The Cairo Gang was a group of British military intelligence agents who were sent to Dublin during the Irish War of Independence to identify prominent members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) with, according to information gathered by the IRA Intelligence Department (IRAID), the intention of disrupting the IRA by assassination. Originally commanded by British Army General Gerald Boyd, they were known officially as the Dublin District Special Branch (DDSB) and also as D Branch.
Twelve D-Branch members, including British Army officers, Royal Irish Constabulary officers and a civilian informer, were simultaneously assassinated in Dublin on the early morning of Sunday 21 November 1920 by the IRA assassination unit known as The Squad. The operation was a meticulously planned decapitation strike masterminded by Michael Collins. The 14 deaths were the first killings of what was later dubbed Bloody Sunday.
Tim Pat Coogan's biography of Michael Collins asserts that the "nom de guerre" of the British unit derived from a common history of service in the Middle East,[1] but that is disputed by some Irish historians, such as Conor Cruise O'Brien, and it has been suggested that they received the name because they often held meetings at Cafe Cairo, at 59 Grafton Street in Dublin. Earlier books on the 1919–1923 period do not refer to the Cairo Gang by that name.