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Irish Civil War
Irish Civil War
The Irish Civil War was a conflict between supporters and opponents of the Anglo-Irish treaty signed on 6 December 1921.
Battle of Dublin
In April 1922, 200 anti-treaty IRA fighters, led by Rory O’Connor, occupied the four courts in Dublin, creating a tense standoff. These anti-treaty republicans wanted to confront the British face-to-face, hoping to unite the two factions of the Republican Army against a common enemy.
But for those determined to make the Free State a viable self-governing Irish state, it was an act of rebellion that had to be suppressed “by them”, not by the British. Arthur Griffith preferred an immediate solution by force, but Michael Collins, wanting to do everything possible to avoid war, did not rehabilitate the Fourth Court Barracks until June 1922 when he was pressured by the British to do so.
Ironically, the British were impatient with what Collins ordered. He assassinated a retired British general, Henry Hugh Wilson, in London because he was in charge of an attack on Catholics in Northern Ireland.
Winston Churchill insisted that the Anti-Treaty Republican Army was responsible for the assassination, and warned Collins that he would use British forces to attack the Four Courts unless the Free State acted.
The Free State government’s last hope came on June 27, when the Republican Barracks of the Fourth Court kidnapped JJ “Ginger” O’Connell, a newly formed National Army general. Collins, after giving the Fourth Court Barracks an ultimatum to leave the building, decided to end the standoff by shelling the Fourth Court Barracks to make it surrender.
The government then designated Collins as commander-in-chief of the National Army. The attack was not the first shot of the war, and by the time the British handed over the barracks, clashes had already raged across the country between the two factions of the Republicans, both pro and anti-Treaty. But the battle represented a “turning point,” when both sides declared full war and civil war officially broke out.
Michael Collins accepts artillery from the British for use by the new Free State army. Armed only with light weapons, the anti-treaty forces of the Four Tribunals surrendered after two days of shelling and a charge by Free State forces.
Fierce fighting continued in Dublin until July 5, when Oscar Trainer’s Dublin Brigade Anti-Treaty IRA units seized O’Connell Street, causing week-long street fighting. The battle resulted in 65 deaths and 28 injuries on both sides. Among the dead was the republican leader Kahal Brua. In addition, the Free State has arrested more than 500 IRAs. Civilian casualties are thought to exceed 250.
By the time the fighting in Dublin ceased, the Free State government had taken firm control of the Irish capital and the anti-treaty forces were dispersed across the country, mainly in the south and west.
Rebels
The outbreak of the civil war forced both pro and anti-treaty parties to take sides. Treaty supporters are known as “Treaty Pros” or “Free State Army” and are legally known as “National Army”. Opponents called themselves “anti-treaty,” “irregulars,” or “republicans,” and continued to call themselves “republicans.”
The Anti-Treaty IRA claimed it was proclaimed during the 1916 Easter Rising and was confirmed by the first Irish Parliament, but was later abandoned by the Free State Compromisers who accepted it. Eamon de Valera declared that he would serve his country like an ordinary IRA volunteer and hand over the leadership of the anti-treaty Republican faction to military commanders such as IRA Chief of Staff Liam Lynch official.
The Civil War divided the Republican Army. When the Civil War broke out, the anti-treaty IRA outnumbered the pro-Free State forces—roughly 15,000 to 7,000, or more than two to one. But the anti-treaty IRA lacked an effective command structure, a clear strategy, and adequate weapons. At the start of the war they only had 6780 rifles and a few machine guns. Most fighters are armed only with shotguns. They also took a few armoured vehicles from the British army. More importantly, there are no artillery pieces. The result was that they had been forced to remain on the defensive throughout the war.
In contrast, the Free State rapidly expanded its forces after the war began. Michael Collins and his colleagues were capable of building an army that could subdue guerrillas in the fields. British supplies of artillery, aircraft, armoured vehicles, machine guns, small arms and ammunition greatly helped support the treaty forces.
The National Army reached 14,000 men by August 1922, and reached 38,000 by the end of 1922. By the end of the war, it had swelled to 55,000 men and 3,500 officers, far exceeding the armed forces that the Irish Free State needed to support in peacetime. Collins’ most cold-blooded officers and men came from the Dublin “active force” he commanded in the Irish War of Independence, particularly his assassination “squad”. In the National Army, they were called the Dublin Guard.
From the beginning to the end of the war, the force was involved in several notorious incidents of violence against anti-treaty guerrillas. Most National Army officers and soldiers were Republican soldiers who supported the treaty. But many of the new members of the new army were unemployed veterans who had served in the British Army in the First World War. Former British Army officers were also recruited as technologists. The Republicans used it to hype – claiming that the Free State was only a proxy force for Britain.
But in reality most of the Free State soldiers were recruits without any military experience in World War I or the Irish War of Independence.
Free State captures major cities
Dublin fell into the hands of pro-treaty factions, while the conflict spread across the country. The war began with the self-declared independent “Republic of Munster” by anti-treaty forces occupying Cork, Limerick and Waterford. However, the anti-treaty side was not equipped enough to wage conventional warfare. They lacked artillery and armour, but the Free State could get it from Britain. The result was that Lynch was unable to take advantage of the early republican numerical and territorial advantages. He simply hoped that the “Republic of Munster” would support long enough to force Britain to renegotiate the treaty.
However, all of Ireland’s major cities were captured relatively easily by the Free State in August 1922.
Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy and Owen O’Duffy planned the Free State’s nationwide offensive: sending columns to seize Limerick in the west and Watford in the southeast by land, Send troops to capture Cork and Kerry in the south and Mayo in the west by water.
Limerick fell on 20 July, Watford on the same day, and the city of Cork on 10 August after the Free State landed by sea at Quxi.
Another maritime expedition to the west of County Mayo brought the area back to government control. The republicans in some areas resisted staunchly, but nowhere were they able to defeat the regulars armed with artillery and armour. There was only one regular battle in the Free State defense, the Battle of Kilmalock, which took place as Free State troops marched south from Limerick.
The government’s victory in the major cities began a period of indecisive guerrilla warfare. Anti-treaty IRA forces were dispersed, sticking to areas such as counties Cork and Kerry in the south, east Wexford and counties Sligo and Mayo. Sporadic fighting also broke out around Dantok, where Frank Aiken and the IRA 4th Northern Division were based.
The war continued on and off for more than eight months before it ended. The assassination and execution of leaders who were allies in the Irish War of Independence marked this period. Chief of Staff Michael Collins was killed in the village of Flower Mouth, near his home in County Cork, in an ambush by anti-treaty republicans in August 1922.
Collins’ death made the Free State leadership even more resentful of the Republicans, likely causing the conflict that followed to degenerate into a cycle of violence and revenge. Arthur Griffiths, President of the Free State, also died of a brain hemorrhage ten days ago, the Free State government fell to WT Cosgrave, and the Free State forces were under the command of General Richard Mulcahy.
In October 1922, Eamon de Valera and anti-treaty MPs established their own “Republican Government” as the opposite of the Free State. However, at that time, the anti-treaty side had lost all the land, and de Valera’s “government” had no authority among the people. Regardless, IRA leaders dismissed it, seeing their military leadership as the republican’s pre-existing authority.
Atrocities, Executions, and the End of the War
The final phase of the Civil War degenerated into a series of atrocities, which left an untold bitterness in Irish political life. The Free State began executing Republican prisoners on November 17, 1922, when four members of the Republican Army were shot by firing squad.
It was followed by acclaimed writer and treaty negotiator Robert Erskine Chanders on November 24. A total of 77 anti-treaty prisoners were formally authorized to be executed by the Free State during the Civil War. The Anti-Treaty Republican Army assassinated Congressman Sean Hales in retaliation.
On December 7, 1922, the day after Hales’ death, four prominent republicans who had been imprisoned from the first week of the war — Rory O’Connor, Liam Melos, Richard De Barrett and Joe McKelvey – executed in revenge for killing Hales.
In addition, Free State forces, especially in County Kerry, where guerrilla warfare was most intense, began to secretly execute captured anti-treaty fighters. The most notorious example was in Barihidi, where nine republican prisoners were tied to landmines, which were subsequently detonated and survivors were machine-gunned.
The Anti-Treaty IRAs could not sustain an effective guerrilla war because the majority of the Irish population did not support them. This was on full display in the post-war general election, where the Gaelic Association – the Free State party – won handily. The Roman Catholic Church also supported the Free State as the legitimate government of the country, and excommunicated the Anti-Treaty Republican Army and refused to give Holy Communion to anti-treaty fighters.
On October 10, 1922, the Archbishop of Ireland, the Catholic Church, issued an official statement describing the anti-treaty movement as: “A system of murder and assassination without any legal authority… The guerrilla warfare waged by the irregulars has no moral support and thus kills the national soldiers. It is murder before God, taking public and private property is robbery, destroying roads, bridges and railways is a crime. All those who oppose this teaching and participate in the above crimes are guilty of deceit, and if they insist on such crimes, they cannot be excused Forgiveness, and expulsion from the Eucharist.”
This position affected many Catholic Irish at the time.
Lack of public support, the government’s determination to fight to the end, and its own lack of willpower all contributed to the defeat of the anti-treaty IRA.
By February 1923, republican leader Liam Diesy had surrendered to the Free State and called on other republicans to surrender as well. As the conflict morphed into a “de facto” victory for the pro-Treaty faction, de Valera asked the IRA leadership to order a ceasefire, which was rejected.
Some historians have suggested that the death of the republican uncompromising leader, Liam Lynch, in a battle on April 10 in the Downhill Mountains of Knockmere, County Waterford, makes the more realistic Frank Ai Ken took over as Chief of Staff of the Republican Army and was able to order a halt to what seemed like a pointless fight.
Aiken assumed leadership of the IRA on May 1, a day after he declared a ceasefire on behalf of anti-treaty forces. Aiken next ordered IRA volunteers to lay down their weapons on May 24, rather than surrender or continue the impossible fight. Thousands of anti-treaty IRA members were arrested by Free State forces within weeks of the end of the war, when they had laid down their weapons and went home.
Assault on former royalists
Although the cause of the civil war was the Anglo-Irish treaty, as the war progressed, the republicans also sought to define their reasons for action as traditional republican ones for the “proletarians”. Protestant royalists in
The 192 “mansions” of the old landlord class were destroyed by the republicans in the war, on the grounds that some landlords became Free State senators. Examples include Palmers Down House near Nas, which belonged to the Earl of Mayo, Moore Hall in County Mayo, and the house of Oliver St John Gogarty.
However, other factors also play a role. Many, but not all of them, had supported the British Army in the Revolutionary War. Most of this support was only spiritual, but it sometimes took the form of active assistance to British troops in conflict. These raids were supposed to end after a ceasefire on July 11, 1921. But in practice attacks continued after the ceasefire and the civil war escalated.
In addition, many in the landlord class were the focus of rural class hostilities, an issue that had become more and more heated since the Land War of 1880. While the Wyndham Act of 1903 allowed sharecroppers to buy land from landlords, there was a lot of land that wasn’t leased, and some republicans followed Michael Davitt’s policy that all land should be owned by “the state.”
This made the post-independence situation difficult for the former landlords, easy targets in the anarchy of the civil war. Sometimes these attacks have hints of sectarianism, although most anti-treaty IRAs do not distinguish whether Irish government supporters are Catholic or Protestant. It is difficult to find a motive for many attacks.
For example, the fortunes of certain apolitical “Anglo-Irish” Protestants, such as Heras Plunkett, who helped set up the Rural Cooperative Scheme, were burnt, but on the other hand, all the Guinness properties were intact Lossless. The Free State’s efforts to protect Protestants and their property, especially in Louth County, created a special police force for this purpose. The extent to which Protestants were subjected to coercion during this time has been divided to this day, but many left Ireland during and after the Civil War.
