 The <unk> was also active in Ireland . German intelligence operations effectively ended in September 1941 when police made arrests on the basis of surveillance carried out on the key diplomatic <unk> in Dublin , including that of the United States . To the authorities , <unk> was a fundamental line of defence . With a regular army of only slightly over seven thousand men at the start of the war , and with limited supplies of modern weapons , the state would have had great difficulty in defending itself from invasion from either side in the conflict . 
