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IRISH WAR OF INDEPENDENCE (irish_war_of_independence.doc)

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Irish War of Independence

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The Irish War of Independence (or the Anglo-Irish War) 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 Irish parliament created in 1918 by a majority of Irish MPs. It lasted from January 1919 until the truce in July 1921.

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

Since the 1880's, Irish nationalists had been demanding Home Rule, or self-government, from Britain. This demand was eventually granted by the British in 1914, but its enactment was postponed by the outbreak of the First World War in August of that year. During the course of the war, several events transpired which derailed the prospect of a diplomatic path to Irish self-government. The first of these was the Easter Rising of 1916, in which Irish Republicans launched an insurrection whose aim was to end British rule and to found an Irish Republic. The rising was put down within a week, but the British response - executing the leaders of the insurrection and arresting thousands of nationalist activists - galvanised support for the separatist Sinn Féin party. Secondly, the British attempted to introduce conscription into Ireland in 1918, further alienating the Irish electorate. The Irish voters soon showed their disapproval with British policy by giving Sinn Féin 70% of Irish seats in the Irish (UK) general election, 1918. Sinn Féin promised not to sit in Westminster, the seat of the UK Parliament, but rather to set up an Irish Parliament.

To purist Irish Republicans, the Irish War of Independence 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 war had its origins in the formation of an unilaterally declared independent Irish parliament, called Dáil Éireann, formed by the majority Sinn Féin 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 Irish Volunteers, a paramilitary group formed in 1913, with the intention of securing Home Rule, were reconstituted as the 'Irish Republican Army' or IRA. The IRA was perceived by some members of Dáil Éireann to have a mandate to wage war on the Dublin Castle British administration. While it was not clear in the beginning of 1919 that the Dail intended to gain independence by military means, an incident in January 1919 sparked off armed conflict.

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 shootings at Soloheadbeg, the First Dáil convened in the Mansion House in Dublin where it ratified the 1916 Proclamation of Independence, issued a new Declaration of Independence, demanded the evacuation of the British military garrison, and called on the "free nations of the world" to recognise Ireland's independence.

[edit]Violence Spreads

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 legitimize 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. Others, notably Arthur Griffith, preferred a campaign of civil disobedience rather than armed struggle. The violence used was at first deeply unpopular with the broader Irish population, but most were won around when faced with the heavy handed British response.

The early part of the conflict, roughly from 1919 to the summer of 1920, saw a relatively limited amount of violence. Much of the nationalist campaign involved popular mobilisation and the creation of a republican "state within a state" in opposition to British rule. The IRA's main target throughout the conflict was the mainly Catholic Irish police force, the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), 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 from a force increasingly compromised by association with government repression. The rate of resignation went up, and recruitment dropped off dramatically. Often the RIC 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. By contrast with the effectiveness of the widespread public boycott of the Police, the military actions carried out by the IRA against the RIC at this time were relatively limited. In 1919, 11 RIC men and 4 Dublin Metropolitan Police were killed and another 20 RIC wounded.

Other aspects of mass participation in the conflict included strikes by organised workers in opposition to the British presence in Ireland. In Limerick in April 1919, a General strike was called by the Limerick Trades and Labour Council, as a protest against the declaration a "Special Military Area" under the Defence of the Realm Act which covered of most of Limerick city and a part of the county. Special permits, to be issued by the Royal Irish Constabulary, would now be required to enter the city. The Trades Council's special Strike Committee controlled the city for four days.

Similarly, 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.

Violent attacks by the IRA also steadily increased however. By the spring of 1920, they were attacking isolated RIC stations in rural areas, causing them to be abandoned as the Police retreated to the larger towns.

[edit]Collapse of the British administration

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. This had two effects. Firstly the RIC withdrew from much of the countryside, leaving it in the hands of IRA. In June-July 1920, summer assizes failed all across the South and West of Ireland. Trials by jury could not be held because jurors would not attend. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, Hamar Greenwood informed the Coalition Cabinet that "the administrative machinery of the courts has been brought to a standstill". The collapse of the court system demoralized the Royal Irish Constabulary. Many police resigned and retired over the summer. The Irish Republican Police (IRP) was founded between April and June 1920 under the authority of Dáil Éireann and the IRA Chief of Staff and Cathal Brugha to replace the RIC and to enforce the ruling of the Dáil Courts, set up under the Irish Republic. By 1920, the IRP had a presence in 21 of Ireland’s 32 counties.

Secondly, the Inland Revenue ceased to operate in most of Ireland. People were instead encouraged to subscribe to Collins' National Loan, set up to raise funds for the young government and its army. By the end of the year the loan had reached £357,000. Rates (tax) 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. Thus, by mid 1920, the Irish Republic was a reality in the lives of many people, enforcing its own law, maintaining its own armed forces and collecting its own taxes.

The British forces, in trying to re-assert their control over the country, often resorted to arbitrary reprisals against republican activists and the civilian population. 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.

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.

In March 1920, Tomás 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. This pattern of killings and reprisals escalated in the second half of 1920 and in 1921.

[edit] 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 as well as IRA Director of Intelligence, 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, organizational 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. Collins began killing RIC intelligence officers from 1919 onwards. Many G-men were offered a chance to resign or leave Ireland by the IRA, and some took these options.

The Chief of Staff of the IRA was Richard Mulcahy, who was responsible for organising and directing IRA units around the country. In theory, both Collins and Mulcahy were responsible to Cathal Brugha, the Dáil's Minister of Defence. However, in practice, Brugha had only a supervisory role, recommending or objecting to specific actions. A great deal also depended on IRA leaders in local areas (such as Liam Lynch, Tom Barry, Sean Moylan Sean MacEoin and Ernie O'Malley) who organized guerrilla activity, largely on their own initiative. For most of the conflict, IRA activity was concentrated in Munster and Dublin, with only isolated active IRA units elsewhere, such as in north county Longford and western county Mayo.

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 organizations Cumann na mBan (the IRA women's group) and Fianna Éireann (youth movement), who carried weapons and intelligence for IRA men and secured food and lodgings for them.

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.

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 [citation needed] 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.

[edit] British response

The British responded to the escalating violence in Ireland with increasing use of force. Reluctant to deploy the regular British Army into the country in greater numbers, they set up two paramilitary police units to aid the RIC. The "Black and Tans" were set up to bolster the flagging RIC. 7,000 strong, they were mainly ex-British soldiers demobilized after World War I. First deployed to Ireland in March 1920, most came from English and Scottish cities. While officially they were part of the RIC, in reality they were a paramilitary force. After their deployment in March 1920, they rapidly gained a reputation for drunkenness and ill-discipline that did more harm to the British government's moral authority in Ireland than any other group. In response to IRA actions, in the summer of 1920, the "Tans", burned and sacked numerous small towns throughout Ireland, including Balbriggan, Trim, Templemore and others.

In July 1920, another quasi-military police body, the Auxiliaries, consisting of 2,214 former British army officers arrived in Ireland. The Auxiliary Division had an equally bad reputation as the Tans for their mistreatment of the civilian population but tended to be more effective and willing to take on the IRA. The 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 August of 1920, the British Parliament passed the Restoration of order in Ireland Act. 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". This act has been interpreted by historians as a choice by David Lloyd George to put down the rebellion in Ireland rather than negotiate with the Republican leadership. As result, violence escalated steadily from that summer, and sharply after November 1920 until July 1921.

It was in this period that a large scale mutiny broke out among the Irish Connaught Rangers, stationed in India, and some of them paid with their lives for joining the cause of rebellious Ireland far away from its soil.

[edit]The War, November 1920-July 1921

On November 21, 1920, Collins' Squad killed 18 British intelligence agents (known as the "Cairo Gang") at different places around Dublin. In response, Auxiliaries drove in trucks into Croke Park (Dublin's GAA football and hurling 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 supposedly "shot while trying to escape" (in fact executed) 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.

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 Kilmichael in County Cork, killing all but two of the 18 man patrol. This action marked a significant escalation of the conflict, with counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary, all in the province of Munster being put under martial law on December 10. Shortly afterwards, in January of 1921, "official reprisals" were sanctioned by the British and they began with the burning of seven houses in Midleton in Cork.

The Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, died on hunger strike in Brixton prison in London in November, along with two other IRA prisoners. The jury at the inquest into his death returned a verdict of willful 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.

The following eight months until the Truce of July 1921 saw a spiraling of the death toll in the conflict, with 1,000 people including the RIC Police, British Military, IRA volunteers and civilians, 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. In the middle of this violence, the Dail formally declared war on Britain in March 1921.

On 1 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. In all, 14 IRA Volunteers were officially executed in the course of the war.

On March 19, 1921, Tom Barry's 100 strong West Cork IRA unit fought a large scale action against 1,200 British troops - the Crossbarry Ambush. Barry's men narrowly avoided being trapped by converging British columns and inflicted between ten and thirty killed on the British side. Just two days later, on March 21, the Kerry IRA attacked a train at the Headford junction near Killarney. An estimated twenty British soldiers were killed, as well as two IRA men and three civilians. Most of the actions in the war were on smaller scale than this, but the IRA did have other significant victories in ambushes, for example at Millstreet in Cork and at Scramogue in Roscommon, also in March 1921 and at Tourmakeady and Carowkennedy in Mayo in May and June. Equally common however, were failed ambushes, the worst of which, for

example at Upton and Clonmult in Cork in February 1921 saw five and twelve IRA men killed respectively and more captured. The IRA in Mayo suffered a comparable reverse at Kilmeena. Fears of informers after such failed ambushes often led to a spate of IRA shootings of informers, real and imagined.

The biggest single loss for the IRA however, came in Dublin. On May 25, 1921, several hundred IRA men from the Dublin Brigade occupied and burned the Custom House (the centre of local government in Ireland) 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 five 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. However, it did not, as is sometimes claimed, cripple the IRA in Dublin. The Dublin Brigade carried out 107 attacks in they city in May and 93 in June, showing a fall off in activity, but not a dramatic one. However, 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, which forced the British government to conclude that the IRA could not be defeated militarily. The failure of the British efforts to put down the guerrillas was illustrated by the events of "Black Whitsun" on MAy 13-15 1921. A general election for the parliament of Southern Ireland was held on 13 May. Sinn Féin won 124 of the new parliament's 128 seats unopposed, but its elected members refused to take their seats. Under the terms of the Government of Ireland Act, the Southern Parliament was dissolved, and Southern Ireland was to be ruled as a crown colony. Over the next two days (14-15 May) the IRA killed fifteen policemen. These events marked the complete failure of the British Coalition Government's Irish policy -both the failure to enforce a settlement without negotiating with Sinn Fein and a failure to defeat the IRA.

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 organized could be brought to a standstill. Because of this, plans were drawn up to "bring the war to England". The IRA did take the campaign to the streets of Glasgow. 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.

[edit]The War in the north-east July 1920-July 1922

In the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (proposed in July 1920, ratified in December 1920), the British government attempted to solve the conflict by creating two Home Rule parliaments in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. While Dáil Éireann ignored this, deeming the Irish Republic to be already in existence, unionists in the north-east accepted it and prepared to form their own government. This part of Ireland, which was predominantly Protestant and Unionist, saw, as a result, a very different pattern of violence from the rest of the country. Whereas in the south and west, the conflict was between the IRA and British forces, in the north-east and particularly in Belfast, it often developed into a cycle of sectarian killings between Catholics, who were largely nationalist and Protestants, who were mostly unionist.

[edit]Summer 1920 - the war reaches the north

While IRA attacks were less common in the north-east than elsewhere, the unionist community saw itself as being besieged by armed Catholic nationalists who seemed to have taken over the rest of Ireland. As a result, they retaliated against the northern Catholic community as a whole. Such action was largely condoned by the unionist leadership and abetted by state forces. James Craig, for instance, wrote in 1920, "The Loyalist rank and file have determined to take action... they now feel the situation is so desperate that unless the Government will take immediate action, it may be advisable for them to see what steps can be taken towards a system of 'organised' reprisals against the rebels".

The first cycle of attacks and reprisals broke out in the summer of 1920. On 17 July 1920, a British Colonel Gerard Smyth was assassinated by IRA in the County Club in Cork city in response to a speech he made to RIC men encouraging reprisals against the civilian population. Smyth came from Banbridge, County Down in the north-east and his killing provoked retaliation there against Catholics in Banbridge and Dromore. On July 21, 1920, loyalists marched on the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast, forcing over 7000 Catholic and left-wing Protestants from their jobs. Sectarian rioting broke out in response in Belfast and Derry, resulting in about 40 deaths and many Catholics and Protestants being expelled from their homes. On August 22, 1920, RIC Detective Swanzy was shot dead by Cork IRA men while leaving Church in Lisburn, County Antrim. Swanzy had been blamed by an inquest jury for the killing of Cork Mayor Thomas MacCurtain. In revenge, local loyalists burned Catholic residential areas of Lisburn. While several people were later prosecuted for the burnings, no attempt seems to have been made to halt the attacks at the time. Michael Collins,        acting on a suggestion by Sean MacEntee, organised a boycott of Belfast goods in response to the attacks on the Catholic community. The Dail approved a partial boycott on August 6 and a more complete one was implemented                            by the end of 1920.

[edit]Spring 1921

After a lull in violence in the north over the new year, killings there intensified again in the spring of 1921. The northern IRA units came under pressure from their leadership in Dublin to step up attacks in line with the rest of the country. Predictably, this unleashed loyalist reprisals against Catholics. For example, in April 1921, the IRA in Belfast shot dead two Auxiliaries in Donegal Place in Belfast city centre. The same night, two Catholics were killed on the Falls Road. On July 10, 1921 the IRA ambushed British forces in Raglan street in Belfast. In the following week, sixteen Catholics were killed and 216 Catholic homes burned in reprisal. Killings on the loyalist side were largely carried by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), allegedly with the aid of the police, army and the auxiliary police the Ulster Special Constabulary or             "B-Specials". The B Specials (set up in September 1920) were largely recruited from Ulster Volunteer Force and Orange Lodges and, in the words of historian Michael Hopkinson, "amounted to an officially approved UVF". In May James Craig came to Dublin to meet the British Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Fitzalan, and was smuggled by the IRA through Dublin to meet Eamon de Valera. The two leaders discussed the possibility of a truce in Ulster and an amnesty for prisoners. Craig proposed a compromise settlement based on the Government of Ireland Act, with limited independence for the South and autonomy for the North within a Home Rule context. However, the talks came to nothing and violence in the north continued.

[edit]The Propaganda War

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.

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.

While the military war made most of Ireland ungovernable from early 1920, it did not actually remove British forces from any part. But the success of Sinn Féin's propaganda campaign did remove the option from the British administration to deepen the conflict. The British cabinet had not sought the war that had developed since 1919. By 1921 one of its members, Winston Churchill, reflected: What was the alternative? It was to plunge one small corner of the empire into an iron repression, which could not be carried out without an admixture of murder and counter-murder ... Only national self-preservation could have excused such a policy, and no reasonable man could allege that self-preservation was involved.

[edit]The Truce — an uneasy peace

When the war in the south of Ireland ended with 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 June 6, 1921, the British made their first conciliatory gesture, calling off the policy of house burnings as reprisals. On the other side, IRA leaders and in particular Michael Collins, felt that the IRA as it was then organized could not continue indefinitely. It had been hard pressed by the deployment of more regular British soldiers to 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 dissatisfied with the official speech prepared for him for the opening of the new Parliament of Northern Ireland, created as a result of 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 consultation 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 speech, when delivered in Belfast on June 22, had a massive impact. It called on "all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and to forget, and to join in making for the land they love a new era of peace, contentment, and good will."

On 24 June 1921, the British Coalition Government's Cabinet decided to propose talks with the leader of Sinn Féin. Coalition Liberals and Unionists agreed that an offer to negotiate would strengthen the Government's position if the revolutionaries refused. Austen Chamberlain, the new leader of the Unionist Party, said that "the King's Speech ought to be followed up as a last attempt at peace before we go to full martial law". Seizing the momentum, Lloyd George then issued an appeal for talks to Éamon de Valera in July 1921. The Irish 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. Its terms were signed on July 9 and came into effect on July 11. Negotiations on a settlement, however, 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. Nor did attacks on the RIC or British Army cease altogether. Between December 1921 and February of the next year, there were 80 recorded attacks by the IRA on the soon to be disbanded RIC, leaving 12 dead. On February 18 1922, Ernie O'Malley's IRA unit raided the RIC barracks at Clonmel, taking 40 policemen prisoner and seizing over 600 weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. In addition, some IRA units used the truce period as an opportunity to settle old scores. In April 1922, in the Dunmanway Massacre, an IRA party in Cork killed 10 local Protestants in retaliation for the shooting of one of their men. Those killed had been named in captured British files as informers. Over 100 Protestant families fled the area after the atrocity.

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 had negotiated with the British.

[edit]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.

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; as a trade-off, the money owed to Britain by the Free State under the Treaty was not demanded.

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.)

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 majority of the pre-Truce IRA who had fought in the War of Independence, led by Liam Lynch refused to accept the Treaty and in March 1922 repudiated the authority of the Dáil and the new Free State government, which it accused of betraying the ideal of the Irish Republic. The anti-treaty IRA were supported by former president of the Republic, Eamon de Valera and ministers Cathal Brugha and Austin Stack.

[edit]July 1921-July 1922, Northern Ireland's bloody birth

While the fighting in the south was largely ended by the Truce on July 11, 1921, in the north killings continued on until the summer of 1922. Moreover, despite the Dail's acceptance of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922, which confirmed the future existence of Northern Ireland, there were clashes between the IRA and British Crown forces along the new border from early 1922. In part, this reflected Michael Collins' view that the Treaty was a tactical move, or "stepping stone", rather than a final settlement. A number of IRA men were arrested in Derry when they travelled there as part of the Monaghan Gaelic football team. In retaliation, Michael Collins had forty-two loyalists taken hostage in Fermanagh and Tyrone. B-Specials sent to rescue them were ambushed at Clones in Southern territory, with four men killed. Despite the setting up of a Border Commission to mediate between the two sides in late February, March saw IRA raids on three British barracks along the border. All of these actions provoked retaliatory killings in Belfast. Winston Churchill arranged a meeting between Collins and James Craig on 21 January 1922 and the southern boycott of Belfast goods was lifted but then re-imposed after several weeks. The two leaders had several further meetings, but despite a joint declaration that "Peace is declared" on March 30, the violence continued.

From April to June 1922, Collins launched a clandestine guerrilla IRA offensive against Northern Ireland. By this time, the IRA was split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but both pro and anti-treaty units were involved in the operation. Arms sent by the British to arm the new Irish Army were in fact given to IRA units and their weapons were sent to the North. However, the offensive, launched with a series of IRA attacks in the North on May 17-19, ultimately proved a failure. On May 22, after the assassination of unionist politician William Twaddell, 350 IRA men were arrested in Belfast, crippling its organisation there. The largest single clash came in June, when British troops had to use artillery to dislodge an IRA unit from the village of Pettigo, killing seven, wounding six and taking four prisoners. This was the last major confrontation between the IRA and British forces in the period 1919-1922.  The cycle of sectarian atrocities against civilians however continued into June 1922. On June 17, in revenge for the killing of two Catholics, Frank Aiken's IRA unit killed six Protestant civilians in Altnaveigh, south Armagh.

Michael Collins held the British general Henry Hughes Wilson responsible for the attacks on Catholics in the north and had him killed in June 1922, an event that inadvertently helped to trigger the Irish Civil War (Winston Churchill insisted after the killing that Collins take action against the Anti-Treaty IRA, whom he assumed to be responsible). The outbreak of the civil war in the South had the ironic effect of ending the violence in the North, as the war demoralised the IRA in the northeast and distracted the attention of the rest of the organization from the question of partition. After Collins' death in August 1922, the new Irish Free State quietly dropped his aggressive policies towards Northern Ireland.

[edit]Casualties

The total numbers killed in the guerrilla war of 1919-21 between Republicans and Crown Forces in what became the Irish Free State came to over 1,400. Of these, 363 were Police personnel, 261 were from the regular British Army, 550 IRA volunteers were killed (including 14 official executions) and about 200 civilians. Some other sources give higher figures.

A total of 557 people died in political violence in what would become Northern Ireland between July 1920 and July 1922. This death toll is usually counted separately from the southern casualties as many of these deaths took place after the July 11 truce that ended fighting in the rest of Ireland. Of these deaths, 303 were Catholics (including IRA men), 172 Protestants and 82 RIC or British Army personnel. Belfast saw the majority of the violence, 452 people being killed there - 267 Catholics and 185 Protestants Catholic nationalists have argued that this violence represented a pogrom against their community, as a disproportionate number of victims (58%) of the northern violence were Catholics, even though they represented only around 35% of Northern Ireland's population.

[edit]Independence and the Irish Civil War

Main article: Irish Civil War

The subsequent Irish Civil War lasted until mid-1923 and cost of the lives of many of the leaders of the independence movement, notably 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: total casualties were several times those in the earlier fighting against the British. President Arthur Griffith also died.

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".[verification needed]