Irish Civil War was fought between supporters and opponents of the Anglo-Irish treaty of December 1921. The war lasted from June 1922 until May 1923. Protreaty government forces won the war, supported by a majority of the Irish people. Their victory ensured the survival of parliamentary democracy and removed the threat of a military dictatorship favored by some of the antitreaty forces. The Civil War left bitter memories, which have influenced Irish party politics ever since.
Causes of the war
In July 1921, a truce was arranged that ended more than two years of bitter warfare between British government forces and the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The British government had been ruling Ireland, and the IRA was a volunteer guerrilla force dedicated to establishing an Irish republic. After the truce was declared, the British and Irish tried to devise a form of Irish self-government agreeable to both sides.
There were three main Irish leaders at this time. Eamon de Valera was president of Sinn Féin, the parliamentary representatives of the Republican movement. Sinn Féin had won a big majority in the general election of 1918. Arthur Griffith was vice president of Sinn Féin. Michael Collins was the IRA’s most important military leader.
All three men accepted the need for compromise with the British, but they differed on the degree of compromise that they considered acceptable. A delegation headed by Griffith and Collins signed the treaty on Dec. 6, 1921, in London. De Valera chose to remain in Ireland and did not sign the treaty.
The terms of the treaty
The treaty’s main terms called for British forces to withdraw from southern Ireland. The 26 southern counties were constituted as the Irish Free State and given the status of a dominion of Britain, with some powers of self-government. The parliament of the 6 counties of Northern Ireland was entitled to withdraw from the Irish Free State and remain part of the United Kingdom, which it immediately did.
A Boundary Commission was established to determine the proper border between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland. Most Sinn Féin representatives believed that the commission would transfer so much territory to the south that the rest of Northern Ireland would not be able to survive and would have to join with the Irish Free State. Also under the treaty, Britain retained naval bases in southern Ireland, along with the right to demand further facilities in time of war.
The main cause of the Civil War was neither Ireland’s partition (separation) nor Britain’s naval bases. Instead, it was the oath of fidelity that all members of the new Free State parliament had to take to the king of England, who was head of the Commonwealth. The oath and the presence of a governor general as the king’s representative in Ireland were evidence that the Free State was not the republic for which the IRA had fought.
A majority of the active IRA opposed the treaty. But Dail Eireann (the Sinn Féin parliament) accepted the treaty by a vote of 64 to 57 in January 1922. A provisional government was then established with Michael Collins as chairman. Collins enjoyed the support of Griffith, but de Valera assumed the political leadership of the antitreaty minority.
Collins felt that the IRA lacked the resources to continue its fight and that the treaty could be used as a stepping stone to complete freedom. But Collins was reluctant to take arms against his old comrades. De Valera also hoped for a political solution rather than a military one. But he was quickly pushed aside by the antitreaty IRA, under Rory O’Connor, who despised civilian rule. This group seized the Four Courts building in Dublin in April.
The outbreak of war
In the general election of June 1922, antitreaty candidates won only 30 percent of the seats. The Civil War began shortly after this election. The precise origins of the outbreak of hostilities are still uncertain. Collins came under British pressure to clear the Four Courts after the assassination of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson by the IRA in London on June 22. Wilson was closely associated with Ulster Unionists (those who wished to keep strong ties with the government of the United Kingdom) who were then engaged in bitter conflict with nationalists (those who desired reunion with southern Ireland) in Northern Ireland. Ironically, it may have been Collins himself who ordered the assassination. After the kidnapping of one of his senior officers on June 27, Collins immediately ordered an attack on the Four Courts.
Collins captured the Four Courts when Rory O’ Connor surrendered after three days of fighting. The antitreaty forces, called the Irregulars, were driven from Dublin in another week. During the next month, the main provincial cities of Limerick, Waterford, and Cork were also captured by government troops. By mid-August, the Irregular forces had retreated into the small towns and the countryside, where they resorted to guerrilla warfare. It was only a matter of time until they were crushed by the much bigger and better-equipped government army of more than 50,000 men.
On Aug. 12, 1922, Griffith died suddenly. Collins was killed in an ambush on August 22.
Collins had continued to hope for conciliation until his death. His successor as chairman of the provisional government, William Cosgrave, had little sympathy for his opponents. Cosgrave’s government resorted to a policy of executing prisoners after their trial by military court. The most prominent victim of this policy was Robert Erskine Childers, publicity director for the antitreaty forces. Childers was shot in November 1922. Four senior antitreaty prisoners, including Rory O’Connor, were summarily executed on December 8 in reprisal for the assassination the previous day of a protreaty member of Parliament. Historians disagree on the effects of the policy that led to the execution of 77 prisoners during the war. Some historians believe that the executions reinforced the Irregulars’ will to resist. Others think that only the fear of reprisal executions prevented more widespread assassination of civilians.
The Irregulars were gradually ground down by government forces in an extended series of small-scale but bitter operations. There were atrocities on both sides. De Valera recognized the futility of the continuing struggle. But he exerted no influence over the antitreaty military leaders, many of whom despised him as a mere politician. Only when Liam Lynch, the main antitreaty commander, was killed in April 1923 did de Valera recover some of his influence over the military element. On April 27, 1923, the Irregulars announced the suspension of the conflict. There was no formal surrender by the Irregulars, only a dumping of arms to await more favorable circumstances.
Results of the war
The war’s immediate result was the imprisonment of more than 10,000 Irregulars, including de Valera. Cosgrave proceeded with the historic task of state building. But his government suffered a setback in 1925 when the Boundary Commission, contrary to nationalist expectations, recommended virtually no change in the border between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland.
In 1926, de Valera resigned from Sinn Féin and founded a new party called Fianna Fáil (Soldiers of Destiny). He finally entered the Dail in 1927 and took the oath that he had earlier denounced. De Valera won the 1932 general election. Over the next six years, he abolished the oath, eliminated the office of governor general from the constitution, introduced his own new republican constitution in 1937, and, after negotiations with Neville Chamberlain in 1938, recovered the ports held as naval bases by the British.
The government’s victory in the war prevented the possible emergence of a military dictatorship. It allowed the state to be founded on a democratic tradition. However, in the long run, the real winner was de Valera. His most dangerous enemies and his most dangerous friends either died or were killed during the war. This enabled him to build later on Cosgrave’s achievement. But the bitterness caused by the Civil War lasted for decades. The main division in Irish politics, between de Valera’s Fianna Fáil Party and Cosgrave’s Fine Gael Party, was rooted in the war and still exists today.
