Civil War

The Civil War of 1922 to 1923 was a bitterly ironic conclusion to the struggle for independence and also a savage, destructive prelude to the history of independent Ireland. It resulted from a particular circumstance—a controversial article of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty—and from structural faults within both the Sinn Féin movement and the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

THE ANGLO-IRISH TREATY

A minority of Irish nationalists was passionately committed to achieving the republic that had been proclaimed during the Easter Rising in 1916; most, however, were satisfied with a less complete and less specific form of independence. These divisions were reinforced by civil-military tensions. During the course of the Anglo-Irish War of 1919 to 1921 many IRA units grew accustomed to acting without civilian authorization, and their members often regarded politicians with contempt. Such habits proved enduring. A final contributing factor to the split of 1921 was the growing distrust that had built up between some of the principal figures in the Irish leadership—in particular, between Eamon de Valera, who was president of Sinn Féin and the Dáil (the Irish parliament), and Michael Collins, the most significant military figure in the recent conflict. Collins and Arthur Griffith headed the Irish delegation that went to London, while de Valera remained behind in Dublin.

Before and during the negotiations the British rejected the idea of an Irish republic; their maximum concession was to accept the Irish Free State as a dominion that would have the same powers as Canada or South Africa. The Irish cabinet and the Dáil split over the treaty and in particular over the clause that laid down that members of the new Irish parliament would swear an oath of fidelity to the king. It was often wrongly described as an "oath of allegiance." Many radical nationalists could not accept this recognition of the Crown, and de Valera was among its harshest critics. The treaty's supporters argued that it represented the best terms that were then available and that it provided a basis from which further advances could be made. Opponents claimed that more concessions could have been extracted from the British, that the treaty abandoned the republic, and that the delegates had exceeded their powers by signing it. Partition did not feature prominently in the debates—only two deputies spoke about the matter at any length, one from each side—and it did not figure in the later Civil War. In 1921 and 1922 supporters and opponents of the treaty were concerned with questions of sovereignty, the republic, and the oath. They displayed little interest in Northern Ireland, which had already been established months before the treaty negotiations began.

The Dáil finally supported the treaty by sixty-four votes to fifty-seven, de Valera resigned as president and was defeated when he ran for reelection, and Collins became chairman of a new provisional government. He and his colleagues began taking over the administration of the future Free State from the British.

THE FIGHT FOR A REPUBLIC

The treaty was popular with the Irish public, whose main concern was with peace, but most of the IRA was hostile. Without any clear lead from the politicians, soldiers tended to follow their inclinations and their local commanders. Many of the units that had been most vigorous in the war against the British were now determined to carry on the fight for a republic—even against an Irish government consisting of their former colleagues. In some areas, however, radical zeal was a compensation for earlier torpor.

In the course of the next six months the country slid slowly toward civil war. Rival military groups tried to seize evacuated British barracks, and conflicts broke out between them. In March an army convention met in Dublin, withdrew its allegiance from the Dáil, and established its own executive. In the following month a group of republican extremists seized the Four Courts and other buildings in Dublin and barricaded them against a counterattack. Collins played for time, and IRA representatives from both sides tried to negotiate a truce.

Elections in June revealed massive public support for the treaty; Collins now had a mandate from the people, and he no longer felt obliged to temporize. The republican IRA was unimpressed—but it had never placed much faith in public opinion. The Four Courts garrison increased its provocations, and the British cabinet pressured Collins to assert his authority. On 28 June government forces attacked republican positions in Dublin, and within days the capital was under their control. This was the decisive phase of the war, and henceforth Collins held the initiative. He displayed his usual energy as he took command of the protreaty campaign, and soon his army controlled most of the country north of a line running from Limerick to Waterford. This "Munster Republic" was attacked by land and by sea, and republican positions fell one by one. By early August every town in Ireland was under government control, although some were recaptured briefly by antitreaty forces. Most of the population in republican-controlled areas welcomed the arrival of government troops.

GUERRILLA WARFARE

This "conventional" war was followed by a long-drawn-out guerrilla campaign in which the republicans modeled themselves on the IRA's recent fight against the British. The principal victim was Collins himself, who was killed in an ambush on 22 August. The republicans tried to sap the government's will and undermine its support through violence and destruction. Their actions also served to lure the government into repressive measures, and here too the pattern of 1919 to 1921 was followed. The principal differences between the two conflicts were that the rebels lacked the popular support that the IRA had earlier enjoyed, and they faced more determined opponents.

Collins's successors showed themselves even more ruthless than their enemies, and from November 1922 onward seventy-seven republicans were executed. The most notorious case followed the murder of a protreaty Dáil deputy, when four prominent republican prisoners were shot in retaliation. The government was goaded into brutality, and in several parts of the country—particularly in Kerry—its troops carried out atrocities. But the pattern of 1916 and 1919 to 1921 was not followed during the Civil War, and Irish public opinion did not swing in favor of the republicans. Most people appear to have realized that only one side could win the war, the protreaty army, and they were prepared to turn a blind eye to harsh measures that might hasten the return of peace.

Gradually the republicans' position weakened, but Liam Lynch, their chief of staff, refused to tolerate the idea of compromise. So too did the Free State government, which was determined that the war was "not going to be a draw, with a replay in the autumn." Only with Lynch's death in April 1923 did more realistic voices predominate within the antitreaty leadership, and a month later republicans were instructed to stop fighting. Ireland slowly began to become a normal society. De Valera had been marginalized by the military commanders, but now he reemerged as the leading figure among the opponents of the treaty.

AFTERMATH

The Civil War crippled the Irish economy, and although there is still disagreement concerning the death toll, it probably cost about 1,500 lives. It polarized the new Irish Free State and ensured that Irish public life would be dominated for decades by two rival parties whose disagreements centered on the events of 1921 to 1922. But it also confirmed—in a bloody manner—that the governments of independent Ireland would be responsible to the people rather than to the army.

Bibliography

Curran, Joseph M. The Birth of the Irish Free State, 1921–1923. 1980.

Garvin, Tom. 1922: The Birth of Irish Democracy. 1996.

Hopkinson, Michael. Green against Green: The Irish Civil War. 1988.

Litton, Helen. The Irish Civil War: An Illustrated History. 1995.

Prager, Jeffrey. Building Democracy in Ireland: Political Order and Cultural Integration in a Newly Independent Nation. 1986.

Regan, John M. The Irish Counter-Revolution, 1921–1936. 1999.

Michael Laffan

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