Osprey - Essential Histories 065 - The Anglo-Irish War 1913-1922

Conclusion and consequences
Coming to terms with the past
A significant factor in the failure of most
Irish rebellions was the lack of a major
Continental threat to distract British
attention from Ireland. There can be little
doubt that the rebellion that culminated in
Irish secession in 1921 was assisted by the
tensions that preceded the outbreak of the
First World War, the war itself and the chaos
that followed it, creating the opportunity for
militant Irish Nationalism to break its bonds
with the British. As ever 'England's' adversity
was Ireland's opportunity.
The 1916 rebellion had been an
inconvenient distraction at a time when the
UK was building up its forces for the Somme
offensive of 1916. To many Irishmen it
constituted a betrayal of trust whilst the UK
was at war; to others it was the spark that lit
the torch of liberation. Few can dispute that
the army handled the aftermath badly, but it
was ill prepared for counter-insurgency and
justifiably distracted by greater matters in
France and elsewhere.
After the First World War ended the army
was torn between its colonial commitments
and suppressing a violent and bloody
rebellion in Iraq, whilst steadily trying to
demob its war service personnel. British
casualties in Iraq were far higher than they
ever were in Ireland and for want of a
coherent counter-insurgency doctrine the
army did not really know how to cope with
unrest within the UK. They also did not fully
understand the problem they faced, and
many senior politicians and soldiers were
convinced that the Irish rebellion was
actually the beginning of a Bolshevik coup
in Britain.
It is, however, too simplistic to speak of
the violence between 1913 and 1922 as an
Irish 'war of independence' or liberation,
because not all of the Irish wished to break
the union with Britain. A significant number
of Irishmen, both Protestant and Catholic,
were content with the union and served in
the civil administration, the police and the
army in an attempt to preserve it. Ultimately,
the Protestant heartland of Ulster was
vehemently opposed to Home Rule or any
weakening of Ireland's link to Britain and
consequently made the struggle an
internecine one.
The struggle for national selfdetermination
may have united the broad
spectrum of Irish Nationalist opinion but the
withdrawal of British control from the 26
counties of Southern Ireland quickly cleaved
them apart. Militant Republicans felt that
the Treaty was a betrayal of everything that
they had fought for and that an escalation,
not cessation, of the conflict was the only
acceptable course of action, whilst others
were more realistic in their appreciation of
the situation.
In many respects the 'civil war' in the
South that followed the Treaty in 1922 was
the physical manifestation of the divisions
amongst Nationalists. Those who accepted
the Treaty tended to be those who had
favoured Home Rule rather than full-blown
independence before the war, and were
inclined towards a more democratic,
consensus-based approach. On the other
hand those who subscribed to a more
dogmatic and doctrinaire Republicanism
tended to reject the Treaty.
Defeat in the civil war did not destroy
militant Republicanism, and its remnants
smouldered for decades before flaring into
life between 1956 and 1962 during the IRA
border campaign, and again in 1969. The
modern IRA has its roots in these times,
posing a threat to both the Irish Free State
and Northern Ireland.
Ironically, the National Army during the
Irish Civil War quickly adopted attitudes