During those three months, the last months of 1919, we had no less than twelve different ambushes planned to intercept him. But on each one of the twelve occasions he either failed to come or arrived too late or too early for our purpose. These plans were connected with affairs of the city—public functions, or visits to private houses. We were naturally hampered, because we could not afford to hang around a particular spot too long—our movements would lead to suspicion, and probably to a sudden swoop by the military. The first occasion that we were lying in wait Mick Collins was with us. So was Tom MacCurtain, Commandant of the 1st Cork (City) Brigade, who, in March of the following year, when he was Lord Mayor of Cork, was murdered in his own home by the police. Poor Dick McKee was also there. He was then Commandant of the Dublin Brigade, and never believed in asking his men to take risks he was not prepared to take himself. Dick was murdered together with Peadar Clancy, while a prisoner in the hands of the British a year later. On another occasion I remember vainly waiting with Peadar Clancy for two hours outside the door of a Merrion Square doctor whom French occasionally visited. On November 11th, the Anniversary of the Armistice, the Lord Lieutenant was to attend a banquet in Trinity College. We had every hope of intercepting him that night. Our plan was to bomb his car as he passed Grattan Bridge, for we knew the very hour he was due to travel along the quays from the Viceregal Lodge to the College. So certain were we that everything would work out according to plan that some of our men in the vicinity of the Bridge, within a hundred yards of Dublin Castle, had actually drawn and thrown away the pins from their bombs. It was a bitterly cold night, and there they stood with their fingers pressed on the springs of the cold metal ready to release the bombs. But he never came. For almost two hours our men had to endure the agony of holding the springs of the bombs, and in the end they had to make their escape as best they could, still gripping the cold bombs.