The Irish Republican Army (IRA) (Irish: Óglaigh na
hÉireann), sometimes known later as the Old IRA, was a military organisation descended from the
Irish Volunteers which was recognised in 1919 by Dáil Éireann as the legitimate army
(from the perspective of Irish republicans) of the unilaterally declared Irish Republic,
the Irish state proclaimed in the Easter Rising in 1916 and reaffirmed by the Dáil in
January 1919. In Irish, it was referred to as Óglaigh na hÉireann.
Though a series of organisations later claimed to be a continuation of the IRA from the 1920s to today, many Irish people
disagree with these claims. After the signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921,
members of the IRA who supported the Treaty formed the nucleus of the National Army
founded by IRA leader Michael Collins in 1922. While the anti-Treaty IRA
continued to exist after its defeat in the Irish Civil War, by the late 1930s it had
lost most of the legitimacy with which most supporters of the Republican side initially regarded it. A small minority of Irish
people accepts later claimants to the name as the political heirs of the original Irish Republican Army, though none had their
claims accepted by Dáil Éireann.
To distinguish between the army of the Irish Republic, and later claimants to the name, the original army recognised by the
Dáil is sometimes called the Old IRA.
Origins
Physical force Irish republicanism as an ideology had a long
history, from the United Irishmen of the 1798 and 1803 rebellions, to the Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848 and the Irish Republican Brotherhood rebellion of 1867. In
addition, the methods of the IRA were to some extent inspired by the traditions of militant agrarian Irish secret societies like
the Defenders, the Ribbonmen and the supporters
of the Irish Land League.
The acronym IRA was first used by the IRB organization in America (also known as the Fenian Brotherhood). This "Irish Republican Army" of the 1860s comprised the American Fenians'
paramilitary forces, organized into a number of regiments. Fenian soldiers wearing IRA insignia fought at the Battle of Ridgeway on 2 June 1866.
However the term Irish Republican Army in its modern sense was first used in the second decade of the 20th century for the rebel forces of the Irish Volunteers and the
Irish Citizens Army during the Easter Rising.
It was subsequently, and most commonly, used for those Volunteers who fought a guerrilla campaign in 1919–1921 in support of the
Irish Republic declared in 1919.
Background—Home Rule and the Volunteers
The political violence that broke out in Ireland between 1916 and 1923 had its origins in Irish nationalist demands for Home Rule within the UK and British
Empire and unionist resistance to these demands. By 1914, this issue was at an
impasse, with the British government prepared to concede Home Rule or self government to
Ireland. This led to the formation of unionist and nationalist armed militias, respectively, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Irish Volunteers.
The Government of Ireland Act 1914, more generally known as the Third
Home Rule Act, was an Act of Parliament passed by the British Parliament in May 1914 which sought to give Ireland regional self-government within the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Although it received Royal Assent in September
1914, its implementation was postponed until after the First World War, amid fears that
opposition to home rule by Irish Unionists and illegal gun-running by the Ulster Volunteer Force and the
Irish Volunteers would lead to civil war.
The standoff was temporarily averted by the outbreak of the First World War in August
1914. The Irish Volunteers split. The National Volunteers, with over 100,000 members
led by Irish Parliamentary Party leader John
Redmond were prepared to accept British promises to deliver Home Rule and about 20,000 of them served in the war in the
British Army. However about 12,000 Volunteers, led by Eoin
MacNeill and dominated by the secret Irish Republican Brotherhood,
refused to join the British war effort and kept the name Irish Volunteers. Whereas MacNeill intended to use force only to resist
the imposition of conscription on Ireland, the IRB men intended to launch an armed
rebellion in pursuit of Irish independence.
A smaller organisation, the Irish Citizen Army—originally a worker's defence
association under socialist James
Connolly—independently planned their own rebellion. To avoid confusion, the IRB co-opted Connolly onto their supreme
council in 1915. McNeill, however was never told of the planned insurrection.
Easter Rising
-
Pádraig Pearse
head of the 'Provisional Government' proclaimed in the Easter Rising
Weapons were supplied by Germany under the auspices of a leading human rights campaigner, Sir
Roger Casement—including over 20,000 rifles and 10 machine guns. However, the plot was
discovered on 21 April 1916 and the weapons were lost when the
ship carrying them, the Aud, was scuttled to prevent the arms from falling into the hands of
the British.
The Rising broke out on 24 April 1916. However,
Eoin MacNeill, the Volunteer leader found out about the plot at the last minute and issued
countermanding orders to Volunteer units around the country. As a result, less than 2,000 Volunteers out of 12,000 turned out.
The IRB plan was to seize a compact area of central Dublin and launch simultaneous Risings around the country. In the event, the
rising consisted of a week's street fighting in the Irish capital after which the rebels surrendered. The British used
overwhelming force, including over 16,000 troops, artillery, and a naval gunboat, to put down the rebellion. Over half the 500 or
so killed were civilians caught in the crossfire.
The leaders seized the General Post Office (GPO), raising a green flag
bearing the legend "Irish Republic", and proclaiming independence for Ireland. While the Rising later became a celebrated episode
for Irish nationalists, it was very unpopular at the time. The rebel Volunteers were a minority faction among Irish nationalists
and up to 200,000 Irishmen were serving on the British side in the First World War.
Moreover, the public largely blamed the rebels for the death and destruction caused in the fighting. There were calls for the
execution of the "ringleaders" in the major Irish nationalist daily newspaper, the Irish
Independent, and local authorities also sought the ringleaders. After the Rising, Dubliners spat, threw stones at
them, and emptied chamber pots down on the rebels as they were marched towards the transport
ships that would take them to the Welsh internment camps.
However, public opinion dramatically shifted to the rebels' side in the next two years. Initially, this was caused by the
revulsion over the summary executions of 16 senior leaders—some of whom, such as James
Connolly, were too ill to stand—and of other people thought complicit in the rebellion. As one observer described, "the
drawn-out process of executing the leaders of the rising, it was like watching blood seep from behind a closed door." Opinion
shifted even more in favour of the Republicans in 1917–18 with the Conscription
Crisis, an attempt by Britain to impose conscription on Ireland to bolster its flagging war effort. By 1917, this was
extremely unpopular in Ireland due to heavy casualties on the Western Front.
A small nationalist Irish party, Sinn Féin, was
widely, but wrongly, credited with orchestrating the Easter Rising although its leader Arthur
Griffith in fact advocated Irish self government under a dual
monarchy. The Republican survivors of the Rising, under Éamon de Valera,
infiltrated and took over Sinn Féin in 1917 and committed the party to founding an Irish
Republic.
Cathal Brugha, TD
Príomh Aire (January–April 1919)
Long-term Minister for Defence and rival to Michael Collins.
From 1916 to 1918, the two dominant nationalist movements, Sinn Féin and the Irish
Parliamentary Party, fought a tough series of battles in by-elections. Neither won a decisive victory; however, the
Conscription Crisis tipped the balance in favor of Sinn Féin. The party went on to win a clear majority of seats in the
1918 general election: of the 73 seats in which Sinn Féin were elected, 25
were uncontested. The Sinn Féin MPs withdrew from the British
Parliament and declared an Irish Republic, with themselves as the legitimate
government. They met in their own parliament, which they called the Dáil.
In this new position of strength, the Irish Volunteers, who had been swollen to over 100,000 men in the conscription crisis,
were re-organised as the army of this Republic. Hence they began to refer to themselves as the Irish Republican Army.
The emergence of the IRA after the Easter Rising
The first steps towards reorganizing the defeated Irish Volunteers were taken on 27
October 1917 when a convention took place in Dublin. This convention, that subsequently
became known as an IRA convention, was called to coincide with the Sinn Féin party conference.
Nearly 250 people attended the convention; internment prevented many more from attending.
In fact, the Royal Irish Constabulary estimated that 162 companies of
volunteers were active in the country, although other sources suggest a higher figure of 390.
The proceedings were presided over by Éamon de Valera, who had been elected President of Sinn Féin the previous day. Also on
the platform were Cathal Brugha and many others who were prominent in the reorganising of
the Volunteers in the previous few months, many of them ex-prisoners.
De Valera was elected president. A national executive was also elected, composed of provincial representatives (including
Dublin). In addition, a number of directors were elected to head the various IRA departments. Those elected were:
Michael Collins (Director for Organisation); Diarmuid Lynch (Director for Communications); Michael Staines
(Director for Supply); Rory O'Connor (Director of Engineering). Seán McGarry was voted General Secretary, while Cathal Brugha was made Chairman of the Resident Executive,
which in effect made him Chief of Staff.
The other elected members were: M. W. O'Reilly (Dublin); Austin
Stack (Kerry); Con Collins (Limerick); Seán MacEntee (Belfast); Joe O'Doherty (Donegal);
Paul Galligan (Cavan); Eoin
O'Duffy (Monaghan); Seamus Doyle (Wexford); Peadar Bracken (Offaly);
Larry Lardner (Galway); Dick
Walsh (Mayo) and another member from Connacht. There were six co-options to make-up the full number when the directors were named from within their
ranks. The six were all Dublin men: Eamonn Duggan; Gearóid O'Sullivan; Fintan Murphy; Diarmuid O'Hegarty; Dick McKee and Paddy Ryan.
Of the 26 elected, six were also members of the Sinn Féin National Executive, with Éamon de Valera president of both. Eleven
of the 26 were elected Teachta Dála in the 1918 general election and 13 in the May 1921 election.
Dáil Éireann and the IRA
-
Sinn Féin MPs elected in 1918 fulfilled their election promise not to take their seats in Westminster but instead set up an
independent "Assembly of Ireland", or Dáil Éireann, in the Irish language. On January 21, 1919, this new, unofficial parliament assembled in the Mansion
House in Dublin. As its first acts, the Dáil elected a prime minister (Priomh
Aire), Cathal Brugha, and inaugurated a ministry called the Aireacht. In theory, the IRA was responsible to the Dáil and was the army of the Irish Republic. In practice,
the Dáil had great difficulty controlling the actions of the Volunteers.
The new leadership of the Irish Republic worried that the IRA would not accept its authority, given that the Volunteers, under
their own constitution, was bound to obey their own executive and no other body.[1] The fear was increased when, on the very day the new national parliament was
meeting, 21 January 1919, the South Tipperary IRA
volunteer unit, acting on their own initiative, seized a quantity of gelignite, and two Royal
Irish Constabulary constables (James McDonnell and Patrick O'Connell) were killed in the process by Seán Tracy and Dan Breen.
Technically, the men involved were considered to be in a serious breach of IRA discipline and were liable to be
court-martialed, but it was considered more politically expedient to hold them up as examples of a rejuvenated militarism. The
conflict soon escalated into guerrilla warfare by what were then known as the
Flying Columns in remote areas. Attacks on remote Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)
barracks continued throughout 1919 and 1920, forcing the police to consolidate defensively in the larger towns, effectively
placing large areas of the countryside in the hands of the Republicans.
Moves to make the IRA the army of the Dáil and not its rival had begun before the January attack, and were stepped up. On
31 January the IRA organ, An t-Óglách published a list of
principles agreed between two representatives of the Áireacht, acting Príomh Aire Cathal Brugha and Richard Mulcahy and the Executive. It made first mention of the organisation treating "the armed forces
of the enemy—whether soldiers or policemen—exactly as a national army would treat the members of an invading
army".[2]
An article in An tÓglách stated that
"The Irish Government claims the same power and authority as any other lawfully constituted Government; it sanctions the
employment by the Irish Volunteers of the most drastic measures against the enemies of Ireland . . . England must be given the
choice of evacuating the country or holding it by foreign garrison, with a perpetual state of war in existence."[citation needed]
In the statement the new relationship between the Aireacht and the IRA was defined clearly.
- The Government was defined as possessing the same power and authority as a normal government.
- It, and not the IRA, sanctions the IRA campaign;
- It explicitly spoke of a state of war.
As part of the ongoing strategy to take control of the IRA, Brugha proposed to Dáil Éireann on 20 August 1919 that the Volunteers were to be asked, at this next convention, to swear allegiance to the Dáil. He
further proposed that members of the Dáil themselves should swear the same oath. On 25 August
Collins wrote to the Príomh Aire, Éamon de Valera, to inform him "the Volunteer affair is now fixed".[3]
Though this was "fixed" at one level, another year passed before the Volunteers took an oath of allegiance to the Irish
Republic and its government, "throughout August 1920".[4]
A power struggle continued between Brugha and Collins, both cabinet ministers, over who had the greater influence. Brugha was
nominally the superior as Minister for Defence, but Collins's powerbase came from his position as Director of Organisation of the
IRA and as his key powerbase as a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB. De Valera too resented Collins's clear power and
influence, which he saw as coming from the secretive IRB than from his position as a Teachta
Dála (TD) and minister in the Aireacht. Brugha and de Valera both urged the IRA to undertake larger, more conventional
military actions for the propaganda effect, but were ignored by Collins and Mulcahy. Brugha at one stage proposed the
assassination of the entire British cabinet. This was also discounted due to its presumed negative effect on British public
opinion. Moreover, many members of the Dáil, notably Arthur Griffith did not approve of
IRA violence and would have preferred a campaign of passive resistance to British rule. The Dáil belatedly accepted
responsibility for IRA actions in April 1921, just three months before the end of the Irish War of Independence.
In practice, the IRA was commanded by Collins, with Richard Mulcahy as second in
command. These men were able to issue orders and directives to IRA guerrilla units around the country and at times to send arms
and organisers to specific areas. However, because of the localised and irregular character of the war, they were only able to
exert limited control over local IRA commanders such as Tom Barry, Liam Lynch in Cork and Seán Mac Eoin in
Longford.
The War of Independence
-
IRA campaign and organisation
See also: Chronology of the Irish War of
Independence
The IRA fought a guerrilla war against the Crown forces in Ireland from 1919 to July 1921. The most intense period of the war
was from November 1920 to July 1921. The IRA campaign can broadly be split into three phases. The first, in 1919, involved the
re-organisation of the Irish Volunteers as a guerrilla army. Organisers such as
Ernie O'Malley were sent around the country to set up viable guerrilla units. On paper,
there were 100,000 or so Volunteers enrolled after the conscription crisis of 1918. However, only about 15,000 of these
participated in the guerrilla war. In 1919, Collins, the IRA's Director of Intelligence, organised the "Squad"—an assassination
unit based in Dublin which killed police involved in intelligence work; the Irish playwright Brendan Behan's father Stephen Behan was a member of this squad. Typical of Collin's sardonic sense of
humour, the squad was often referred to as his "Twelve Apostles". In addition,
there were some arms raids on Royal Irish Constabulary barracks for arms. By the end of 1919, four Dublin Metropolitan Police and 11 RIC men had been killed. The RIC abandoned most of their
smaller rural barracks in late 1919. Around 400 of these were burned in a co-ordinated IRA operation around the country in April
1920.
The second phase of the IRA campaign, roughly from January to July 1920, involved attacks on the fortified police barracks
located in the towns. Between January and June 1920, 16 of these were destroyed and 29 badly damaged. Several events of late 1920
greatly escalated the conflict. Firstly, the British declared martial law in parts of the
country—allowing for internment and executions of IRA men. Secondly they deployed
paramilitary forces the Black and Tans and Auxiliary
Division and more British Army personnel into the country. Thus, the third phase of
the war (roughly August 1920–July 1921) involved the IRA taking on a greatly expanded British force, moving away from attacking
well defended barracks and instead using ambush tactics. To this end the IRA was re-organised
into "flying columns"—permanent guerrilla units, usually about 20 strong, though sometimes larger. In rural areas, the flying
columns usually had bases in remote mountainous areas.
While most areas of the country saw some violence in 1919–1921, the brunt of the war was fought in Dublin and the southern
province of Munster. In Munster, the IRA carried out a significant number of successful actions
against British troops, for instance the ambushing and killing of 17 of 18 Auxiliaries by Tom
Barry's column at Kilmicheal in West Cork in November 1920, or Liam Lynch's men killing 13 British soldiers near Millstreet early in the next year. At the Crossbarry Ambush in
March 1921, 100 or so of Barry's men fought a sizeable engagement with a British column of 1,200, escaping from the British
encircling manoeuvre. In Dublin, the "Squad" and elements of the IRA Dublin Brigade were amalgamated into the "Active Service
Unit", under Oscar Traynor, which tried to carry out at least three attacks on British
troops a day. Usually, these consisted of shooting or grenade attacks on British patrols. Outside Dublin and Munster, there were
only isolated areas of intense activity. For instance, the County Longford IRA under
Seán Mac Eoin carried out a number of well planned ambushes and successfully defended the
village of Ballinalee against Black and Tan reprisals in a three-hour gun battle. In
Mayo, large scale guerrilla action did not break out until spring 1921, when two
British forces were ambushed at Carrowkennedy and Tourmakeady. Elsewhere, fighting was more sporadic and less intense.
In Belfast, the war had a character all of its own. The area had a Protestant and Unionist
majority and IRA actions were responded to with ferocious reprisals against the Catholic population, including killings and the
burning of many homes. The IRA in Belfast and the north generally, was therefore mostly involved in protecting the Catholic
community from loyalists and state forces. The violence in Belfast alone, which continued long
after the truce in the rest of the country, killed around 450 people, mostly civilians.
In April 1921, the IRA was again reorganised, in line with the Dáil's
endorsement of its actions, along the lines of a regular army. Divisions were
created based on region, with commanders being given responsibility, in theory, for large geographical areas. In practice, this
had little effect on the localised nature of the guerrilla warfare.
In May 1921, the IRA in Dublin attacked and burned the The Custom House. The action
was a severe blow to the IRA, who had five killed and eighty captured.
By the end of the war, in July 1921, the IRA was very hard pressed by the deployment of more British troops into the most
active areas and a chronic shortage of arms and ammunition. It has been estimated that the IRA had only about 3,000 rifles
(mostly captured from the British) during the war, with a larger number of shotguns and pistols.
An ambitious plan to buy arms from Italy in 1921 collapsed when the money did not reach the arms
dealers. Towards the end of the war, some Thompson submachine guns were imported
from the United States; however 450 of these were intercepted by the American authorities
and the remainder only reached Ireland shortly before the Truce.
By June 1921, Collins' assessment was that the IRA was within weeks, possibly even days, of collapse. It had few weapons or
ammunition left. Moreover, almost 5,000 IRA men had been imprisoned or interned and over 500 killed. Collins and Mulcahy
estimated that the number of effective guerrilla fighters was down to 2,000–3,000. However in the summer of 1921, the war was
abruptly ended.
Atrocities on both sides
The Irish War of Independence was a brutal and bloody affair, with violence
and acts of extreme brutality on both sides. The British sent hundreds of World War I veterans to assist the RIC. The veterans at
first wore a combination of black police uniforms and tan army uniforms (because of shortages), which, according to one
etymology, inspired the nickname Black and Tans. The brutality of the "Black and Tans"
is now legendary, although the most excessive repression attributed to the Crown's forces was often that of the Auxiliary
Division of the Constabulary. One of the strongest critics of the Black and Tans was King George V. When the Lord Mayor of Cork
Terence MacSwiney lay dying on hunger strike
the King personally intervened to try to get MacSwiney's release from jail.
Other critics of British policy included Sir Samuel Hoare, a future British cabinet
minister, who said that
- If what is now going on in the Austrian Empire, all England would be ringing with denunciation of the tyranny of the
Hapsburgs and of denying people the right to rule themselves.[citation needed]
Typical British reprisals included the burning of houses and businesses, the owners of whom occasionally had no connection to
the IRA. In addition, after August 1920, the British began executing IRA prisoners. The IRA responded by killing British
prisoners. Spies and suspected spies were shot by the IRA and publicly dumped on roadsides. It has also been alleged that many
IRA men took the opportunity to murder people against whom they had local grudges—particularly if they were Protestant loyalists. The worst examples of this occurred after the truce with the British. In the
Dunmanway Massacre of April 1922, the IRA in Cork killed ten Protestant informers. In
June 1922, Frank Aiken's IRA unit in Armagh killed seven Protestant civilians in
Altnaveigh in revenge attacks.
Perhaps the worst — certainly the most high profile — atrocity of the war took place in Dublin in November 1920, and is still
known as Bloody Sunday. In the early hours of the morning, Collins' "Squad"
assassinated 14 British agents, some in front of their wives and families. In reprisal, that afternoon, British forces opened
fire on a football crowd at Croke Park, killing 14 civilians. Towards the end of the day, two
prominent Republicans and a friend of theirs were arrested and killed by Crown Forces.
The IRA was also involved in the destruction of many stately homes in Munster. These belonged
to prominent Loyalists[5] who were aiding the Crown forces,
and were burnt to discourage the British policy of destroying the homes of Republicans, suspected and actual. Many historic
buildings in Ireland were destroyed during the war, most famously the Custom House in
Dublin, which was disastrously attacked on de Valera's insistence, to the horror of the more militarily experienced Collins. As
he feared, the destruction proved a pyrrhic victory for the Republic, with so many IRA men killed or captured that the IRA in
Dublin suffered a severe blow.
This was also a period of social upheaval in Ireland, with frequent strikes as well as other manifestations of class conflict.
In this regard, the IRA acted to a large degree as an agent of social control and stability, driven by the need to preserve
cross-class unity in the national struggle,[6] and on
occasion being used to break strikes.[7]
Assessment
Assessments of the effectiveness of the IRA's campaign vary. The IRA did not in any sense defeat the British military in
Ireland. Nor were they ever in a position to engage them in conventional warfare. Richard
Mulcahy bemoaned the fact that they had not been able to drive the British, "out of anything bigger than a fairly good
size police barracks". On the other hand, the guerrilla warfare of 1919–21 had made Ireland ungovernable except by military
means. The political, military and financial costs of remaining in Ireland were higher than the British government were prepared
to pay and this in a sense forced them into negotiations with the Irish political leaders. According to historian Michael
Hopkinson, the guerrilla warfare, "was often courageous and effective" [8]. Another historian, David Fitzpatrick notes that, "The guerrilla fighters...were vastly outnumbered
by the forces of the Crown...the success of the Irish Volunteers in surviving so long is therefore noteworthy" [9].
Truce and Treaty
-
David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, at the time, found himself under
increasing pressure (both internationally and from within the British Isles) to try to salvage something from the situation. This
was a complete reversal on his earlier position. He had consistently referred to the IRA as a "murder gang" up until then. An
unexpected olive branch came from King George V, who, in a speech in Belfast called for
reconciliation on all sides, changed the mood and enabled the British and Irish Republican governments to agree to a truce. The
Truce was agreed on 11 July 1921. On 8
July, de Valera met General Macready, the British commander in chief in Ireland and agreed terms. The IRA was to retain
its arms and the British Army was to remain in barracks for the duration of peace negotiations. Many IRA officers interpreted the
truce only as a temporary break in fighting. They continued to recruit and train volunteers, with the result that the IRA had
increased its number to over 72,000 men by early 1922.
The signed last page of the Anglo-Irish Treaty
Negotiations on an Anglo-Irish Treaty took place in late 1921 in London. The Irish
delegation was led by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins.
The most contentious areas of the Treaty for the IRA were abolition of the Irish
Republic declared in 1919, the status of the Irish Free State as a dominion in
the British Commonwealth and the British retention of the so called
Treaty Ports on Ireland's south coast. These issues were the cause of a split in
the IRA and ultimately, the Irish Civil War.
Under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, Ireland was partitioned,
creating Northern Ireland and Southern
Ireland. Under the terms of the Anglo-Irish agreement of 6 December 1921, which ended the war (1919–1921), Northern Ireland was given the
option of withdrawing from the new state, the Irish Free State, and remaining part of the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland
parliament chose to do so. An Irish Boundary Commission was then set up to
review the border.
Irish leaders expected that it would so reduce Northern Ireland's size, by transferring nationalist areas to the Irish Free
State, as to make it economically unviable. Partition was not the key breaking point between
pro- and anti-Treaty campaigners; both sides expected the Boundary Commission to emasculate Northern Ireland. Moreover, Michael
Collins was planning a clandestine guerrilla campaign against the Northern state using the IRA. In early 1922, he sent IRA units
to the border areas and sent arms to northern units. For this reason, the future of Northern Ireland was not the cause of the
Irish Civil War. It was only afterwards, when partition was confirmed that a united
Ireland became the preserve of anti-Treaty Republicans.
The IRA and the Treaty
-
The IRA leadership was deeply divided over the decision by the Dáil to
ratify the Treaty. Despite the fact that Michael Collins—the de facto
leader of the IRA—had negotiated the Treaty, many IRA officers were against it. Of the General Headquarters (GHQ) staff, nine
members were in favour of the Treaty while four opposed it. Many of the IRA rank-and-file
were against the Treaty and in January–June 1922, their discontent developed into open defiance of the elected civilian
Provisional government of Ireland. Anti-treaty historian Dorothy Macardle has claimed
that 70 to 80 per cent of the IRA was against the Treaty. Although she cannot be regarded as a particularly neutral source,
Richard Mulcahy estimated at the outbreak of the civil war that the anti-treaty IRA
members outnumbered the pro-treaty ones by over 2–1.
The anti-Treaty side argued that the IRA's allegiance was to the Dáil
of the Irish Republic and the decision of the Dáil to accept the Treaty meant that the
IRA no longer owed that body its allegiance. They called for the IRA to withdraw from the authority of the Dáil and to entrust
the IRA Executive with control over the army. On 16 January, the first IRA division – the 2nd Southern Division led by
Ernie O'Malley – repudiated the authority of the GHQ. A month later, on 18 February,
Liam Forde, O/C of the IRA Mid-Limerick Brigade, issued a proclamation stating that: "We no
longer recognise the authority of the present head of the army, and renew our allegiance to the existing Irish Republic". This
was the first unit of the IRA to break with the pro-Treaty government.
On 22 March, Rory O'Connor held
what was to become an infamous press conference and declared that the IRA would no longer obey the Dáil as it had violated its
Oath to uphold the Irish Republic. He went on to say that "we repudiate the Dáil … We will set up an Executive which will issue
orders to the IRA all over the country." In reply to the question on whether this meant they intended to create a military
dictatorship, O’Connor said: "You can take it that way if you like."
On 28 March, the (anti-Treaty) IRA Executive issued statement stating that Minister of
Defence (Richard Mulcahy) and the Chief-of-Staff (Eoin
O'Duffy) no longer exercised any control over the IRA. In addition, it ordered an end to the recruitment to the new
military and police forces of the Provisional Government. Furthermore, it instructed all IRA units to reaffirm their allegiance
to the Irish Republic on 2 April.
The stage was set for civil war over the Treaty.
Civil War
-
The pro-treaty IRA soon became the nucleus of the new (regular) Irish National Army created by Collins and Richard Mulcahy.
British pressure, and tensions between the pro- and anti-Treaty factions of the IRA, led to a bloody civil war, ending in the defeat of the anti-Treaty faction. Roughly 7,000 to 8,000 of the Free State's
National Army were former IRA Volunteers. On the other side, perhaps 15,000 men fought on the anti-Treaty side. On
May 24 1923 Frank Aiken, the
(anti-treaty) IRA Chief-of-Staff, who had succeeded General Liam Lynch who had been shot dead by the Free-State forces on the
slopes of the Knockmealdown Mountains in April 1923, called a cease-fire. Many left political activity altogether, but a minority
continued to insist that the new Irish Free State, created by the "illegitimate"
Treaty, was an illegitimate state. They asserted that their "IRA Army Executive" was the real government of a still-existing
Irish Republic. The IRA of the Civil War and subsequent organisations that have used the name claim lineage from that group,
which is covered in full at Irish Republican Army (1922-1969).
For information on later organisations using the name Irish Republican Army, see the table below. For a genealogy of
organisations using the name IRA after 1922, see List of IRAs.
|
Irish armed groups using the name Irish Republican Army |
Organisations known by the name in later years: |
|
|
Footnotes
- ^ Dorothy MacCardle, The Irish Republic (Corgi, 1968) p.267.
- ^ Ibid p.269.
- ^ Dwyer, T. Ryle (1999). Big
Fellow, Long Fellow: A Joint Biography of Collins and De Valera. St. Martin's
Press, p. 782. ISBN 978-0312219192.
- ^ C. Younger, Ireland's Civil War (Frederick Muller, 1968) p.
103.
- ^ The Church of Ireland Gazette recorded numerous instances of Unionists and
Loyalists being shot, burnt or forced from their homes during the early 1920s. In County Cork between 1920 and 1923 the IRA shot
over 200 civilians of whom over 70 (or 36%) were Protestants: five times the percentage of Protestants in the civilian
population. This was due to the historical inclination of Protestants towards loyalty to the United Kingdom. A convention of Irish Protestant Churches in Dublin in May
1922 signed a resolution placing "on record" that "hostility to Protestants by reason of their religion has been almost, if not
wholly, unknown in the twenty-six counties in which Protestants are in the minority."
- ^ "The Politics of Illusion: Republicanism and Socialism in Modern Ireland",
Henry Patterson, Hutchinson Radius, 1989: pp. 14–15. ISBN 0-09-174139-4.
- ^ Communism in Modern Ireland: The Pursuit of the Workers' Republic since
1916, Mike Milotte, Dublin, 1984, pp. 56–57.
- ^ Hopkinson, Irish War of Independence, p.204.
- ^ Bartlett, Military History of Ireland, p. 406.
- ^ Dorothy MacCardle, The Irish Republic (Corgi, 1968) p.267.
- ^ Ibid p.269.
- ^ Dwyer, T. Ryle (1999). Big
Fellow, Long Fellow: A Joint Biography of Collins and De Valera. St. Martin's
Press, p. 782. ISBN 978-0312219192.
- ^ C. Younger, Ireland's Civil War (Frederick Muller, 1968) p.
103.
- ^ The Church of Ireland Gazette recorded numerous instances of Unionists and
Loyalists being shot, burnt or forced from their homes during the early 1920s. In County Cork between 1920 and 1923 the IRA shot
over 200 civilians of whom over 70 (or 36%) were Protestants: five times the percentage of Protestants in the civilian
population. This was due to the historical inclination of Protestants towards loyalty to the United Kingdom. A convention of Irish Protestant Churches in Dublin in May
1922 signed a resolution placing "on record" that "hostility to Protestants by reason of their religion has been almost, if not
wholly, unknown in the twenty-six counties in which Protestants are in the minority."
- ^ "The Politics of Illusion: Republicanism and Socialism in Modern Ireland",
Henry Patterson, Hutchinson Radius, 1989: pp. 14–15. ISBN 0-09-174139-4.
- ^ Communism in Modern Ireland: The Pursuit of the Workers' Republic since
1916, Mike Milotte, Dublin, 1984, pp. 56–57.
- ^ Hopkinson, Irish War of Independence, p.204.
- ^ Bartlett, Military History of Ireland, p. 406.
References
- Tim Pat Coogan, Michael Collins (Hutchinson, 1990) ISBN 0-09-174106-8
- Tim Pat Coogan, The Troubles (Arrow, 1995, 1996) ISBN 1570980926
- F.S.L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine
- Dorothy MacCardle, The Irish Republic (Corgi, 1968) ISBN 0-552-07862-X
- Aengus Ó Snodaigh, May 11/11hist.html IRA Convention meets, An Phoblacht/Republican News, 11 May
2000.
- Seamus Fox, Chronology of Irish
History 1919-1923.
- Brian Dooley, Black and Green. The Fight for Civil Rights in Northern Ireland and Black America (London Press,
1988)
- Michael Hopkinson, The Irish War of Independence,
- Ernie O'Malley, On Another Man's Wound
- ME Collins, Ireland 1868-1966
- Meda Ryan, Liam Lynch, The Real Chief
- Tom Barry, Guerrilla Days in Ireland
- T. Ryle Dwyer, The Squad and the intelligence operations of Michael Collins
See also
External links
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