Lecture 10: The War of Independence,
Treaty and Civil War

Tactics: guerrilla campaign of ambush and assassination
Campaign against British forces
Mounted by the Irish
Volunteers/IRA
Began Jan. 21 1919: 9
Volunteers killed two policemen at an ambush in
Soloheadbeg, Co. Tipperary
Approx. 1200 people lost their lives during the conflict
(405 police, 150 military, and an estimated
750 IRA and civilians.)

The Soloheadbeg ambush was unpopular with many members of Sinn F éin
The Soloheadbeg incident may be regarded as an expression of militant republican frustration with
Sinn F éin’s political initiatives
The Volunteers took action to ensure that the Sinn Féin leadership did not compromise the republican demand

• 1. January 1919-March 1920: a low-key campaign
• 2. March 1920-December 1920: confrontational approaches
• 3. December 1920-July 1921: intelligence gathering and the move to negotiated settlement

• Defy easy categorisation
• No clear social profile
• The very poor of rural Ireland were not active in the IRA – nor were the most prosperous
• A middle-class revolution
• 2/3 of the members of the Dáil were urban professionals
• Only 1/3 was drawn from agriculture/industry/commerce

• Well-educated
• Correlation between
IRA militancy and the influence of the teaching of the
Christian Brothers
• Service in the British army. Ex-servicemen like Tom Barry proved invaluable to the IRA
Tom Barry

IRA tactics
Offensive against communication involved cutting roads off and restricting military and police patrols to routes offering good ambush prospects
Third Tipperary Brigade Flying
Column
Burning of abandoned police stations and big houses
Assassination in the city, ambush in rural areas

• IRA attacks intensified in winter 1919/20
• RIC had been forced to retreat into stronger barracks
• RIC had surrendered control of large parts of the country
British troops searching a car

• Combination of coercion and conciliation
• Home Rule Bill re-drafted in 1919.
• RIC reinforced – Black and Tans and the
Auxiliaries
• Emergency legislation introduced
• Defence of the Realm Acts superseded by
Restoration of Order Act in August 1920

• Came into effect during the First World
War
• Emergency legislation – empowered the government to make regulations for public safety
• During the Anglo-Irish War DORA regulations widely used to restrict firearms, create Special Military Areas and to substitute courts martial for jury trial

Some of the British secret intelligence officers killed by Collins’ hit squad on ‘Bloody Sunday’,
November 21 st 1920

…‘to realise the full horrors of the night one has to think of bands of men inflamed with drink raging about the streets firing rifles wildly, burning houses here and there and loudly threatening to come again tonight and complete their work.’
Article in Manchester Guardian following the sack of Balbriggan, 1920

• An attempt to solve the nationalist issue in the south and unionist demands in the north
• Resulted in two separate parliaments in
Dublin and Belfast

Irish delegation in Hans Place,
London on the day after the signing.
Members of the Irish delegation consisted of Arthur Griffith, Robert Barton,
Michael Collins, Eamonn Duggan and Charles Gavan-Duffy, with Erskine
Childers as principal secretary

The principal areas of discussion included:
1. the constitutional position of the new
Irish state and its relationship with
Britain
2. The geographical area administered by the state
3. the implications for the defence of
Britain arising from the new political arrangements
4. the determination of financial obligations.

‘I have to communicate with Sir James
Craig tonight. Here are the alternative letters which I have prepared, one enclosing articles of agreement reached by his majesty’s government and yourselves and the other saying that SF representatives refuse to come into the empire. If I send this letter it is war and war within three days. Which letter am I to send?
If the messenger is to reach Craig in time we must know your answer by
10pm tonight. You can have until then, but no longer, to decide whether you will give peace or war to your country.’
Llyod George, Dec 5 1921

• Main defence of the Treaty – it was the best available compromise
• Collins: ‘gives us freedom – not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it.’
• Anti-Treatyites: Did not deliver a republic.
Oath of allegiance was an outright betrayal of their principles
• 7 January 1922: Treaty ratified by 64 votes to 57.

• IRA convention held March 26 th 1922 in defiance of the government
• Most members of the IRA were opposed to the treaty – known as the Irregulars
• April 13 th 1922: Rory O’Connor led a force of Irregulars into the Four Courts (above)

• Lull of 6 months between the signing of the treaty and the beginning of civil war hostilities
• Civil War began 28 June 1922 when government troops attacked headquarters of the Irregulars in the Four Courts, Dublin
• Anti-Treaty forces: 12,900 men
• Government: 9000 semi-trained recruits

Liam Lynch, Commanding
General of the anti-Treaty
IRA
• Lynch ‘irreconcilable chief of staff of the
Irregulars’ died on
April 10 1923
• An end to the conflict was then possible
Aiken replaced Lynch
• Unilateral ceasefire 30
April 1923

• No register to show how many lives lost in Civil
War
• 800 national army deaths
• 400 republican deaths