Former home of Michael Collins’ ‘superspy’ on the market for €1.295m

Asking price: €1.295m

Agent: Sherry FitzGerald (01) 4907433​

Even superspies need a family home. A century ago this year, Michael Collins’ most important undercover agent received the key to his brand new home at 28 Mayfield Road East in Dublin’s Terenure.

In 1924, two years after the death of his boss at Béal Na Bláth, Edward ‘Ned’ Broy moved in with his wife Elizabeth and over the next 10 years, they’d raise their first two children here.

At the time, he was a colonel in the national army. By the time the Broys sold up a decade later in 1934, Ned had been appointed commissioner of the gardaí by Éamon de Valera.

Broy initiated the single most audacious incident of the War of Independence when, as a police officer at G Division, he handed over a very special key to Collins on the night of April 7, 1919.

The key would admit the IRA chief and sidekick Sean Nunan into the inner sanctum of British intelligence files at G Division’s HQ on Pearse Street, specifically held in a top secret file room.

At midnight, Broy let the IRA men in by the side entrance at Townsend Street and for the next four hours, they browsed classified files on police suspects, moles and G Division operatives, taking notes at their leisure until 4am when pair casually locked up and walked home; Collins to Mountjoy and Nunan to Botanic Road.

Having gleaned the identities of the secret policemen hunting the IRA, Collins had six of them shot in the months following, one right outside Pearse Street (then Great Brunswick Street) Station.

Born into a farming family in Kildare, Broy will forever be famous for his role as the hugely effective double agent working for Collins from within the ranks of the notorious G Division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP) from 1917 to 1921 before he was outed and arrested.

In the cat and mouse game played between Collins and the British authorities, G Division fielded 50 plain clothes men from Dublin Castle (later Pearse Street), who intermingled with Dublin society to root out IRA men.

G Division initially instilled fear into the republicans with its seemingly all pervasive tentacles. But by the time the war ended, the once feared ‘G men’ were themselves terrified to venture outside their bases.

In Neil Jordan’s movie Michael Collins, Broy is played by actor Stephen Rea.

But unlike the movie, in which Rea’s Broy is eventually captured, tortured and killed by the British, the real life Broy would survive.

Although discovered and arrested by the British in early 1921, and then imprisoned in a solitary cell in Arbour Hill while facing a seemingly certain death penalty, Broy was reprieved by the Treaty. He went on to become OC of the Air Corps and then the State’s second garda commissioner.

He was appointed to the post by De Valera in 1933 after his predecessor Eoin O’Duffy was dismissed for extreme views and went on to form the fascist Blueshirts.

Broy was charged with setting up a special undercover police ‘squad’ to tackle extreme IRA holdouts and Blueshirts.

Nicknamed ‘Broys Harriers’ (the athletic Broy was a member of Clontarf Harriers running club), their ruthless methods meant they were soon as feared as G Division once was.

These were dangerous times. Broy’s neighbour at 13 Mayfield Road was Justice Minister Kevin O’Higgins, who was assassinated by three vengeful IRA men in 1927.

After selling No28 in 1934, Broy and his wife would have two more children after moving to a much bigger house nearby on Orwell Road.

He lived his last years in a more modest home adjoining St Luke’s Hospital in Rathgar before passing in 1972.

The home’s current owners bought No28 in 1996 and discovered his past ownership through the deeds.

He signs as “Edward Broy” upon buying the house brand new and later as vendor, he writes “Edward Broy (garda commissioner)”.

Number 28, which is part red-brick, part dash, has been extended twice by them since moving in.

In 2005, an en suite bathroom and a dressing room was added over the garage and in 2014, the living room at the back (it would previously have been Broy’s kitchen, with the fireplace he sat at) was significantly extended to provide a much bigger living space, along with a utility room.

Today, the house has an entrance hall with original front door, stained glass panels and a hardwood parquet floor.

The drawing room has its original mahogany and tiled fireplace and double doors lead through to the dining room with its original timber floor and tiled fireplace.

There’s also a family room with a walnut herringbone floor, cast iron chimneypiece, built-in cabinets and double doors leading out to the garden.

The kitchen comes with fire-earth tiling, wall and floor-mounted timber kitchen units, a granite countertop and a Samsung fridge freezer, Zanussi gas hob and Bosch oven and grill. Double doors also lead out to the garden.

There’s a downstairs WC with a hand basin, tiled floor and fitted mirror, and a utility room with fitted units, a Bosch washer-dryer, Samsung freezer, tiled floor and recessed lighting.

The garage is floored with lino and has fitted shelves. Upstairs, the master bedroom looks over the rear garden and it comes with an en suite walk-in dressing room and an en suite bathroom with a shower cubicle, a bath tub and there’s a granite countertop.

There are two more double bedrooms, one single bedroom and the family bathroom, taking the total accommodation to 2,164 sq ft.

The rear garden has a patio area and a block-built shed. Number 28 is located within a few minutes’ walk of Terenure Village.

Some of Dublin’s best schools are located within reach, including St Mary’s, Gonzaga, Alexandra, St Joseph’s and Presentation.

Bushy Park is on the doorstep and Rathmines is a three-minute bus ride away.

Sherry FitzGerald seeks €1.295m.