The Irish War of Independence was a guerrilla campaign mounted against the British government in Ireland by the Irish Republican Army under the proclaimed legitimacy of the First Dáil, the extra-legal Irish parliament created in 1918 by a majority of Irish MPs. It lasted from January 1919 until the truce in July 1921. The war is often referred to as the "Anglo-Irish War" in Britain, the "Tan War" by anti-Treaty republicans and was known contemporarily as "the Troubles", not to be confused with the later conflict in Northern Ireland, which is also referred to as the "the Troubles".
| Irish War of Independence | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 An Irish War of Independence memorial in Dublin | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Irish Republican Army | United Kingdom | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 15,000 | British Army c.30,000, Royal Irish Constabulary 9,700, Black and Tans 7,000, Auxiliaries 1,400 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 550 IRA, C.650 Civilians | 363 RIC, 261 British Army | ||||||
The Irish Republican Army which fought in this conflict is often referred to as the Old IRA to distinguish it from later organisations that used the same name.
Origins
One of the major symbols of the independence movement.
To purist Irish Republicans, the Anglo-Irish war had begun with the Proclamation of the Irish Republic during the Easter Rising of 1916. Republicans argued that the conflict of 1919-21 (and indeed the subsequent Irish Civil War) was the defence of this Republic against attempts to destroy it. More directly, the Anglo-Irish War had its origins in the formation of an unilaterally declared independent Irish parliament, called Dáil Éireann, formed by the majority of MPs elected in Irish constituencies in the Irish (UK) general election, 1918. This parliament, known as the First Dáil, and its ministry, called the Aireacht, declared Irish independence. The IRA, as the 'army of the Irish Republic', was perceived by members of Dáil Éireann to have a mandate to wage war on the Dublin Castle British administration headed by the Lord Lieutenant running Ireland.
On 21 January 1919, IRA volunteers under Dan Breen, killed two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary when they refused to surrender a consignment of gelignite they were guarding, in Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary.
This is widely regarded as the beginning of the War of Independence, although the men acted on their own initiative. Martial law was declared in South Tipperary three days later. On the same day as the shooting started, the First Dáil convened in the Mansion House in Dublin where it ratified the 1916 Proclamation of Independence, called for the evacuation of the British military garrison, and called on the "free nations of the world" to recognise Ireland's independence.
Violence Spreads
See Also Chronology of the Irish War of Independence.
Volunteers began to attack British government property, carried out raids for arms and funds and targeted and killed prominent members of the British administration. The first was Resident Magistrate John Milling, who was shot dead in Westport, County Mayo, for having sent Volunteers to prison for unlawful assembly and drilling. They mimicked the successful tactics of the Boers, fast violent raids without uniform. Although some republican leaders, notably Éamon de Valera, favoured classic conventional warfare in order to legitimise the new republic in the eyes of the world, the more practically experienced Michael Collins and the broader IRA leadership opposed these tactics that had led to the military débacle of 1916. The violence used was at first deeply unpopular with the broader Irish population, but most were won around when faced with the terror of the British government's campaign of widespread brutality, destruction of property, random arrests and unprovoked shootings. Events began slowly, but by 1920 widespread violence was the rule.
In early 1920, Dublin dockers refused to handle any war matériel, and were soon joined by the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, despite hundreds of sackings. Train drivers were brought over from England after Irish drivers refused to carry British troops.
In March 1920 in West Limerick, the IRA killed a man for spying for the first time. In early April, 400 abandoned RIC barracks were burned to the ground to prevent them being used again, along with almost one hundred income tax offices. Days later, prisoners in Mountjoy Jail begin a hunger strike for political status. The strikes led to large demonstrations in Dublin in support, followed by a one-day general strike. Due to a mix-up, all of the men were released (it was only intended to release those who had not been convicted). A joint patrol of RIC and Highland Light Infantry fired into an unarmed crowd in Miltown Malbay who were celebrating the men's release, killing three Volunteers and wounding nine others. The County Coroner found nine soldiers and policemen guilty of murder and served warrants on them, but no disciplinary action was taken.
Príomh Aire (1919-August 1921)
President of the Irish Republic (August-December 1921)
Arthur Griffith estimated that in the first 18 months of the conflict, Crown forces carried out 38,720 raids on private homes, arrested 4,982 suspects, committed 1,604 armed assaults, sacked and shot up 102 towns and killed 77 unarmed republicans or other civilians. Griffith was responsible for setting up the "Dáil Courts", a legal system that operated in parallel with the British one, and eventually came to supersede it as the moral authority and territorial control of the IRA increased.
The IRA's main target throughout the conflict was the mainly Catholic Irish police force, the Royal Irish Constabulary, which they saw as the British government's eyes and ears in Ireland. Its members and barracks (especially the more isolated ones) were vulnerable, and they were a source of much-needed arms. The RIC numbered 9,700 men stationed in 1,500 barracks throughout Ireland. A policy of ostracism of RIC men was announced by the Dáil in April 1919. This proved successful in demoralising the force as the war went on, as people turned their faces more and more from a force increasingly compromised by association with government repression. The rate of resignation went up, and recruitment dropped off dramatically. Often they were reduced to buying food at gunpoint as shops and other businesses refused to deal with them. Some RIC men cooperated with the IRA through fear or sympathy, supplying the organisation with valuable information. In 1919, 11 RIC men and 4 Dublin Metropolitan Police were killed and another 20 RIC wounded. In 1920 143 RIC were killed and 197 wounded. In 1921 205 RIC men were killed and 291 wounded. In total, there were 363 RIC men were killed in the war, with 510 wounded (Hopkinson, Irish War of Independence p 201-2).
Michael Collins and the IRA
Michael Collins was the main driving force behind the independence movement. Nominally the Minister of Finance in the Republic's government, he was actively involved in providing funds and arms to the IRA units that needed them, and in the selection of officers. Collins' natural intelligence, organisational capability and sheer drive galvanised many who came in contact with him. He established what proved an effective network of spies among sympathetic members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police's (DMP) "G division" and other important branches of the British administration. The G division men were detested by the IRA as often they were used to identify volunteers who would have been unknown to British soldiers or the later Black and Tans. Collins set up the "Squad", a group of men whose sole duty was to seek out and kill "G-men", members of the DMP's relatively small political division active in subverting the republican movement, and other British spies and agents. Many G-men were offered a chance to resign or leave Ireland by the IRA, and some took these options.
While the paper membership of the IRA, carried over from the Irish Volunteers was over 100,000 men, Michael Collins estimated that only 15,000 men actively served in the IRA during the course of the war, with about 3,000 on active service at any time. There were also support organisations for the IRA -Cumann na mBan (the women's group) and Fianna Eireann (youth movement), who carried weapons and intelligence for IRA men and secured food and lodgings for them.
Collins had supporters and spies in its ranks.
The IRA benefited from the widespread help given to them by the general Irish population, who generally refused to pass information to the RIC and the British military and who often provided "safe houses" and provisions to IRA units "on the run". Much of the IRA's popularity was due to the excessive reaction of the Crown forces to IRA activity. An unofficial government policy of reprisals began in September 1919 in Fermoy, County Cork, when 200 British soldiers looted and burned the main businesses of the town, after one of their number had been killed in an arms raid by the local IRA. Actions such as these, repeated in Limerick and Balbriggan, increased local support for the IRA and international support for Irish independence.
In April, after several IRA raids, the Inland Revenue ceased to operate in most of Ireland. People were encouraged to subscribe to Collins' National Loan, set up to raise funds for the young government and its army. Resident Magistrate Alan Bell, from Banagher, had been tasked by the British to track down the money. By the 26th of March 1920, he had successfully confiscated over £71,000 from Sinn Féin's HQ and, by investigating banks throughout the country, was set to seize much more. On that day he was pulled off a tram in south Dublin and shot three times in the head. By the end of the year the loan had reached £357,000. Rates were still paid to local councils, as these were controlled by Sinn Féin members, who naturally refused to pass them on to the British government.
When Éamon de Valera returned from the United States, he demanded in the Dáil that the IRA desist from the ambushes and assassinations that were allowing the British to successfully portray it as a terrorist group, and to take on the British forces with conventional military methods. This unrealistic proposal was immediately dismissed, but illustrated how many in the Sinn Féin leadership were out of touch with the nature of the conflict.
British Response
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1918-1921)
The "Black and Tans" were set up to bolster the flagging RIC. 7,000 strong, they were mainly ex-British soldiers demobilised after World War I. Most came from English and Scottish cities. While officially they were part of the RIC, in reality they were a paramilitary organisation who left a reputation of murder, terror, drunkenness and ill-discipline that did more harm to the British government's moral authority in Ireland than any other group. Later came the Auxiliaries, 1,400 former British army officers. While easily matching the violence and terror offered civilians by the Black and Tans, the Auxiliary Division tended to be more effective and willing to take on the IRA. The government policy of reprisals, which involved public denunciation or denial and private approval, was famously satirised by Lord Hugh Cecil when he said: "It seems to be agreed that there is no such thing as reprisals, but they are having a good effect." In January of 1921, all pretence was dropped and "official reprisals" began with the burning of seven houses in Midleton in Cork.
On November 21, 1920, Collins' Squad killed 19 British intelligence agents (known as the "Cairo Gang") at different places around Dublin. In response, Auxilaries drove in trucks into Croke Park (Dublin's GAA football ground) during a football match, shooting into the crowd at random. 14 unarmed people were killed and 65 wounded. Later that day two republican prisoners, and an unassociated friend who had been arrested with them, were "shot while trying to escape" in Dublin Castle. This day became known as Bloody Sunday. Today a stand in Croke Park is named the Hogan Stand, after a Tipperary player who was killed in the attack.
during the War of Independence.
Outside of Dublin, County Cork was easily the scene of the most bitter fighting. Many of the tactics which soon became the standard for the Crown forces throughout Ireland began in Cork, such as the destruction of property in retaliation for IRA attacks, and the murder of prominent republicans. In March 1920, Thomas Mac Curtain, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, was shot dead, in front of his wife at his home, by men with blackened faces who were later seen returning to the local police barracks. His successor, Terence MacSwiney, died on hunger strike in Brixton prison in London. The jury at the inquest into his death returned a verdict of wilful murder against David Lloyd George (the British Prime Minister) and District Inspector Swanzy, among others. Swanzy was later tracked down and killed in Lisburn, in County Antrim. The centre of Cork was burnt out by Crown forces, who then prevented firefighters from tackling the blaze, on December 11, 1920 in reprisal for an IRA ambush in the city.
Cork also saw the first "flying columns": mobile units of around 100 men, who could strike in ambushes and melt into the countryside they knew far better than the British soldiers who were deployed to fight them. Some regiments of the British army had a reputation for killing unarmed prisoners. The Essex Regiment was one of these. on November 28 1920, only a week after Bloody Sunday in Dublin, the west Cork unit of the IRA, under Tom Barry, ambushed a patrol of Auxiliaries at Kilmicheal in County Cork, killing all 18 of them. This action marked a significant escalation of the conflict, with all of the province of Munster being put under martial law. Tom Barry and the West Cork flying columns were to engage the Black and Tans and the Auxilaries once again at Crossbarry. This engagement would cost the IRA three volunteers and the Crown forces over sixteen dead and many more wounded.
It was burned by the IRA in 1921, but subsequently rebuilt by the Irish Free State.
In August of 1920, the British suspended all coroners' courts, due to the large number of warrants served on members of the Crown forces. They were replaced with "military courts of enquiry".
The following eight months until the Truce of July 1921 saw a spiralling of the death toll in the conflict, with 1,000 people including the RIC Police, British Military, IRA volunteers and civiliansTemplate:Fn, being killed in the months between January and July 1921 alone. This represents about 70% of the total casualties for the entire three year conflict. In addition, 4,500 IRA personnel (or suspected sympathisers) were interned in this time (M.E. Collins, Ireland 1866-1966 p 265).
On the 1st of February, the first execution under martial law of an IRA man took place. Cornelius Murphy of Millstreet, Cork, was shot in Cork city. On the 28th, six more were executed, again in Cork. Twelve British soldiers were shot in the streets of Cork the following day in reprisal. In all, 14 IRA Volunteers were officially executed in the course of the war.
In May 1921, IRA units occupied and burned the Custom House in Dublin city centre. Symbolically, this was intended to show that British rule in Ireland was untenable. However, from a military point of view, it was a fiasco, which saw 5 IRA men killed and over eighty captured. This showed the IRA was not well enough equipped or trained to take on British forces in a conventional manner. By July 1921, most IRA units were chronically short of both weapons and ammunition. Also, for all their effectiveness at guerrilla warfare, they had, as Richard Mulcahy recalled, "been unable to drive the British out of anything bigger than a fairly good sized police barracks".
Still, many military historians have concluded that the IRA fought a largely successful and lethal guerrilla war against Britain, which forced them to conclude that the IRA could not be defeated militarily. By the time of the Truce however, many Republican leaders, including Michael Collins, were convinced that if the war went on for much longer, there was a chance that the IRA campaign as it was then organised could be brought to a standstill. Because of this, plans were drawn up to "bring the war to England". It was decided that key economic targets, such as the Liverpool docks, would be bombed. Nineteen warehouses there had been burned to the ground by the IRA the previous November. The units charged with these missions would more easily evade capture because England was not under, and British public opinion was unlikely to accept, martial law. These plans were abandoned because of the Truce.
The total numbers killed in the guerrilla war between Repubicans and Crown Forces of 1919-21 came to over 1,400. Of these, 363 were Police personell, 261 were from the regular British Army, 550 IRA volunteers were killed (including 14 official executions) and about 200 civilians (Hopkinson, Irish War of Independence p 201-202). Some other sources give higher figures. In addition, about 600 more civilians, including 453 in Belfast alone, were killed in sectarian violence in northern Ireland between Catholics and Protestants, the majority of the victims (58%) being Catholics. IRA actions in the north were followed by reprisals of the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force against Catholics. This violence continued well after the Truce, as many UVF men became auxiliary police in Northern Ireland (see B-Specials).
The Propaganda War
The Irish tricolour which dated back to the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848.
The standard of the Lord Lieutenant, using the union flag created under the Act of Union 1800.
Another feature of the war was the use of propaganda by both sides. The British tried to portray the IRA as anti-Protestant in order to encourage loyalism in Irish Protestants and win sympathy for their harsh tactics in Britain. For example, in their communiqués they would always mention the religion of spies or collaborators the IRA had killed if the victim was Protestant, but not if they were Catholic (which was more often), trying to give the impression, in Ireland and abroad, that the IRA were slaughtering Protestants. They encouraged newspaper editors, often forcefully, to do the same. In the summer of 1921, a series of articles appeared in a London magazine, entitled "Ireland under the New Terror, Living Under Martial Law". While purporting to be an impartial account of the situation in Ireland, it portrayed the IRA in a very unfavourable light when compared with the Crown forces. In reality the author, Ernest Dowdall, was an Auxiliary and the series was one of many articles planted by the Dublin Castle Propaganda Department (established in August 1920) to influence public opinion in a Britain increasingly dismayed at the behaviour of its security forces in Ireland.
In February 1921, two Loyalists were shot dead by the IRA in Enniskeane in Cork, after being suspected of the killings of the Coffey brothers, local IRA men. Both of the Loyalists had been members of the local Anti-Sinn Féin Society, at least a dozen more leading UVF members were killed within the next few weeks.
The Catholic hierarchy was critical of the violence of both sides, but especially that of the IRA, continuing a long tradition of condemning militant republicanism. The Bishop of Kilmore, Dr. Finnegan, said: "Any war...to be just and lawful must be backed by a well grounded hope of success. What hope of success have you against the mighty forces of the British Empire? None...none whatever and if it unlawful as it is, every life taken in pursuance of it is murder." The Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Gilmartin, issued a letter saying that IRA men who took part in ambushes "have broken the truce of God, they have incurred the guilt of murder." However in May 1921, Pope Benedict XV dismayed the British government when he issued a letter that encouraged the "English as well as Irish to calmly consider...some means of agreement", as they had been pushing for a condemnation of the rebellion. They declared that his comments "put HMG (His Majesty's Government) and the Irish murder gang on a footing of equality".
Desmond FitzGerald and Erskine Childers were active in producing the "Irish Bulletin", which detailed government atrocities Irish and British newspapers were unwilling or unable to cover. It was printed secretly and distributed throughout Ireland, as well as to international press agencies and American, European and sympathetic British politicians.
The Truce — an uneasy peace
The war ended in a Truce on July 11 1921, in some respects, the conflict was at a stalemate. Talks that had looked promising the previous year had petered out in December when Lloyd George insisted that the IRA first surrender their arms. Fresh talks, after the Prime Minister had come under pressure from Herbert Henry Asquith and the Liberal opposition, the Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress, resumed in the spring and resulted in the Truce. From the point of view of the British government, it appeared as if the IRA's guerrilla campaign would continue indefinitely, with spiralling costs in British casualties and in money. More importantly, the British government was facing severe criticism at home and abroad for the actions of Crown forces in Ireland. On the other side, IRA leaders and in particular Michael Collins, felt that the IRA as it was then organised could not continue indefinitely. It had been hard pressed by the deployment of more regular British soldiers into Ireland and by the lack of arms and ammunition.
The initial breakthrough that led to the truce was credited to three people: King George V, General Jan Smuts of South Africa and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. The King, who had made his unhappiness at the behaviour of the Black and Tans in Ireland well known to His government, was unhappy at the official speech prepared for him for the open the new Parliament of Northern Ireland created through the partition of Ireland. Smuts, a close friend of the King, suggested to him that the opportunity should be used to make an appeal for conciliation in Ireland. The King asked him to draft his ideas on paper. Smuts prepared this draft and gave copies to the King and to Lloyd George. Lloyd George then invited Smuts to attend a British cabinet meeting consultations on the "interesting" proposals Lloyd George had received, without either man informing the Cabinet that Smuts had been their author. Faced with the endorsement of them by Smuts, the King and the Prime Minister, ministers reluctantly agreed to the King's planned 'reconciliation in Ireland' speech.
The letter defined the Irish delegates to the Anglo-Irish negotiations as plenipotentiaries.
The speech, when delivered, had a massive impact. Seizing the momentum Lloyd George then issued an appeal for talks to Éamon de Valera in July 1921. The Irish, unaware of the extent to which the speech did not fully represent the views of all the British government, but was to a significant degree a 'peace move' engineered by the King, Smuts and Lloyd George, reluctantly consented to in cabinet, responded by agreeing to talks. De Valera and Lloyd George ultimately agreed to a truce that was intended to end the fighting and lay the ground for detailed negotiations. These were delayed for some months as the British government insisted that the IRA first decommission its weapons, but this demand was eventually dropped. It was agreed that British troops would remain confined to their barracks. Most IRA officers on the ground interpreted the Truce merely as a temporary respite and continued recruiting and training volunteers. The continuing militancy of many IRA leaders was one of the main factors in the outbreak of the Irish Civil War as they refused to accept the Anglo-Irish Treaty that Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith negotiated with the British.
The Treaty
Ultimately, the peace talks led to the negotiation of the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921), which was then ratified in triplicate: by Dáil Éireann in December 1921 (so giving it legal legitimacy under the governmental system of the Irish Republic), by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland in January 1922, so giving it constitutional legitimacy according to British theory of who was the legal government in Ireland), and by both Houses of the British parliament.
St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, August 1922.
The Treaty allowed Northern Ireland, which had been created by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, to opt out of the Free State if it wished, which it duly did under the procedures laid down. As agreed, an Irish Boundary Commission was then created to decide on the precise location of the border of the Free State and Northern Ireland. The Irish negotiators understood that the Commission would redraw the border according to local nationalist or unionist majorities. Since the 1920 local elections in Ireland had resulted in outright nationalist majorities in County Fermanagh, County Tyrone, the City of Derry and in many District Electoral Divisions of County Armagh and County Londonderry (all north and west of the "interim" border), this might well have left Northern Ireland unviable. However, the Commission chose to leave the border unchanged,
A new system of government was created for the new Irish Free State, though for the first year two governments co-existed; an Aireacht answerable to the Dáil and headed by President Griffith, and a Provisional Government nominally answerable to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and appointed by the Lord Lieutenant. (The complexity of this was even shown in the matter by which Lord FitzAlan appointed Collins as head of the Provisional Government. In British theory, they met to allow Collins to "Kiss Hands". In Irish theory, they met to allow Collins take the surrender of Dublin Castle.)
The first head of government in the Free State.
Most of the Irish independence movement's leaders were willing to accept this compromise, at least for the time being, though many militant Republicans were not. A minority of those involved in the War of Independence, led by resigned president Eamon de Valera, refused to accept the Treaty and started an insurrection against the new Free State government, which it accused of betraying the ideal of the Irish Republic. The subsequent Irish Civil War lasted until mid-1923 and cost of the lives of many of the leaders of the independence movement, notably President Arthur Griffith, the head of the Provisional Government Michael Collins, ex minister Cathal Brugha, as well as anti-Treaty republicans Harry Boland, Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows, Liam Lynch and many others. Following the deaths of Griffith and Collins, W.T. Cosgrave became head of government. On 6 December 1922, following the coming into legal existence of the Irish Free State, W.T. Cosgrave became President of the Executive Council, the first internationally recognised head of an independent Irish government.
The war ended in mid-1923 in defeat for the anti-treaty side.
Later in his life, as President of Ireland, when asked what had been his biggest political mistake, Éamon de Valera said "not accepting the Treaty".
A memorial called the Garden of Remembrance was erected in Dublin in 1966, the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising. The date of signing of the truce is commemorated by the National Day of Commemoration, when all those Irish men and women who fought in wars in whatever armies are commemorated.
Additional reading
- Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins
- F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine
- Dorothy MacCardle, The Irish Republic (Corgi paperback)
- Lord Longford, Peace by Ordeal
- Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence (Gill & Macmillan, 2002)
- Peter Hart, The IRA at War 1916-1923 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003 ISBN 0-19-925258-0) and The IRA and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923 (OUP 1998, ISBN 0-19-820806-5)
- Meda Ryan, Tom Barry: IRA Freedom Fighter (Cork: Mercier Press, 2003). ISBN 1-85635425-3
Footnote
Template:Fnb Hart (above) has described this as ethnic cleansing of Protestants from Munster. Ryan (also above) quotes Lionel Curtis, political advisor to Lloyd George, writing in early 1921 "Protestants in the south do not complain of persecution on sectarian grounds. If Protestant farmers are murdered, it is not by reason of their religion, but rather because they are under suspicion as Loyalist. The distinction is fine, but a real one." Nevertheless, between 1911 and 1926, the territory of the Free State lost 34 percent of its (small) Protestant population to migration.