Irish Civil War

The Irish Civil War (June 28 1922 – May 24 1923) was a conflict between supporters and opponents of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 6, 1921, which established the Irish Free State, precursor of today's Republic of Ireland. Opponents of the Treaty objected to the fact that it retained constitutional links between the United Kingdom and Ireland, and that the six counties of Northern Ireland would not be included in the Free State. The Civil War cost the lives of more than had died in the War of Independence that preceded it. It left Irish society deeply divided and its influence in Irish politics can still be seen to this day.

Background

The Treaty

The Anglo-Irish Treaty arose from the Anglo-Irish War (or "Irish War of Independence"), fought between Irish separatists (organised as the extra-legal Irish Republic) and the British government, from 1919-1921. The treaty provided for a fully self-governing Irish state, controlling most of Ireland's population and area, and having its own army and police. However, rather than creating the independent republic favoured by many nationalists, it provided that the state would be a dominion of the British Empire with the British monarch as head of state. The treaty also stipulated that members of the new Irish Oireachtas (parliament) would have to take an "Oath of Allegiance" to the Free State constitution and an oath of fidelity to the British king. Under the treaty the state was not to be called a republic but a "free state" and it was only to include twenty-six southern and western counties of Ireland. The remaining six northeastern counties were to remain part of the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland. Also, several strategic ports were to remain occupied by the Royal Navy.

Nonetheless, Michael Collins, the republican leader who had led the Irish negotiating team, argued that the treaty gave "not the ultimate freedom that all nations aspire and develop, but the freedom to achieve freedom". Events were eventually to prove him right, as the Free State later evolved into an independent republic. However, Anti-Treaty militants in 1922 believed that the Treaty would never deliver full Irish independence.

Split in the Nationalist movement

''See also: IRA and the Anglo-Irish Treaty

Dáil Éireann (the parliament of the Irish Republic) narrowly passed the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64 votes to 57 in December 1921. Following the Treaty's ratification, a Provisional Government, headed by Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, was set up to transfer power from the British administration to the Irish Free State.

Upon the Treaty's ratification Eamon de Valera resigned as President of the Republic and led the anti-treaty wing of Sinn Féin out of the Dáil. He challenged the right of the Dáil to approve the Treaty, saying that its members were breaking their oath to the Irish Republic. De Valera then attempted to promote a compromise, in which the new Irish Free State would have "external association" with the British Commonwealth rather than membership of it. More seriously, the majority of the Irish Republican Army officers were also against the Treaty and in March 1922, their Army Convention repudiated the authority of the Dail to accept the Treaty. The anti-treaty IRA formed their own Army Executive, which they recognised as the real government of the country.

However, both sides wanted to avoid civil war. Collins established an "army re-unification committee" to re-unite the IRA and organised an election pact with De Valera's anti-treaty political followers to jointly fight the Free State's first election in 1922 and form a coalition government afterwards. He also tried to reach a compromise with anti-treaty IRA leaders by agreeing to republican type constitution (with no mention of the British monarchy) for the new state. IRA leaders such as Liam Lynch were prepared to accept this compromise. However, the proposal for a republican constitution was vetoed by the British as being contrary to the terms of the treaty and they threatened to impose an economic blockade on Free State unless the treaty was fully implemented. Collins reluctantly agreed. This completely undermined the electoral pact between the pro and anti treaty factions, who went into the Irish general election, 1922 on June 18th as hostile parties, both calling themselves Sinn Féin. The Pro Treaty Sinn Féin party won the election with 239,193 votes to 133,864 for anti-Treaty Sinn Féin. A further 247,226 people voted for other parties, all of whom supported the Treaty. The election showed that the Irish electorate supported the Treaty and the foundation of the Irish Free State but De Valera, his political followers and most of the IRA continued to oppose it. De Valera is quoted as saying, "the majority have no right to do wrong".

Meanwhile under the leadership of Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, the pro-treaty Provisional Government set about establishing the Irish Free State, an organised national army to replace the IRA and a new police force. However, since it was envisaged that the new army would be built around the IRA, anti-treaty IRA units were allowed to take over British barracks and take their arms. In practice, this meant that by the summer of 1922, the Provisional government of the Free State controlled only Dublin and some other areas like Longford where the IRA units supported the Treaty.

Fighting would ultimately break out when the Provisional government tried to assert its authority over well armed and intransigent anti-treaty IRA units around the country -particularly a hardline group in Dublin.

Course of the war

Dublin fighting

In April 1922, 200 anti-treaty IRA militants led by Rory O'Connor, occupied the Four Courts in Dublin, resulting in a tense stand-off. These Anti-Treaty Republicans wanted to spark a new armed confrontation with the British, which they hoped would unite the two factions of the IRA against their common enemy. However, for those who were determined to make the Free State into a viable, self-governing Irish state, this was an act of rebellion that would have to be put down by them rather than the British. Arthur Griffith was in favour of using force against these men immediately, but Michael Collins wanted at all costs to avoid civil war and left the Four Courts garrison alone until late June 1922, when his hand was forced by British pressure.

Ironically, the British lost patience as result of an action ordered by Collins. He had Henry Hughes Wilson, a retired British General, assassinated in London on the 22nd of June because of his role in attacks on Catholics in Northern Ireland. Winston Churchill assumed that the anti-treaty IRA were responsible for the killing and warned Collins that he would use British troops to attack the Four Courts unless the Free State took action. The final straw for the Free State government came on the 27th of June, when the Four Courts republican garrison kidnapped JJ "Ginger" O'Connell, a general in the new Free State Army. Collins decided to end the stand-off, under a British threat of imminent re-occupation, by bombarding the Four Courts garrison into surrender. Collins was then appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Free State Army. This attack was not the opening shots of the war as skirmishes had taken place between pro and anti treaty IRA factions throughout the country when the British were handing over barracks. However this represented the 'point of no return' when all out war was ipso facto declared and the Civil War officially began.

Michael Collins had accepted a British offer of artillery for use by the new Free State Army. The anti-treaty forces in the Four Courts, who possessed only small arms, surrendered after two days of bombardment and the storming of the building by Free State troops (28th-30th of June 1922). Pitched battles continued in Dublin until July 5, as anti-Treaty IRA units from the Dublin Brigade led by Oscar Traynor occupied O'Connell Street - provoking a week's more street fighting. The fighting cost both sides sixty-five killed and twenty-eight wounded. Among the dead was Republican leader Cathal Brugha. In addition, the Free State took over 500 Republican prisoners. The civilian casualties are thought to have numbered well over 250.

When the fighting in Dublin died down, the Free State Government was left firmly in control of the Irish capital and the anti-treaty forces dispersed around the country, mainly to the south and west.Oconnell-street-fighting-1.jpg

The Opposing forces

The outbreak of the civil war forced pro and anti treaty supporters to choose sides. Supporters of the treaty came to be known as "pro-treaty", "National Army" or "Free State" forces. Its opponents were known as "anti-treaty", "Irregulars" or "Republicans" and continued to refer to themselves as the "IRA". The Anti-Treaty IRA claimed that it was defending the Irish Republic that had been declared in 1916 during the Easter Rising, that had been confirmed by the First Dáil and that had been invalidly set aside by those who accepted the compromise of the Free State. Éamon de Valera stated that he would serve as an ordinary IRA volunteer, and left the leadership of the Anti-Treaty Republicans to military leaders such as Liam Lynch, the IRA Chief of Staff. At the start of the Civil War the IRA had split. The Anti-Treaty side had considerable support among IRA units, particularly in the south and west of Ireland. In fact, when the civil war broke out, the Anti-Treaty IRA outnumbered the pro-Free State forces -by roughly 15,000 men to 7000 or over 2-1. (The paper strength of the IRA in early 1922 was over 72,000 men, but most of them were recruited during the truce with the British and fought in neither the War of Independence nor the Civil War). However the anti-treaty IRA lacked an effective command structure, a clear strategy and sufficient arms. They started the war with only 6,780 rifles and a handful of machine guns. Many of their fighters were armed only with shotguns. They also took a handful of armoured cars from British troops as they were evacuating the country. More important still, they had no artillery of any kind. As a result, they were forced to adopt a defensive stance throughout the war.

By contrast, the Free State managed to expand its forces dramatically after the start of the war. Michael Collins and his commanders were able to build up an army which was able to overwhelm the Irregulars in the field. British supplies of artillery, aircraft, armoured cars, machine guns, small arms and ammunition were much help to pro-treaty forces. The Free State Army was 38,000 strong by the end of 1922 and by the end of the war, the Free State Army had swollen to 55,000 men and 3,500 officers, far in excess of what the Irish state would need to maintain in peacetime. Collins' most ruthless officers and men were recruited from the Dublin "Active Service Unit" (the elite unit of the IRA's Dublin Brigade), which Collins had commanded in the Irish War of Independence and in particular from his assassination unit "The Squad". In the New Irish Army, they were known as the Dublin Guard. Towards the end of the war, they were implicated in some atrocities against Anti-Treaty guerrillas. Most of the Free State Army's officers were Pro-Treaty IRA men as were a substantial number of their soldiers. Many of the new Army's other recruits were unemployed veterans of the First World War, where they had served in the British Army. However the majority were recruits without military experience in either the First World War or the ensuing Irish War of Independence.

The Free State takes major towns

With Dublin in pro-treaty hands, conflict spread throughout the country, with anti-Treaty forces briefly holding Cork, Limerick and Waterford as part of a self-styled independent "Munster Republic". However, the Anti-Treaty side were not equipped to wage conventional war, lacking artillery and armoured units, both of which the Free State obtained from the British. This meant that the large towns in Ireland were all easily taken by the Free State after only sporadic fighting. Limerick fell on the 20th of July, Waterford on the same day and Cork city on the 10th of August after a Free State force landed by sea at Passage West. Another seaborne expedition to Mayo in the west secured government control over that part of the country.

Government victories in the major towns inaugurated a period of inconclusive guerrilla warfare. Anti-Treaty IRA units held out in areas such as the western part of counties Cork and Kerry in the south, county Wexford in the east and counties Sligo and Mayo in the west. Sporadic fighting also took place around Dundalk, where Frank Aiken and the Fourth Northern Division of the Irish Republican Army were based.

It took eight more months of intermittent warfare before the war was brought to an end. This period was marked by assassinations and executions of leaders formerly allied in the cause of Irish independence. Commander-in-Chief Michael Collins was killed in an ambush by anti-treaty republicans at Béal na mBláth, near his home in County Cork, in August 1922. Arthur Griffith, the Free State president had also died of a brain haemorrhage ten days before, leaving the Free State government in the hands of William Cosgrave and the Free State Army under the command of General Richard Mulcahy.

In October 1922, Eamon de Valera and the anti-treaty TDs (members of the Dail Parliament) set up their own "Republican government" in opposition to the Free State. However, by then the anti-Treaty side held no significant territory and De Valera's "government" had no authority over the population. In any case, the IRA leaders paid no attention to it, seeing the Republican authority as vested in their own military leaders.

Atrocities, executions and the end of the war

The Anti-Treaty IRA were unable to maintain an effective guerrilla campaign, since the great majority of the Irish population did not support them. This was demonstrated in the elections immediately after the civil war, which Cumann na nGaedheal, the Free State party, won easily (See Irish general election, 1923 for the results). The Roman Catholic Church also supported the Free State, deeming it the lawful government of the country, denouncing the Anti-Treaty IRA and refusing to administer the Sacraments to Anti-Treaty fighters. On October 10th 1922, The Catholic Bishops of Ireland issued a formal statement, describing the anti treaty campaign as,

a system of murder and assassination of the National forces without any legitimate authority...the guerrilla warfare now being carried on ^* the Irregulars is without moral sanction and therefore the killing of National soldiers is murder before God, the seizing of public and private property is robbery, the breaking of roads, bridges and railways is criminal. All who in contravention of this teaching, participate in such crimes are guilty of grevious sins and may not be absolved in Confession nor admitted to the Holy Communion if they persist in such evil courses (Coogan, De Valera p344).

This stance would have influenced many Catholic Irish people at the time.

The lack of public support for the Anti-Treaty IRA, the determination of the government to defeat them and their lack of will all contributed to their defeat. By February 1923, republican leader Liam Deasy had already surrendered to Free State forces and called on other republicans to do the same. As the conflict petered out into a de facto victory for the pro-Treaty side, De Valera asked the IRA leadership to call a ceasefire, but they refused. Some historians suggest that the death of Liam Lynch, the intransigent Republican leader, in a skirmish in the Knockmealdown mountains in County Waterford on April 10th, allowed the more pragmatic Frank Aiken, who took over as IRA Chief of Staff, to call a halt to what seemed a futile struggle. Aiken's accession to IRA leadership was followed on the 30th of April by the declaration of a ceasefire on behalf off the anti-treaty forces. Aiken followed this on the 24th of May 1923 by an order to IRA volunteers to dump arms rather than surrender them or continue a fight which they were incapable of winning. Thousands of Anti-Treaty IRA members (including De Valera) were arrested by the Free State forces in the weeks after the end of the war, when they had dumped their arms and returned home.

Attacks on Loyalists

Although the cause of the civil war was the treaty, as the war developed the Irregulars sought to identify their actions with the traditional republican cause of the "men of no property" and the result was that the war also saw large Anglo-Irish landowners, and some not very well-off Protestant Loyalists, attacked and a large number of country estates occupied by small holders. A total of 192 "stately homes" of the old landed class were destroyed by republicans during the war (M.E Collins Ireland 1868-1966, p431). Many, but not all of these people, had supported the Crown forces during the War of Independence. This support was often largely moral, but sometimes it took the form of actively assisting the British in the conflict. In addition, many of the Landlord class were the focus of rural class antagonism that had been simmering since the Land War of the 1880s. This made their situation post-independence difficult, and in the anarchy of the Civil War they became easy targets. Sometimes these attacks had sectarian overtones, although most anti-treaty IRA men made no distinction between Catholic and Protestant supporters of the Irish government. The Free State made efforts to protect Protestants and their property, most notably in County Louth, where a special police force was set up specifically for this purpose. Controversy continues to this day about the extent of intimidation of Protestants at this time.

Cost and results

The Civil War, though short, was bloody. It cost the lives of many senior figures, including Michael Collins. Both sides carried out brutal acts: the anti-treaty forces murdered TDs (MPs) and burned many historic homes (such as the famous Moore Hall in Mayo, because its owner had become a senator); the government executed anti-treaty prisoners, officially and unofficially. The pro-treaty National Army suffered 800 fatalities and perhaps as many as 4000 people were killed in total. As their forces retreated the Irregulars caused much destruction and the economy of the Free State suffered a hard blow in the earliest days of its existence as a result. In addition, about 12,000 Republicans were interned by the end of the Civil War, most of whom were not released until 1924. After Aiken called an end to the Anti-Treaty campaign, up to 8000 IRA prisoners went on hunger strike in protest at their continued detention.

However, it has also been argued that the Irish Civil War could have been far worse than it actually was. The numbers killed were relatively modest by the standards of other contemporary civil wars - for example in Russia and Spain. Moreover, the new Police force, the Civic Guards, was not involved which meant that it was possible for the Free State to establish an unarmed and politically neutral police service after the war.

The fact that the Irish Civil War was fought between Irish Nationalist factions meant that the issue of Northern Ireland was ignored and Ireland was spared what could have been a far bloodier civil war based on ethnic and sectarian lines over the future of Ireland's six north-eastern counties. In fact, because of the Irish Civil War, Northern Ireland was able to consolidate its existence and partition of Ireland was confirmed for the foreseeable future. Collins, up to the outbreak of the civil war and possibly until his death, had been planning to launch a clandestine guerrilla campaign against the Northern state and was funnelling arms to the northern units of the IRA to this end. This may have led to open hostilities between north and south had the Irish Civil War not broken out. In the event, it was only after their defeat in the Civil War that anti-treaty Irish Republicans seriously considered whether to take armed action against British rule in Northern Ireland. The northern units of the IRA largely supported the Free State side in the civil war due to Collins's policies and over 1000 of them joined the new Free State's Irish Army.

In 1926, having failed to persuade the majority of the anti-treaty IRA or the anti-treaty party of Sinn Féin of accepting the new status quo as a basis for an evolving Republic, a large faction led by De Valera and Aiken left to resume constitutional politics and to found the Fianna Fáil party. Sinn Féin became a small, isolated political party. The IRA, then much more numerous and influential than Sinn Féin, remained associated with Fianna Fáil (though not directly) until banned by De Valera in 1935.

As with most civil wars, the internecine conflict left a bitter legacy, which continues to influence Irish politics to this day. The two largest political parties in the Republic are still Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the descendants respectively of the anti-treaty and pro-treaty forces of 1922. Until the 1970s, almost all of Ireland's prominent politicians were veterans of the civil war, a fact which poisoned the relationship between Ireland's two biggest parties. Examples of Civil War veterans include: Eamon de Valera, Frank Aiken, Todd Andrews, Sean Lemass, (Republican) and W.T. Cosgrave, Richard Mulcahy and Kevin O'Higgins (Free State). Moreover, many of these men's sons and daughters also became politicians, meaning that the personal wounds of the civil war were felt over three generations. In the 1930s after Fianna Fáil took power for the first time, it looked possible for a while that the Civil War might break out again between the IRA and the pro-Free State Blueshirts. Fortunately, this crisis was averted and by the 1950s, political violence was no longer prominent in Southern Irish politics.

However, the breakaway IRA continued (and continues in various forms) to exist. Up until the 1980s it still claimed to be the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic declared in 1918 and annulled by the Treaty of 1921. Some people, notably Michael McDowell, claim that this attitude, which dates from the Civil War, still underpins the politics of the Provisional IRA.

Footnotes

In the 1996 film Michael Collins, Eamon de Valera meets the killer of Michael Collins prior to the assassination. However, although de Valera was in the area at the time, he is not thought to have ordered the assassination.
Whose brother Noel, a captain in the anti-Treaty IRA, was abducted and shot by Free State forces in July 1923, two months after the war had ended. His body was dumped in the Wicklow Mountains, near Glencree, where it was found in October 1923. The spot where his body was found is marked by a memorial.
O'Higgins was the Minister for Economic Affairs in the Free State government and was known to be in favour of executions of prisoners. His elderly father was killed by republicans during the civil war. He was assassinated in 1927 by anti-treaty IRA members on his way to Mass. He was killed in reprisal for what they viewed as his responsibility for executions of republicans during the civil war.

Sources

Ernie O'Malley, The Singing Flame, Dublin 1978.
M.E. Collins, Ireland 1868-1966, Dublin 1993.
Michael Hopkinson, Green against Green - the Irish Civil War
Eoin Neeson, The Irish Civil War
Paul V Walsh, The Irish Civil War 1922-23 -A Study of the Conventional Phase ^*
Meda Ryan, The Real chief, Liam Lynch
Tim Pat Coogan, De Valera, Long Fellow, Long Shadow

External links

The final siege of Limerick City from July 7 until July 21 1922, on the Limerick Leader web site.

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