response the Black And Tans retaliated by the shooting up of a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary at Croke Park , killing 12 bystanders including one of the players, and wounding 70. The events of Bloody Sunday were to have a profound effect however on the ability of the British to maintain an intelligence operation in Ireland and were to signal the beginning of the end for their activities, and pave the way ultimately for a political resolution. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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