Irish War of Independence (1919-1921): IRA Against British Rule

The Irish War of Independence, also called the Anglo-Irish War, was a guerrilla conflict fought between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British forces in Ireland from January 1919 to July 1921. It followed the decision of Irish nationalists elected in 1918 to set up their own parliament and declare an independent republic. The war ended in a truce that opened the way to the Anglo-Irish Treaty and the creation of the Irish Free State.

Background: from Home Rule to a republic

For decades Irish nationalists had sought Home Rule, a parliament in Dublin within the United Kingdom. A Home Rule Act passed in 1914 but was suspended for the duration of the First World War, and Ulster unionists had armed themselves to resist it. The Easter Rising of 1916 in Dublin was defeated within a week, but the execution of its leaders and mass arrests turned much of Irish opinion towards the separatist party Sinn Fein.

In the general election of December 1918 Sinn Fein won 73 of Ireland’s 105 seats. Its members refused to sit at Westminster and instead met in Dublin’s Mansion House on 21 January 1919 as Dail Eireann, the Assembly of Ireland, which adopted a Declaration of Independence. On the same day, without orders from the Dail, Irish Volunteers led by Dan Breen and Sean Treacy ambushed a cart carrying explosives at Soloheadbeg, County Tipperary, and killed two constables of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). This is traditionally taken as the start of the war.

Course of the war

At first violence was limited. The Volunteers, increasingly known as the IRA, raided for arms and attacked isolated RIC barracks, while Sinn Fein built a counter-state of republican courts, local councils and a national loan. The British government declared the Dail illegal in September 1919. Ostracised by their communities and targeted by the IRA, many Irish policemen resigned.

From early 1920 Britain reinforced the RIC with recruits from Britain, mostly ex-soldiers, who became known as the Black and Tans, and from the summer with the Auxiliary Division, a force of former officers. Reprisals became common: towns were burned and suspects shot. In March 1920 the Lord Mayor of Cork, Tomas MacCurtain, was killed at his home by men widely believed to be police. His successor, Terence MacSwiney, died on hunger strike in Brixton prison on 25 October 1920 after 74 days, drawing worldwide attention.

The IRA adopted mobile “flying columns” of full-time fighters, strongest in Munster. In Dublin Michael Collins, the Director of Intelligence, ran an intelligence network and a hit unit known as the Squad.

A counter-state and a cycle of reprisals

The republican campaign was political as well as military. In many districts Dail courts, set up in 1920, replaced the British courts in settling land and civil disputes, and Sinn Fein won control of most local councils outside the north-east in the local elections of 1920. Collins, as finance minister, raised a national loan from supporters at home and in the United States. Women’s organisations such as Cumann na mBan carried messages, hid weapons and cared for the wounded, and railway workers refused to carry troops and munitions for several months in 1920.

British policy hardened in response. The Restoration of Order in Ireland Act of August 1920 replaced many civilian trials with courts-martial. Reprisals by police and Auxiliaries, such as the sack of Balbriggan near Dublin in September 1920, in which houses and a factory were burned and two men killed, became a pattern after IRA attacks. The execution of the 18-year-old medical student Kevin Barry on 1 November 1920 for his part in an ambush in which soldiers died caused widespread anger in Ireland. Each killing tended to provoke another, and civilians suffered on both sides, including people shot by the IRA as suspected informers.

Bloody Sunday and the escalation of 1920-1921

The most notorious day of the war was 21 November 1920, Bloody Sunday. Early that morning the Squad and other IRA men shot dead around 14 people across Dublin, most of them British army officers believed to be intelligence agents. That afternoon RIC men and Auxiliaries opened fire on the crowd at a Gaelic football match between Dublin and Tipperary at Croke Park, killing 14 people, among them the Tipperary player Michael Hogan. That night two IRA leaders, Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy, and a civilian, Conor Clune, were killed in custody at Dublin Castle.

A week later, on 28 November, Tom Barry’s flying column killed 17 Auxiliaries in an ambush at Kilmichael, County Cork. In December 1920 Auxiliaries and police burned much of the centre of Cork, and martial law was declared in several southern counties. Official reprisals, executions of IRA prisoners and further ambushes continued into 1921. In May 1921 the IRA burned the Custom House in Dublin, the centre of local government administration, though many of its men were captured.

Meanwhile the Government of Ireland Act of December 1920 divided the island into two Home Rule areas. A parliament for Northern Ireland, with a unionist majority, was opened by King George V in Belfast on 22 June 1921. Belfast saw severe sectarian violence throughout the period.

Key people

• Michael Collins: Minister for Finance in the Dail government and the IRA’s intelligence chief.
• Eamon de Valera: President of the Dail, who spent June 1919 to December 1920 in the United States raising money and support.
• Richard Mulcahy and Cathal Brugha: IRA chief of staff and Dail Minister for Defence respectively.
• David Lloyd George: British prime minister, who combined repression with growing willingness to negotiate.
• Sir Hamar Greenwood and Sir Nevil Macready: Chief Secretary for Ireland and army commander in Ireland.

The truce and its consequences

By mid-1921 both sides were under strain. The IRA was short of arms and many leaders had been captured; the British government faced international criticism and the prospect of a far larger military effort. After the king’s Belfast speech appealed for reconciliation, contacts led to a truce that took effect at noon on 11 July 1921.

Negotiations in London produced the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed on 6 December 1921. It created the Irish Free State as a self-governing dominion within the British Commonwealth, while Northern Ireland opted to remain in the United Kingdom. Disagreement over the Treaty, especially the oath of fidelity to the Crown, split the republican movement and led to the Irish Civil War of 1922-1923.

Timeline

• 1918, December: Sinn Fein wins 73 of 105 Irish seats in the general election.
• 1919, 21 January: The first Dail meets in Dublin; the Soloheadbeg ambush takes place in Tipperary.
• 1920, March: The first Black and Tans arrive; Tomas MacCurtain is killed in Cork.
• 1920, 25 October: Terence MacSwiney dies on hunger strike in London.
• 1920, 21 November: Bloody Sunday in Dublin.
• 1920, 28 November: Kilmichael ambush in County Cork.
• 1920, 11-12 December: Burning of the centre of Cork.
• 1921, 25 May: The IRA burns the Custom House in Dublin.
• 1921, 11 July: The truce takes effect.

Why it matters

The Irish War of Independence ended more than a century of direct rule from Westminster over most of Ireland and led to the independent state that became today’s Republic of Ireland. It also confirmed the partition of the island, whose consequences shaped Irish politics for the rest of the century, including the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Its guerrilla methods were studied by later anti-colonial movements around the world.