The War For Ireland 1913 – 1923

Edited by Peter Cottrell

Osprey Publishing

Like many people I always looked on the violence in Ireland as a religious thing – Protestants versus Catholics. I wasn’t aware of the place of organizations like the Irish Republican Army, Sinn Fein, Clan na Gael and the many others – newspapers portrayed them all as gangsters and for lack of better information that is what I accepted. Now this book does a very credible job of putting all the conflicts into context and gives an understanding of the serious problems confronting the Irish people.

It is interesting that Cottrell has called the book “The War FOR Ireland”. This emphasises a point that is made time after time throughout the book. There was indeed a military war going on but it only ever seemed to involve a small number of radicals. The main battle was for the hearts and minds of the Irish people themselves, and mostly the people were disinterested in the posturings of the combatants.

The background to the problem goes well back in history when mostly Catholic Ireland was conquered by mostly Protestant Britain. Although Catholics were disenfranchised and often treated badly the situation improved over the years and the standard of living started to rise. Many people moved to cities where the availability of employment, often regardless of religion, gave them a chance at a decent life. Always in the background there was a group of troublemakers whose beliefs were not religious but political. They wanted an independent Ireland completely free of the British and gradually they grew more militaristic about it. Groups sprang up dedicated to complete independence or at least home rule as a separate state in Great Britain. These Unionists were regarded as traitors by the Nationalists and slowly a call to arms began. Yet, when given a vote on the Union treaty, most Irish voted for it in the hope that it may at least bring some sort of peace to the country. It was a vain hope.

During World War 1 a large number of Irish enlisted in the British Army. These often formed the nucleus of the paramilitary groups on both sides. Organisers of the groups came to believe that the best way to change public opinion was with a show of strength that would cause the British to overreact. An uprising was planned for Easter 1916. Patrick Pearse, the organiser, seems to have believed that all he had to do was declare a Republic and all Irish would immediately turn to the cause. Instead the Irish greeted the “revolution” with disinterest. Pearse declared himself President of the Provisional Government. Only around a thousand of his soldiers turned up but they occupied a few strategic locations in Dublin such as the Post Office. The British Army, with quite a few Irish soldiers in its own ranks, spent a few days winkling them out. The mass uprising that Pearse wanted just didn’t occur. Cottrell paints a picture of fragmented battles, occasional atrocities and dreadful planning and communications. He details many of the individual actions and it becomes obvious how painfully unprepared the British were to fight an urban guerrilla war. Generally the captured “soldiers” were treated as civil criminals, not as military combatants – an attitude that continued for many decades afterwards.

Events now took a more sinister turn. The new leaders felt that they had to become more active in the field. This included attacking civil servants such as policemen and members of opposing organizations. This began a series of reprisals by the British that culminated in the execution of high ranking officials and came to look more like the violence that we saw in the late 1900s. The IRA newspaper told its readers that it was their duty to kill soldiers and policemen. The dreaded reprisal killings began to appear from both sides. A rebel “government”, the Dail, was set up to compete with the legitimate government for influence and tax revenue. Where they could not raise money in other ways some groups indulged in bank robbery to fund their activities. More and more civilians were being caught in the crossfire and the reprisals.

Finally in 1922 the British Government proposed a partition of Ireland. A number of predominantly Protestant counties in the north would become a separate province of the United Kingdom. A group in the south would become a mostly Catholic province with a certain amount of home rule. In the June 1922 referendum 78% of the Irish voted for this partition. This, however, had the unfortunate effect of creating religious ghettoes in the major cities and was to cause further problems. Both sides, making the best of the situation, claimed victory.

Although the book nominally finishes at 1923 Cottrell provides us with a further brief history showing how the political violence gradually turned to sectarian strife. It seems the Irish people just wouldn’t accept a British solution, and couldn’t accept an Irish solution either. This developed into the violence shown so often on our TV screens in the late 1900s. British Army troops would be tied up for decades, becoming in the process some of the world’s best anti-incursion soldiers. The IRA became increasingly marginalised and its leaders became regarded as thugs and their atrocities became less acceptable. Pressure mounted on the Government to wind back its activities in areas such as the horrific prison system. The old hatreds may still live on but they are tempered by the need to get along with each other to survive.

Cottrell gives us descriptions of the battles, the people and the politics. He paints a broad picture that gives a more through understanding of the war for this long-suffering country.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 4 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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