The Irish War of Independence and the IRA, 1916-1921

Author: Colm McInerney

 

Introduction

Six hundred years of oppression and slavery have passed in meloncholy succession over our father’s heads and our own, during which period we have been visited by every evil which tyranny could devise and cruelty execute; we have been scattered, like chaff, over the land, and our name has been forgotten among the nations.

- Theobald Wolfe Tone, an Address to the People of Ireland on the Present Important Crisis, 1796

We do not claim to represent the people of Ireland; we claim to represent the intellect and the immortal soul of Ireland.

- Convicted Volunteer Thomas MacDonagh at his court-martial after the 1916 Rising

During World War I, Irish rebels, called the Irish Volunteers, attempted to overthrow British rule in Ireland. The Easter Rising in 1916 was an abject failure. Coupled with the fact that most Volunteers didn’t take part when their leader, Eoin MacNeill, attempted to cancel it, was the fact that the rising itself was badly organised. The Volunteers, set up in 1913, were organised like a regular standing army. They had occupied buildings in central Dublin like a regular army. And they had been defeated by a vastly superior, vastly larger regular army (the British).

Several months after the Rising steps were taken to reorganise the Volunteers. With the release of most of the prisoners from the rebellion by 1917, the Volunteers now had members who were hardened by battle and prison. They also had more public support than before, due to the outcry over the execution of all the Rising’s leaders (apart from de Eamon Valera) by the British government. IRB (Irish Republican Brotherhood) links helped to restore communication between the central command in Dublin and the country units. The IRB had been the secret Fenian society which had infiltrated the Volunteers and carried on the rebellion after Eoin MacNeill had decided against it. Delegates for a new general convention were elected by the brigades and a new executive was elected at the Volunteer Convention in October 1917. The convention decided that it would not order Volunteers to take the field until they considered it possible to wage war with a reasonable hope of success. So for the time being, the Volunteers would train and prepare for a possible conflict in the months or years ahead. Many Irishmen were away fighting in the trenches, and Ireland was to receive a measure of home rule whenever the Great War ended. Yet 1916 and its aftermath had put in motion a chain of events that would change the whole dynamic in southern Ireland. By the time the guns had fallen silent across the Somme, the Irish people no longer wanted to be part of the British Empire at all. They wanted an Irish republic, and some of them were prepared to fight a war to achieve it. The Irish War of Independence can be divided into three parts: From early 1919 to the beginning of 1920 the Volunteers began to attack R.I.C. (the Royal Irish Constabulary, the name of the Irish police force) and government targets and personnel; from mid-1920 to the end of 1920, when the war escalated, with the arrival of the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries; and from January to July 1921, when the conflict reached its peak, before a truce was agreed.

Early Resistance and Recruitment

During the East Clare by-election, the Irish Volunteers from Clouna marched and drilled publicly when going to attend meetings in support of the Sinn Fein candidate who, of course, was Éamonn de Valera, and on polling day they were very active at the polling stations. The drilling and parading in public, which then began for the first time after the 1916 Rising, continued.

Irish public opinion changed in the years during World War I. In 1914 the south had been in favour of receiving Home Rule from the British government, with limited powers, when the war was over. The 1916 Rising had done little to change that opinion, but the harshness of the British reaction to the rebellion, with hundreds of men being carted off to prison in England and Wales, gave the rebels public sympathy. And when conscription was muted to be introduced in Ireland, the public swung behind Sinn Fein, who resisted it. Sinn Fein subsequently won the post-war elections with a huge number of seats, eclipsing the Irish Parliamentary Party whose brief was Home Rule. Sinn Fein’s brief was an Irish Republic. With public support for Sinn Fein, the political wing of Irish republicanism, the military wing, the Volunteers (or Irish Republican Army), began to grow.

A small amount of secret drilling began immediately after the reorganisation of the Volunteers. At first they only came out in the open at public events such as funerals. Open defiance became a policy of the Volunteer executive after the public support the group received at the Thomas Ashe funeral in September 1917. Open drilling emerged, although this was confined to the southern and western parts of Ireland. The reluctance of the local authorities in these areas to confront the Volunteers meant that drilling became a regular feature of life in several counties. In Tipperary, contact had been established with a local soldier who sold the local Volunteers revolvers and bullets for ready cash.

During the Conscription Crisis (when England attempted to force conscription on Irishmen near to the end of World War I) many people began associate resistance to conscription with support for the Volunteers. The Volunteers themselves were evolving from displays of public defiance to more secret, undergound preparations for a possible military conflict. Endeavours by local Volunteers in the south and west to capture arms and avoid arrest in early 1919 led to the first armed engagements of what would become the Irish War of Independence.

The war effectively began on the 21st of January 1919. This was the day when the Dail Eireann (Irish Parliament), dominated by Sinn Fein, first met, and declared its aim of ignoring British administration in Ireland and setting up its own governmental departments. However, it did not advocate the use of violence at this time, and what happened that same day in the southwest of the country was not sanctioned by either the Dail or by the Volunteer GHQ. Tipperary Volunteers, including Dan Breen and Sean Treacy, shot dead two policemen who refused to hand over to surrender. Breen wrote-

We also decided that when the smoke of the battle had cleared away, we would not leave Ireland, as had been the usual practice. We would remain in our native land in open defiance of the British authorities. We felt that such a demonstration was bound to encourage others to do likewise.

Volunteer GHQ only sanctioned this policy officially in January 1920. Breen wrote-

Our policy had been hitherto “unofficial”. Dail Eireann and General Headquarters of the IRA had neither sanctioned it nor accepted the responsibility. Mick Collins promised to push our war policy in the “proper quarters”, and it must be remembered that he was not only on the GHQ staff but was also the Finance Minister. Our war policy was not popular. Our GHQ seemed to be lukewarm about it. The political wing certainly opposed it, and more than one T.D. privately denounced it. We succeeded in concealing our disagreements up to the time of the Truce.

In Cork, the three brigades set up began attacks on British targets in 1919.

The Dail, dominated by the Sinn Fein party, declared that it aimed to establish an Irish republic. This would be done by (1) Withdrawing the Irish Representation from the British Parliament and by denying the right and opposing the will of the British Government or any other foreign Government to legislate for Ireland; (2) By making use of any and every means available to render impotent the power of England to hold Ireland in subjection by military force or otherwise. Delegates were sent to the Treaty of Versailles to petition for an Irish republic. However, this proved fruitless when the US government refused to recognise or support the Irish delegation. Although President Wilson had strongly supported the idea of national self-determination, it was more important to him to have British support for his efforts to create a League of Nations. Despite these set backs, the Dail would be relatively successful in setting up their own civil administration.

Becoming an army

The Volunteers were in great danger of becoming merely a political adjunct to the Sinn Fein organisation. [Sean] Treacy remarked to me that we had enough of being pushed around and getting our men imprisoned while we remained inactive. It was high time that we did a bit of the pushing.
(Dan Breen)

The development towards guerilla warfare depended on a relatively small number of Volunteers concentrated in the Southwest. These local Volunteer brigades increased their activity from 1919 to 1920.

Military operations remained extremely limited during 1919, although raids for arms began to occur regularly. A shortage of arms curtailed military engagements. In the country ownership of a rifle was often a condition prerequisite to joining a serious operation, and ownership of a revolver was revered in Dublin.- “As a Company, we were very poorly armed. If a fellow had a bloody old .45 at that time he was something like Napoleon.”

As a result, obtaining arms was an ongoing obsession. Those who had weapons were most likely to be able to join attacks on British forces. They were also usually the first to join a Flying Column at the end of 1920. The situation in the country was continuously worsening. In June, the Freeman’s Journal described the Dublin quays as ‘jammed with tanks, armoured cars, guns, motor lorries and thousands of troops, as if the port was a base of formidable expeditionary force’. The British army in Ireland was now costing half the total cost of maintaining the army throughout the empire. In September 1919 the Dail was banned by the Lord Lieutenant, Lord French. This only served to make it easier for the Volunteers to carry out attacks, as their politicians no longer had a public platform from which to restrain them. And it helped Eamon de Valera’s campaign in America, where he was touring to highlight British injustices in Ireland and drum up support for a republic.

In the wake of Volunteer GHQ’s endorsement of open attacks on the Crown Forces, confrontation escalated in 1920. A GHQ policy document proclaimed the smashing of all enemy communications as the main priority. In the following months, attacks on police barracks became particularly widespread in the South with the acquisition of rifles as its main objective. As a result many isolated undefensible police posts were evacuated throughout the country. This enabled Sinn Fein and the Volunteers, often one and the same outside Dublin, to take over civil control in these areas. Mass burning of courthouses and evacuated barracks, and raiding of tax offices was ordered by GHQ for Easter 1920. The government’s reaction to the attacks increasingly became coercive, which resulted in the IRA men becoming more determined. A successful barracks attack became less and less feasible in the course of 1920. Undefensible posts had been abandoned and protection of most other barracks was reinforced. This led to Volunteers attacking police and military targets in a hit-and-run nature. In response to the rising violence, the British government introduced the Restoration of Order in Ireland Act. This Act, passed 9th August 1920, allowed for internment and court-martial of civilians. This led to the arrest of a large number of Volunteer-officers. As a result of police activity, GHQ ordered all officers everywhere to sleep away from home and to appoint deputies to replace them in case of their arrest. As a result most officers and active men who were not yet on the run, joined the small number of activists that had already left home.

The development towards guerilla warfare in Ireland was still precarious. The small groups of fighting men on the run were extremely vulnerable. Their success could make or break the activity of the Volunteers in a particular district- losing them often meant the end of operations. However, public support for the IRA was growing. The arrival of the Black and Tans and the brutality of their tactics drove many to support the Volunteers. The execution of an 18-yr-old medical student, Kevin Barry, for killing a British soldier, and the arrest and subsequent death after hunger strike of the Lord Mayor of Cork, were two more events that made the British position in Ireland ever more untenable.

The relationship between the Volunteers and Dail Eireann, the Irish Parliament, was quite ambiguous. The Volunteer Convention in 1919 formally recognised the Minister for Defence, Cathal Brugha, as the leader of the Volunteers. The Volunteers at this point became the national army with the title of the IRA (Irish Republican Army). The Volunteers recognised the Dail as their parliament, and Eamon de Valera as their president, but many IRA men had little time for the politicians. The Dail was slow to back a military campaign and was less than wholehearted in its support for the IRA. Many IRA operations were carried out without official sanction from the Dail, although they were usually sanctioned by the Volunteers GHQ, by men such as Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy. A further complication was the position of the IRB in Ireland. Many IRA men were also members of the secret IRB. By 1919 Michael Collins was President of the Supreme Council of the IRB, so effectively these men were sworn to obey his orders. This potential conflict of interest certainly worried the Minister for Defence, Cathal Brugha, who believed that they should see him as their ultimate commander. In reality, the IRA men looked to the Volunteers GHQ and to their local brigade commanders, rather than to Brugha and the Dail. However, they always recognised that the Dail had the ultimate power, but as it was up in Dublin it didn’t affect their day to day running of the war.

The Flying Column

We wanted full-time soldiers who were prepared to fight by day or night, ready for any adventure. They would constitute a mobile force capable of striking at a given moment in one district and on the next day springing a surprise thirty miles away… At long last we convinced the Headquarters-staff of the desirability of such a scheme. The flying columns were organised and they bore the brunt of the war during the next twelve months.-

Dan Breen

The first flying columns spread spontaneously in active areas during the summer of 1920. They consisted of the Volunteers who had been forced to go on the run due to their prominence in barracks and other attacks. Some of them had grouped together and engaged in joint operations. However, some men on the run simply hung around all day, wasting resources and irritating the locals. At a meeting of the leadership of the Volunteers in June 1920 this problem was discussed and the idea of a Flying Column was developed-

Dick Mulcahy was not too keen on the idea, but Michael Collins was very keen on it: ‘We’ll have to get these bloody fellows doing something,’ said Collins referring to the men on the run. (At that time and for some time later, they were a bloody nuisance, for they lounged around, slept late, ate peoples food and did now work for the Company or Battalion in which they happened to be.)

The provincial flying column generally consisted of a small band of full-time fighting men. A training camp would prepare the men, whose number could range from a dozen to over a hundred in Tipperary and Cork. Most of the columns’ time was spent roaming around evading the police. The local people provided the columns with supplies and entertainment in the form of music and dance. Some areas were more hospitable than others, making the column members feel at home. The columns’ inclination to stay in only a few safe areas was a heavy burden on the locals. The presence of the column in their neighbourhood implicated them in its actions, which meant risking the wrath of the Crown Forces. To protect the columns from approaching enemies, warning systems using flags, fires and empty bottles were successfully used, particularly in Tipperary. Tom Barry describes the core ambition of Flying Columns set up in West Cork-

Strange as it may seem, it was accepted in West Cork that the paramount objective of any Flying Column, in the circumstances then prevailing, should be, not to fight, but to continue to exist. The very existence of such a column of armed men, even if it never struck a blow, was a continuous challenge to the enemy and forced him to maintain large garrisons to meet the threatened onslaught on his military forces, and for the security of his civil administration. Such a Column moving around must seriously affect the morale of garrisons, for one day it would surely strike…

Involvement in the fighting deeply affected the members of the columns and its equivalent in Dublin, the ASU (Active Service Unit). After killing some British intelligence-officers one of the future members of the Dublin ASU was greatly affected-

“Charlie Dalton was very nervous. We went into the Capitol [a church] to ease his mind. […] Charlie Dalton couldn’t sleep that night of Bloody Sunday. He thought he could hear the gurgling of the Officer’s blood and he kept awake in fright until we told him a tap was running somewhere.

A problem that extended to Volunteers in all areas was the lack of arms and ammunition. After the Flying Columns had started, bringing with them the constant likelihood of open conflict, the lack of ammunition became particularly acute. If a column was under-armed and forced to engage with British troops in the open it would be sluaghtered. Shortages led to disputes over arms. Another serious consequence of the lack of arms was an almost complete absence of firing experience among the men involved in operations. This inexerience led to several fatal accidents and also the failure of several ambushes.

The arms that could be bought from GHQ were totally insufficient to equip all willing men. Arms could not be bought openly, as many restrictions had been put on the sale, importation and ownership s of weapons since the beginning of the Great War. To supplement the shortages, weaponry was bought or forced from soldiers and policemen throughout the struggle. British soldiers who were stationed in Ireland for a short period were often willing to sell equipment to supplement their pay. Another major source of arms and ammunition was found abroad. GHQ as well as some county units sent men to England and even to Germany to obtain weaponry.

Despite all these efforts, there was always insufficient material to provide all IRA units. Supply of ammunition was so short that many units manufactured it themselves. Most country units made buckshot to fill shotgun cartridges. In Dublin, large .303 rifles ammunition was cut down to fit into revolvers-

We were using .303 stuff, which had been cut down but it was not serviceable. It had split in Jimmy Maginnis’s revolver in his hand.

Another tedious job was the reloading of faulty ammunition that was bought from British military. After the authorities discovered that the IRA bought ammunition they tried to sell them exploding ammunition that damaged the gun when fired. When the IRA found a distinguishing mark they took the explosives out of the ammunition and replaced it with gunpowder.

Reprisals and counter-reprisals

We deplore the fact that the authority of the British name in Ireland has come to rest upon military power

- The Times, December 1919

One of the outstanding difficulties in the suppression of political crime in Ireland was the fact that the British nation was not at war with Ireland, whilst Ireland was at war with the British nation, and regulations for the suppression of rebellion were only introduced as the situation went from bad to worse. The Irishman, without any insult being intended, somewhat resembles a dog, and understands firm treatment, but, like the dog, he cannot understand being cajoled with a piece of sugar in one hand whilst he receives a beating from a stick in the other.

- ‘O’, the head of British intelligence in Ireland

After the slow and steady process of first ostracising, then attacking, the police force, the Volunteers flying columns that formed by 1920 roamed the countryside looking for enemy targets to ambush. The escalating violence led to heavy-handed reprisals by the British military which served to further worsen the situation. Support for the Volunteers and hatred for the British grew every time a village was shot up and burned in retaliation for an IRA ambush.

In these areas, the position of the R.I.C. had changed from a normally functioning constabulary to a semi-military fighting force largely restricted to their barracks in the larger towns and villages. Many of them lived in constant fear of attack when travelling on country roads. A military stalemate was, nonetheless, the most common situation to evolve. This could follow a tit-for-tat cycle between local IRA units and the Crown Forces. An ambush on a British army patrol by the IRA would result in the local village being shot up by the British. The IRA would in turn attempt to re-engage their enemy to seek revenge for the attack on their village, and the cycle continued.

By the end of 1920, 182 policemen and 50 soldiers had been shot by the IRA. The British government had initially asserted that they were dealing with a civil disorder rather than a war, but by this stage they realised otherwise. The authorities were forced to recruit for the R.I.C. in Britain as Irish members of the police force began to resign. The men who in fact arrived in Ireland were mainly veterans of World War I. They wore khaki coats and black trousers and caps, due to a shortage of traditional R.I.C. uniforms. Their violent behaviour led to them being nicknamed the ‘Black and Tans’ after a particularly ferocious Co. Tipperary hunt pack. They were paid 50p per day and in July 1920 they were joined in Ireland by a new Auxiliary Division of the R.I.C.- mostly ex-army officers- who became known as the ‘Auxies’. They were paid £1 a day. By the end of the War of Independence in July 1921 there would be over ten thousand Black and Tans and 1,500 Auxiliaries in the country. Around the time the Tans first appeared in Ireland they shot the Lord Mayor of Cork in front of his wife and children. The struggle was embittered by such acts, and the reprisals and counter-reprisals which followed.

From the arrival of the Tans both sides stepped up their activity. In September 1920 the Mid Clare Brigade ambushed the R.I.C. at Rineen, killing six policemen and capturing arms and equipment. In October the West Cork IRA killed five British soldiers in an ambush at Toureen, including the leader of the Essex regiment, Captain Dickson, who ‘was shot through the head as he was firing his revolver’. In reprisal, the Essex regiment descended on the town of Bandon in Cork and smashed it up. Included in this raid party were men who the IRA had allowed to go free at Toureen. On November 21st, the most successful IRA ambush occurred at Kilmichael in West Cork. A column of thirty-six riflemen under Tom Barry ambushed a party of Auxiliaries, killing sixteen of them. The flying column took a large haul of weapons from their defeated enemy, and according to Barry, were then quite well armed. For three days afterwards the column zig-zagged around the area to avoid attack by the British. Shops and homes were also shot up and destroyed at Kilmichael, Johnstown and Inchigeela in reprisal. The Kilmichael ambush had occurred a week after Bloody Sunday in Dublin, when Michael Collins’ Squad had wiped out over a dozen British intelligence officers. In reprisal the Black and Tans entered the national stadium, Croke Park, and opened fire on the crowd. In April 1921 the West Cork IRA attacked and burned down the barracks in Rosscarberry, a very strategic base for the British army in the area. According to Barry, this resulted in the Cork Volunteers having an area of roughly 270 square miles free of the enemy, to use as a base.

Although the IRA had no realistic hope of defeating the British military, and in fact never really attempted to fight them in open battle except on their own terms, they were successful in pinning down large numbers of troops around the country. The IRA brigades in West Cork forced the British to garrison huge numbers of soldiers in the area. Worldwide public pressure, especially from America, prevented the British military flexing its muscle fully. Ireland wasn’t bombed, and although civilians were killed in reprisals for IRA ambushes, the British army didn’t (or couldn’t) specifically target civilians. The Black and Tans did begin to carry civilian hostages in convoys liable to ambush. In the Boer War the British had been able to destroy the Boers’ homes aware that they had no equivalent target. But in Ireland, the IRA began to burn down loyalist homes in return for army attacks on their homes. At the end of 1920, the situation in Ireland was a military stalemate.

By January 1921, 1,463 civilians were interned in the country. But the IRA was still active. Its continued survival, and the success of the Dail in being recognised by many as the actual, functioning Irish parliament, was a heavy blow to the British. The fact that they had thousands of troops and pseudo-military policemen in Ireland to prop up their rule, whilst at the same time the Irish had their own parliament and army operating, began to make the British position appear untenable.

Towards a truce

We exhort English as well as Irish to calmly consider… some means of mutual agreement

- Pope Benedict, May 1921

On November 11th 1920 the Government of Ireland Bill had been passed in the British House of Commons, proposing separate home rule parliaments for Southern Ireland and for Northern Ireland. A Council of Ireland was to be set up with members from each parliament in a move to one day remove partition and potentially reunite the two parliaments. Both parliaments would be subject to the Westminster parliament, requiring the Lord Lieutenant to approve bills on behalf of the king, and would not be allowed to make laws relating to peace and war, the armed forces, foreign affairs, or overseas trade. Of course public opinion in southern Ireland no longer wanted such a limited parliament. But it did result in the paritioning of the country, which has remained split ever since.

In the spring of 1921 local IRA commanders began to burn down the homes of British loyalists in reprisal for the Black and Tans burning down Irish homes. In March 1921 Tom Barry’s West Cork flying column organised a spectacular ambush at Crossbarry which resulted in the death of about 35 British soldiers. The British were losing the propaganda war badly and there was growing pressure from America to reach some sort of agreement with Sinn Fein. Elections were looming and the Government of Ireland Bill was soon due to come into force. Sinn Fein were bound to win be the majority Irish party and would refuse to take their seats in the new Irish parliament. This would mean Britain would have to rule Ireland by the king (represented by the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland), whose rule would only be backed up by the retention of huge numbers of troops in the country.

Between May and July 1921 more than 160 soldiers and policemen would be killed by the IRA, which was well over a quarter of all British casualties since the start of the war over two years ago. On May 14th the IRA raided the English homes of men who had joined the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries. On May 25th in Dublin the IRA burned down the Customs House, seen as the centre of British administrative rule in Ireland. As a military operation for the IRA it was a disaster, with over a hundred of its best men being captured. As a propaganda feat it was a huge success, demonstrating to the wider world how strong the IRA was and how weak the British position now was in Ireland. Although certain sections of the British parliament wanted to keep fighting, and in fact unleash an all-out military campaign against the IRA, the Liberal government under Lloyd George were coming under heavy public pressure to negotiate. The IRA at the same time was increasingly feeling the strain of the war. Accounts vary as to how long it felt it could hold out, with Volunteer GHQ quite pessimistic, whereas the men in the field around the country, such as Tom Barry in Cork, felt they could last several years. Certainly in the area around Barry’s command the IRA were on the front foot. After the British army’s last major effort to corner and destroy the Cork IRA Flying Columns in June 1921, they retreated back to their barracks. The West Cork IRA then resumed major attacks against them, in what would be the last month before the truce.-

Rounding-up forces were sniped at Gortaclone and Ballylickey, enemy garrisons were fired on at Bantry, Skibbereen, Drimoleague, Clonakilty, Bandon, Innishannon and Kilbrittain. During the final four weeks, Bandon was entered eight times by armed parties of the IRA, the Innishannon Post was fired at on four occasions and Kilbrittain Barracks sniped at five times. British soldiers were wounded at Ballylickey, a Black and Tan sergeant and an enemy agent in Bandon. Yet another Essex soldier was shot dead within sight of his Bandon barracks and one more Black and Tan was killed in Skibbereen. There was no slowing down of IRA activities in West Cork until the announcements in the daily Press made it clear that the end was at hand.

Certainly in Cork, Tipperary and probably Dublin the British knew that they had little chance of defeating the IRA in the near future if at all.

What was clear, though, was that the IRA would never be able to defeat the British militarily. Yet in reality the British could not wipe out the IRA unless they waged an all-out war, which was highly implausible with worldwide public opinion against it. Peace feelers were sent out, and both sides slowly turned to the negotiating table. An important intermediary was General Smuts, the former Boer leader in South Africa. Eventually a truce was agreed, which began at noon on July 11th 1921. But it would not be the end to the violence.

Conclusion

The War of Independence, which lasted for two and a half years, resulted in 1,300 deaths, over a thousand of whom were Irish. Compared to the world war that preceded it, or to the second world war that would follow, it is a tiny dot. Yet its significance in Ireland is huge. Never before had Irish soldiers managed to force Britain to the negotiating table. Of course there were mitigating circumstances. Britain was weary after the Great War. Mainly American pressure prevented it unleashing its tanks and planes on the country. But the IRA had succeeded in holding the British soldiers and policemen in Ireland to a military stalemate. When one considers that the Crown forces numbered about 60,000 troops and 15,000 Auxiliaries and Black and Tans in addition to the regular R.I.C., this is an impressive achievement. The mere prescence of flying columns marauding around the countryside inspired the local population, who grew more and more angry with the often indiscriminate Crown violence aimed at them.

The war would result in the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which would give Ireland (excluding the six northern counties) its most independence for hundreds of years. For many this would be enough, but for some of the IRA men who had fought for an Irish republic, it was not. Agreeing to something less than a republic was tantamount to betrayal. The treaty would lead to a civil war.

Bibliography
· My Fight For Irish Freedom
by Dan Breen (Tralee, 1924)
· Guerilla Days In Ireland
by Tom Barry (Cork, 1949)
· Towards Ireland Free: The West Cork Brigade In The War Of Independence, 1917-1921
by Liam Deasy (Cork, 1973)
· From Public Defiance to Guerilla Warfare: The Radicalisation of the Irish Republican Army- a comparative analysis, 1916-1921
by Joost Augusteijn (Amsterdam, 1994)
· The Cause of Ireland: From the United Irishmen to Partition
by Liz Curtis (Belfast, 1994)
· British Intelligence in Ireland, 1920-21: The Final Reports
edited by Peter Hart (Cork, 2002)
· Michael Collins
by Tim Pat Coogan (Dublin, 1991)