Irish Civil War (Military History)

Introduction
The Irish civil war of 1922–1923 has generated two types of literature. On the one hand, as the defining moment in the formation of the independent Irish state, it has been studied essentially as a political conflict fought within the territory of this new state, by a nationalist elite divided over the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty signed on 6 December 1921. More recently the stress on elite politics has receded, and the civil war’s complexity has been borne out by less conventional studies. Local histories, taking the county as the unit of analysis, stress the importance of local, factional, and personal divisions in shaping responses to the treaty. Others point out the connection between events south of the border and violence in the first few years of Northern Ireland’s existence. The place of the civil war within the course of the Irish War of Independence begun in 1919 is also important, while the social dimension to the civil war has only recently begun to be studied. There have also been some interesting comparative studies. In general, the more recent the study, the more likely is the work to depart from the elite politics approach.
General Overviews
When the contemporary history of the Irish state began to be written, the events of 1922–1923 were shrouded in silence. The subject was not on the official curriculum for schools, and few articles appeared in history journals. Indeed, it was only after the passing of the revolutionary generation that academic historians began to focus on the civil war, and Hopkinson 1988 was for a long time the only such study. Its attention to events on the ground brings out the chaos and social unrest in Irish society in 1922–1923. Before then, Younger 1968 and Neeson 1973 had covered the conflict chronologically. Younger identified strongly with the pro-treaty position, arguing that the alternative was anarchy, while Neeson suggested that the issues at stake remained in some ways unresolved. Garvin 1996 combines political science with history and brings back the issue of democratic legitimacy to the center of the debate. Kissane 2005 focuses on the politics of the conflict and sees the civil war as a consequence of Ireland’s partial breakaway from the British Empire. Similar to Braun 2002, which focuses on propaganda, for the most part it explores the struggle for legitimacy in 1922–1923 rather than the actual fighting.
Braun, Nikolaus. Terrorismus und Freiheitskampf: Gewalt, Propaganda und politische Strategie im irischen Bürgerkrieg, 1922/23. Veroffentlichungen des Deutschen Historischen Instituts London 54. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2002.
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Only available in German, a unique look at the propaganda war and thus the struggle for legitimacy in the civil war.
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Garvin, Tom. 1922: The Birth of Irish Democracy. New York: St. Martin’s, 1996.
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Has an excellent chapter on local government reform, and is perceptive on elite culture and mentalities. Written with brio but colored by a strong antirepublican bias, it is based largely on sources left by the pro-treaty elite.
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Hopkinson, Michael. Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 1988.
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For a long time the standard work and the most comprehensive study. Since it combines coverage of events in the localities with a chronological approach, it can serve as a research resource for students. The first study to achieve a serious level of primary research.
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Kissane, Bill. The Politics of the Irish Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273553.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
More a political study than Hopkinson 1988, this work documents the presence of a strong desire for peace in Irish society during the conflict, with chapters on peace negotiations and the interventions of civic organizations. Should be read as an antidote to Garvin 1996, since it argues that the democracy question has to be related to that of imperial control.
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Neeson, Eoin. The Civil War 1922–1923. Rev. ed. Cork: Mercier, 1973.
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Quirky, but at times insightful, and the first study to do justice to the antitreaty point of view.
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Younger, Carlton. Ireland’s Civil War. London: Muller, 1968.
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Standard chronological history, which identifies strongly with the Free State’s desire to return the country to law, order, and stability.
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Introductory Works
For the general reader, perhaps the best place to begin study of the civil war is with accessible texts, such as Cottrell 2005, intended for such readers, or Blake 1986, written in pamphlet form. There are also books with illustrations and photographs, such as Litton 1995 and Coogan and Morrison 1998. The material damage inflicted by the antitreaty campaign is captured well. They convey well the tragedy of a conflict that buried the hopes once vested in independence.
Blake, Frances M. The Irish Civil War and What It Still Means for the Irish People. London: Information on Ireland, 1986.
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Provides a leftist perspective on the civil war during the Northern Irish troubles (1969–1998).
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Coogan, Tim Pat, and George Morrison. The Irish Civil War. Boulder, CO: Roberts Rinehart, 1998.
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Contains an excellent collection of photographs.
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Cottrell, Peter. The Irish Civil War 1922–23. Oxford: Osprey, 2005.
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Part of the Essential Histories series, and a good place to start for the general reader.
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Litton, Helen. The Irish Civil War: An Illustrated History. Dublin: Wolfhound, 1995.
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Ideal for the beginner, it reproduces much contemporary material, including propaganda.
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Memoirs
Few of the leading politicians of the civil war period wrote memoirs or autobiographies (many leaders did not survive), and there was a culture of silence at every level of society. The conflict was also harder to write about than the War of Independence. Nonetheless, those memoirs that have survived remain one of the best sources on the civil war. O’Malley’s works (O’Malley 1936, O’Malley 1978) are the finest literary products of the Irish revolution, and a good guide to those Republicans who had little time for politics. Andrews 1982 is perceptive on the sometimes puritanical cast of Republican culture in the 1920s, while Deasy 1998 has less literary merit.
Andrews, C. S. Man of No Property: An Autobiography. Vol. 2. Dublin and Cork: Mercier, 1982.
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Interesting account of how one of the antitreatyites found his feet in Irish politics after 1923. Despite the poverty of the era, it also gives a good perspective on how the Fianna Fáil elite became respectable in the 1930s.
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Deasy, Liam. Brother against Brother. Cork: Mercier, 1982.
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Good insight into what might be called the moderate antitreaty camp, but not strong on literary merit.
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Dolan, Anne. Commemorating the Irish Civil War: History and Memory, 1923–2000. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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Explores (and laments) the failure of the victors to commemorate their civil war dead. Interesting from a cultural perspective, but shows how the culture of silence that set in the 1920s was also about saving money for the state.
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O’Malley, Ernie. On Another Man’s Wound. London: Rich & Cowan, 1936.
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Fascinating insights by a Dublin-born middle-class medical student who traveled around Ireland organizing IRA units during the War of Independence. Gives the impression of an insurgency buoyed up by a spiritual atmosphere in rural Ireland more than one motivated by social divisions.
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O’Malley, Ernie. The Singing Flame. Dublin: Anvil, 1978.
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An insight into the civil war from one antitreatyite, who notes he would have continued the fight in 1922, even if the moderate antitreatyites made some deal with Michael Collins. O’Malley was also emblematic in that he ended the civil war in a prison camp.
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The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921
For a long time the treaty split was considered the main cause of the civil war. Three essays in Lyons 1973 capture the drama of the debate when the negotiators arrived back to Ireland. The treaty was either the cause of or the occasion for the Irish civil war. Earlier accounts (Gallagher 1965, Pakenham 1972, Mansergh 1991) emphasized the limitations of the settlement, but almost all stress the divided nature of the Irish negotiation team. Mansergh 1991 and Wilson 1985 are strongest on the imperial context, while Boyce 1971 focuses on Lloyd George’s skill in bringing an end to the Anglo-Irish conflict.
Boyce, D. G. “How To Settle the Irish Question: Lloyd George and Ireland 1916–21.” In Lloyd George: Twelve Essays. Edited by A. J. P. Taylor, 137–164. London: Hamilton, 1971.
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On the “Welsh Wizard’s” handling of Ireland. The elite politics approach should be complemented by works like Wilson 1985, which looks at the British state from a social perspective.
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Gallagher, Frank. The Anglo-Irish Treaty. London: Hutchinson, 1965.
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Classic nationalist account written by an antitreatyite activist who became director of the Irish Government’s Information Bureau in the 1940s. For many, a book that had canonical status, although it should be borne in mind that Gallagher was called “the Irish Goebbels” by a unionist academic.
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Lyons, F. S. L. “From War to Civil War in Ireland: Three Essays on the Treaty Debate.” In The Irish Parliamentary Tradition. Edited by Brian Farrell, 223–257. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 1973.
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Three well-written essays, useful as a general introduction to the debate, that stress how narrow but deep the differences over the treaty were. Not strong, though, on documentary evidence.
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Mansergh, Nicholas. The Unresolved Question: The Anglo-Irish Settlement and its Undoing 1912–72. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991.
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Looks at Anglo-Irish relations in the long term imperial-Commonwealth perspective. Should be read as a guide to the constitutional aspects to the treaty division, which have tended to be downplayed in recent writing.
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Pakenham, Frank. Peace by Ordeal: The Negotiation of the Anglo-Irish Treaty 1921. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1972.
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Another classic account, written by someone with experience of British high politics and access to Irish politicians like de Valera. Again, needs to be related more to British Imperial policy such as with Kissane 2005 (cited under General Overviews), Mansergh 1991, and Wilson 1985.
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Wilson, Robin. “Imperialism in Crisis: The Irish Dimension.” In Crises in the British State 1880–1930. Edited by Mary Langan and Bill Schwarz, 151–179. London: Hutchinson, 1985.
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Places the Irish Question within an imperial context, which allows us to see the civil war as the final resolution of a crisis of the British state that preceded World War I and persisted into the 1930s.
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Pamphlets on the Treaty Issue
Another source on the treaty division is the pamphlets of the rival readers themselves, as they tried to win over the public to their positions in early 1922. Politicians of that era were capable of communicating sophisticated constitutional positions very effectively. Two points emerge. Although the case made for acceptance of the treaty was pragmatic and recognized force majeure, some (Griffith 1922, O’ Higgins 1926, O’ Rahilly 1922) also made a positive case for acceptance, stressing the degree of self-government the treaty conferred, and the advantages of the Commonwealth. Indeed, the contours of the debate reflected the obsessions of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras with themes of colonial status, empire, and freedom (see Barton 1922, Childers 1922a, and Childers 1922b). All these pamphlets are available in the National Library of Ireland and are an excellent resource for students.
Barton, Robert. The Truth About the Treaty: A Reply to Michael Collins. Dublin: Republic of Ireland, 1922.
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Written by one member of the negotiating team, who regretted signing it and died during the civil war.
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Childers, Erskine. Clause by Clause: A Comparison between the Treaty and Document No. 2. Dublin: Republic of Ireland, 1922a.
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Compares the treaty with de Valera’s alternative document, which proposed a Republic “externally associated” with the British Commonwealth.
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Childers, Erskine. What the Treaty Means. Dublin: Republic of Ireland, 1922b.
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A member of the negotiating team, Childers was considered a constitutional expert on the antitreaty side. He was executed in October 1922.
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Griffith, Arthur. Arguments for the Treaty. Dublin: privately printed, 1922.
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Written by the person most senior next to Collins among the pro-treatyites, who wanted to defend the people’s right to accept or reject the treaty.
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O’Higgins, Kevin. Civil War and the Events Which Led to It. Dublin: M Lester, 1926.
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A collection of articles, covering the Treaty issue, by a man who became a strong man in the pro-treaty governments and who identifies the pro-treaty cause as that of majority rule.
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O’Rahilly, Alfred. The Case for the Treaty. N.p.: privately printed, 1922.
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Emphasizes the degree of self-government provided for by the treaty, but also interesting in that O’Rahilly later abandoned the pro-treaty side and supported a new constitution in 1937.
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The Partition of Ireland
Partition has often been considered one reason for rejection of The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. Gallagher 1957 represents an orthodox nationalist approach, while Laffan 1983 is a more up-to-date guide for students. Introduced in 1920, the partition was an accomplished fact before the civil war began, and the status of the new Irish state was more important during the treaty debates. Nevertheless, partition remained important, especially to Michael Collins, who was determined up to his death to use covert force to undermine Northern Ireland. As Hopkinson 1990 shows, Collins’s peaceful declarations early in 1922 were largely a public front. In contrast, Bowman 1982, a study of de Valera’s views on the North, suggests that de Valera was more willing to compromise on this issue than on the status of the Irish state. It is important to remember that many pro-treatyites were also antipartition. Gallagher 1957 suggested that many of them thought the treaty would lead to unity, if implemented. The issue has not been fully resolved, but Phoenix 1994 is invaluable on Northern nationalism’s mixed reaction to the treaty and the proposed Boundary Commission. Fraser 1984 and Mansergh 1978 allow the partition of Ireland to be assessed in a comparative context and are ideal for political science students.
Bowman, John. De Valera and the Ulster Question 1917–1973. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
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The most detailed study of how the partition issue remained an obsession of the man who dominated Irish politics from 1918 to the 1960s. Asks whether de Valera should be remembered for his pursuit of quixotic ideals or for the stabilization of Irish democracy. The two were related.
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Fraser, Thomas G. Partition in Ireland, India, and Palestine: Theory and Practice. London: Macmillan, 1984.
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Critical and systematic evaluation of partition as a method of resolving conflict after British decolonization. More useful for students of comparative politics, although it is essential to consider why partition was disastrous in all three societies.
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Gallagher, Frank. The Indivisible Island: The History of the Partition of Ireland. London: Gollancz, 1957.
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Orthodox nationalist account that followed an official anti-partition campaign by the Dublin government. Saw the whole of Ireland as a natural unit and believed partition to be maintained by a policy of British divide and rule. Suggested that many pro-treaty Teachtai Dáilas (TDs) had accepted the settlement, only believing Lloyd George’s advice that if implemented, the treaty would lead to Irish unity.
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Hopkinson, Michael. “The Craig-Collins Pacts of 1922: Two Attempted Reforms of the Northern Ireland Government.” Irish Historical Studies 28.106 (1990): 145–158.
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Such reforms, which were agreed before the civil war began, are historically significant because they tried to mend community relations in Northern Ireland, but it is apparent that they were not agreed in good faith. A useful resource for students looking for a historical perspective on issues to do with the current peace process in Northern Ireland, such as community relations or policing.
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Laffan, Michael. The Partition of Ireland 1911–1925. Dundalk: Dundalgan, 1983.
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Laffan’s study is the best introduction, and is ideal for undergraduates, although the comparative analyses provided by Fraser 1984 and Mansergh 1978 are more innovative and allow consideration of partition as a policy option.
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Mansergh, Nicholas. The Prelude to Partition: Concepts and Aims in Ireland and India. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
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Gives a comparative explanation for why the Irish independence movement was slow to recognize the reality of Ulster Unionism, and why the “one nation theory” was steadfastly held onto. Assumes some background knowledge of the two cases. Good for comparative study.
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Phoenix, Eamon. Northern Nationalism: Nationalist Politics, Partition, and the Catholic Minority in Northern Ireland, 1890–1940. Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 1994.
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Important study documenting Northern Catholic reactions to the treaty, and showing how the prospect of a Boundary Commission created very different reactions in Belfast and the border counties. Northern Catholics had the same potential to be divided by the treaty as those south of the border.
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The Irish Revolution 1916–1923
Historians differ as to whether the events beginning with the 1916 Rising and climaxing in the War of Independence (1919–1921) constitute a revolution. They also differ as to whether the civil war victory completed or countered the Irish revolution. The two edited volumes. Boyce 1988 and Augusteijn 2002, are good places to start, while Hopkinson 2004 is the more recent account of the War of Independence. Laffan 1999 is the only comprehensive study of the Sinn Féin organization in this era, while Costello 2003 suggests that Collins and Company completed the revolution south of the border. Hart 2003 (cited under The IRA and Irish Republicanism) also raises the question of when and how the revolution began and ended. MacArdle 1937, for long the canonical republican text, sees the civil war as the interruption of an ongoing revolution. Her work should be read together with O’Hegarty 1998, since the terms of subsequent debates over the place of the civil war in an Irish revolution have largely been set by these two books.
Augusteijn, Joost, ed. The Irish Revolution, 1913–1923. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave, 2002.
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An up-to-date collection of essays, with some sophisticated conceptual chapters.
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Boyce, David, ed. The Irish Revolution 1879–1971. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1988.
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Locates the beginning of the revolution in 1879, when major land reforms began to be introduced. A useful collection because it covers many aspects of Irish life and politics, but it lacks sufficient attention to the conceptual issues involved in using the term “revolution.”
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Costello, Francis. The Irish Revolution and Its Aftermath 1916–1923: Years of Revolt. Dublin and Portland OR: Irish Academic Press, 2003.
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Strong emphasis placed on Collins’s leadership qualities but tends not to say enough about the contradictions within the pro-treaty cause.
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Hopkinson, Michael. The Irish War of Independence. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 2004.
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The most recent study of the conflict, which places the war in a longer time frame. Like the author’s work on the civil war, detailed in its research, and cautious in interpretation.
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Laffan, Michael. The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Féin Party 1916–23. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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The most detailed study of the organization without much enthusiasm for its objectives, but strong on Sinn Féin as a party machine.
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MacArdle, Dorothy. The Irish Republic: A Documented Chronicle of the Anglo-Irish Conflict and the Partitioning of Ireland, with a Detailed Account of the Period 1916–1923. London: Victor Gollancz, 1937.
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Written by a feminist and republican author sympathetic to de Valera when she wrote this book. A classic text, interesting now from a historiographical point of view. Some useful documentary material for undergraduates.
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O’Hegarty, Patrick Sarsfield. The Victory of Sinn Féin: How It Won It and How It Used It. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 1998.
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Written soon after the civil war, this book has arguably influenced all pro-treaty and revisionist interpretations since then. Should be read as a contrast to MacArdle because it questions the democratic credentials of the republican cause from 1918 onward.
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From Treaty to Civil War
The period between the signing of the treaty on 6 December 1921 and the start of the civil war on 28 June 1922 was sufficiently long to allow for peace initiatives. Williams 1966 posed the right questions but had less archival material to work with than later studies. Kissane (see Kissane 2002 cited under The Aftermath of the Civil War, and Kissane 2005 under General Overviews), Towey 1980, and Gallagher 1979 stress the importance of the June 1922 electoral pact between the two sides, and the former the British government’s role in undermining it. Hopkinson 2003 is the best place to start for a general narrative of a period when political initiatives were combined with military ones, and where North and South were still interconnected. The crucial issue of why the Provisional Government attacked the IRA in the Four Courts when they did (28 June) has never been fully answered.
Gallagher, Michael. “The Pact General Election of 1922.” Irish Historical Studies 21 (1979): 404–421.
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The first serious study of the pact election, by a political scientist who examines the pattern of transfers under the new single transferable vote (STV) electoral system, which suggests there was a strong middle ground within Sinn Féin.
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Hopkinson, Michael. “From Treaty to Civil War, 1921–22.” In A New History of Ireland. Vol. 7, Ireland, 1921–84. Edited by Jacqueline R. Hill, 1–29. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003.
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Sees the civil war as an outcome unwanted by most people and produced by the failure of Collins’s and de Valera’s peace initiatives.
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Towey, Thomas. “The Reaction of the British Government to the 1922 Collins-de Valera Pact.” Irish Historical Studies 22.85 (1980): 65–77.
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The first of several studies to highlight Britain’s determination not to let Collins and his colleagues stray from the terms of the treaty. Should be read alongside work cited below on the 1922 constitution.
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Williams, Desmond. “From the Treaty to the Civil War.” In The Irish Struggle 1911–1926. Edited by T. D. Williams, 117–129. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966.
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Williams interviewed de Valera for this article, but did not have access to vital documents, so was unable to satisfactorily resolve many issues in the build up to the civil war. Contains some idiosyncratic if not wild reflections.
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Military History of the Civil War
Hopkinson 1988, Neeson 1973, and Younger 1968 (cited in General Overviews) are still the most comprehensive studies of the military history of the civil war, although Walsh 1998 is a very detailed online source on the war’s conventional phase. The collection of essays in a special issue of The Irish Sword (Murphy 1997) is also suitable for the general reader and undergraduates. O’Halpin 1999 is good on the formative nature of the civil war experience for the new state’s attitude to internal security. There is no study, as yet, of the seventy-seven executions that were key to the government’s prosecution of the civil war, although MacArdle’s 1924 work on events in Kerry (MacArdle 1998) highlighted the amount of extrajudicial killing on the Free State side. Valiulis 1983 deals with tensions within the Free State army after 1923.
MacArdle, Dorothy. Tragedies of Kerry. Dublin: Irish Freedom Press, 1998.
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Originally published in 1924. She covers the brutal methods used to achieve civil war victory in Kerry in 1923, which have also been the subject of two TV documentaries. The work of an Irish feminist and humanist, and one of the few texts available on the dark side of the state’s counter-insurgency policies.
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O’Halpin, Eunan. Defending Ireland: The Irish State and its Enemies since 1922. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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An administrative history of the state’s security apparatus that surveys recent history as well as that of the civil war period. Chapters on the state’s early history show how strongly a retreat from revolution set in terms of the state’s security policies.
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Murphy, Brian P. “The Civil War 1922–23: A Selection of the Papers Delivered at a Conference Begun in Dublin on 11 September 1997.” Special issue of The Irish Sword: The Journal of the Military History Society of Ireland 20.82 (1997).
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A special issue devoted to the Civil War, Contains articles by Murphy and Hopkinson at odds with the dominant pro-treaty consensus.
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Valiulis, Maryann G. “The Army Mutiny of 1924 and the Assertion of Civilian Authority in Independent Ireland.” Irish Historical Studies 13.92 (1983): 542–564.
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Good introduction to a forgotten episode that exposed the tensions within the victors over Collins’s legacy.
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Walsh, Paul V. The Irish Civil War, 1922–1923: A Study of its Conventional Phase, 28 June–11 August 1922. Paper presented to the New York Military Affairs Symposium, 1998.
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Detailed and accessible study of the conventional phase.
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Local History of the Civil War
Since attitudes to the treaty, and hence alignments of IRA units, were often decided by local factors and personal loyalties, local histories of the civil war tell us much about what the Irish civil war was like on the ground. Many studies suggest that the reasons for division at the national level were not the same as those at the local level. Hopkinson 1988 (see General Overviews) began his study with the observation that there was too much focus on high politics in Dublin and Westminster, and several local studies have followed. Fitzpatrick 1977 explores the themes of continuity and change at the county level during the revolution, while others (Coleman 2003, Farry 2000, and Hart 1999) use the county study as a way of explaining divergence from the national pattern. Such studies have multiplied, and more are to come.
Coleman, Marie. County Longford and the Irish Revolution, 1916–1923. Dublin and Portland, OR: Irish Academic Press, 2003.
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Examines a case where civil war violence was less than that during the war of independence, and stresses the vital importance of personal relationships between local IRA leaders and the pro-treaty army leadership in Dublin.
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Farry, Michael. The Aftermath of Revolution: Sligo 1921–23. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2000.
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Takes a county, Sligo, where civil war violence was greater than that of the War of Independence, and examines issues such as social class, religious divisions, and socioeconomic conditions. Looks at local government bodies in order to show how the radicals within the movement were taking over before 1922.
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Fitzpatrick, David. Politics and Irish Life 1913–1921: Provincial Experience of War and Revolution. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 1977.
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Fitzpatrick’s state-of-the-art study of the experience of the revolution in one western county, Clare, led the way for other detailed studies. It shows how much continuity there was on the ground between the pre-1918 world of nationalist politics and the revolutionary era.
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Hart, Peter. The I.R.A. and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork 1916–1923. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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Controversial book that shows that those (a minority of the IRA) who carried the fight in the civil war were largely those who had fought against the British. Has become much discussed for methodological failings regarding its treatment of IRA violence against Protestants in Cork.
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Social Aspects of the Conflict
Much of the polarization of the civil war was based on fears that the social order was unraveling. It was also possible for scholars (e.g., Greaves 1971) to find republicans for whom the antitreaty cause was a socially radical one. Rumpf 1977 began the tradition of investigating the connection between the national and the social revolutions. More specific studies attest to the importance of land (Dooley 2004), social status (Foster 2008), religion (Murray 2000), and labor unrest (O’Connor 1988). Arguably the social history of the civil war has yet to be written, but Kostick 2009 makes a strong contribution with two chapters. In terms of an overall social interpretation, O’Drisceoil 2009 defends the leftist Ken Loach film The Wind that Shook the Barley, and O’Connor 1988 and others show that social agitation accompanied the independence movement from the start.
Dooley, Terence. ‘The Land for the People’: The Land Question in Independent Ireland. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2004.
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Important perspective because it argues that land agitation continued well into 1922 and 1923, and that the 1923 Land Act was conceived, much like previous instruments, as a means of buying off political unrest.
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Foster, Gavin. “Class Dismissed? The Debate over a Social Basis to the Treaty Split and Irish Civil War.” Saothar: Journal of the Irish Labour History Society 33 (2008): 73–84.
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Critical review of the literature, as part of an important Ph.D. thesis looking at the role of social class in the civil war. Opens up an important debate about whether class should be considered determined by economic structure or by perceptions of social status. If the latter, the case for a social interpretation of the civil war division is stronger.
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Greaves, C. Desmond. Liam Mellows and the Irish Revolution 1913–1968. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971.
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Classic biography about one (executed) leader in the Irish revolution, written from a radical left perspective. A good early example of radical left writing on the Irish revolution.
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Kostick, Conor. Revolution in Ireland: Popular Militancy 1917–1923. Cork: Cork University Press, 2009.
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Citing the fact that more than one hundred Soviets were established between 1917 and 1923, argues that the Irish struggle had revolutionary potential. The two chapters on 1922–1923 are insightful. Makes the point that the working classes were let down by their labor leaders, who “humbly” accepted their place in the Free State parliament. Also argues that the IRA’s lack of a social program meant that their tactic of falling back on their local hinterlands was bound to fail.
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Murray, Patrick. Oracles of God: The Roman Catholic Church and Irish Politics, 1922–37. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2000.
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Details the strong support given to the state by the Catholic Church in 1922–1923, but is too determined to prove the point, and doesn’t say enough about the activities of the lower clergy during the civil war and after.
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O’Connor, Emmet. Syndicalism in Ireland, 1917–1923. Cork: Cork University Press, 1988.
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Looks at the emergence of syndicalism as a distinct form of industrial action during the Irish revolution. One of many works that also looks at the ambivalent attitude of republicans to labor militancy. Complements the more recent study Kostick 2009.
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O’Drisceoil, Donal. “Framing the Irish Revolution; Ken Loach’s The Wind That Shakes the Barley.” Radical History Review 104 (Spring 2009): 5–15.
DOI: 10.1215/01636545-2008-065Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A defense of the classic left-wing film on the civil war, by the historian who acted as Loach’s historical adviser. A good place to start for those interested in whether radical nationalism had a left-wing pedigree.
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Rumpf, Erhard. Nationalism and Socialism in Twentieth Century Ireland. Translated by A. C. Hepburn. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1977.
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A pioneering study, although more sophisticated statistical analyses have surpassed it in method. Nonetheless, it was the first real examination of the social roots of radical nationalism with an appropriate emphasis of the distinctiveness of the west of Ireland politically, an issue very important for the civil war.
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Women and the Civil War
That the civil war saw a reversal in terms of the political gains women had made since they got the vote in 1918 is generally accepted. The number of women TDs (members of parliament) declined in 1922, prominent women were identified with the anti-treaty cause, and the main women’s political organization, Cumann na mBann, also split over the treaty. On the other hand, the 1922 constitution gave equal voting rights to men and women. Fallon 1987 and Knirck 1997 focus on specific aspects of women’s role in the civil war, while MacCurtain 1979 is the best general guide on the fallout after independence. On the same theme, O’Dowd 1987 provides a sophisticated theoretical interpretation of the politics of retrenchment in the Free State, while Mohr 2006 looks at their status under the 1922 constitution.
Fallon, Charlotte. “Civil War Hungerstrikes: Women and Men.” Éire-Ireland 12.3 (1987): 75–91.
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Focused on a republican form of protest resorted to by both men and women in 1923.
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Knirck, Jason. “Ghosts and Realities: Female TDs and the Treaty Debate.” Éire-Ireland 32.4 (1997): 170–194.
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Coverage of the treaty debates in which most prominent women took the losing side.
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MacCurtain, Margaret. “Women, the Vote, and Revolution.” In Women in Irish Society: The Historical Dimension. By Margaret MacCurtain, 46–57. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1979.
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Points to the paradox of women’s contribution to the foundation of a state in which they remained subordinate.
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Mohr, Thomas. “The Rights of Women under the Constitution of the Irish Free State.” Irish Jurist 41(2006): 20–59.
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Article in the legal history tradition, which shows that senior figures within the Provisional Government were worried about the constitutional committee’s desire for social as well as political gender equality. A corrective to the view that the 1922 constitution was more progressive than that of 1937.
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O’Dowd, Liam. “Church, State, and Women: The Aftermath of Partition.” In Gender in Irish Society. Edited by Chris Curtis, Pauline Jackson, and Barbara O’Connor, 3–36. Galway: Galway University Press, 1987.
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Largely an analytical study of women’s weakened position, but one that shows how a combination of British law and Irish Catholicism were at work. Intellectually impressive chapter from a leftist perspective.
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The Anglo-Irish Minority
That Protestant landlords (many of them senators) suffered in the civil war from burnouts and intimidation, and that an exodus of Protestants from the new state took place during and after the independence struggle, are established facts. Nonetheless, there is no full study of the Protestant experience of the civil war or of the Free State’s efforts to protect them. Some sources in this section debate Hart’s (Hart 1998, Hart 2003) controversial account of the murder of Cork Protestants in March 1922, forming perhaps the most controversial issue in the study of the revolution at the moment. Murphy and Meehan 2008 forms a response, while Farry 2000 considers the issue in a different county.
Farry, Michael. “Sligo Protestants after the Revolution.” In The Aftermath of Revolution. By Michael Farry, 157–177. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2000.
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Sligo is a border county that had a considerable Protestant population in 1922. Farry portrays a situation very different from that found in Hart 1998 and Hart 2003, with which this should be compared.
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Hart, Peter. The I.R.A, and Its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork 1916–1923. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
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Hart’s argument that the IRA victimized social outcasts as well as Protestants during the truce period is now at the heart of the debate over whether the IRA was sectarian or not. Also has useful details on IRA strength in 1922 in a county where the civil war was hard fought.
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Hart, Peter. “The Protestant Experience of Revolution in Southern Ireland.” In The I.R.A. at War, 1916–1923. By Peter Hart, 223–241. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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Conclusion claims that “all the nightmare images of ethnic conflict in the twentieth century are here.” This is contestable, but this is a good place for the general reader to start on this issue.
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Murphy, Brian, and Niall Meehan. Troubled History: A 10th Anniversary Critique of Peter Hart’s The IRA and its Enemies. Cork: Athol, 2008.
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Only one part of a sustained critique of Hart’s work in terms of the methods used to make his claims; shows how politicized contemporary history necessarily is on the island of Ireland.
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The Aftermath of the Civil War
Much has been written about how the civil war affected the Irish state’s subsequent evolution. Its legacy is well documented here, yet there is perhaps too much focus on the state and on governance. A recent innovative book, Allen 2009, argues that the civil war created conditions in which an artistic civil war continued to wage in Irish society after 1923. On the state itself, Kissane 2002 and Munger 1975 stress the comparative importance of Ireland for issues to do with state building and democratization after conflict. Hopkinson 2003 continues the essentially negative evaluation of the civil war’s consequences made first in Hopkinson 1988 (cited in General Overviews).
Allen, Nicholas. Modernism, Ireland and Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
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Suggests that the civil war, and the perception that followed it that the state was still unfinished, left a legacy in the arts in which Irish modernism flourished.
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Hopkinson, Michael. “Civil War and Aftermath, 1922–4.” In A New History of Ireland. Vol. 7, Ireland, 1921–84. Edited by Jacqueline R. Hill, 31–59. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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Covers both the course and the aftermath of the civil war, and concludes that the conflict reinforced the conservative cast of Irish society.
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Kissane, Bill. Explaining Irish Democracy. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2002.
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Comparative study which places the state’s achievement of democratic stability within the context of interwar Europe’s crisis of democracy, but also covers the civil war. Suggests that de Valera’s constitutional republican alternative to the civil war should be given more credit in this process.
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Munger, Frank. The Legitimacy of Opposition: The Change of Government in Ireland in 1932. London: Sage, 1975.
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A pamphlet, written by an American political scientist, on the 1932 handing over of power to Fianna Fáil, which stresses the talented nature of the civil war elite and how unusual such a transfer of power actually is.
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The Irish Party System
The roots of the southern Irish party system in the civil war have provided the occasion for a lively debate in Irish political science about the system’s uniqueness. Carty 1976 is strongest on the role of the civil war elite in shaping this system, while Garvin 1974 and Sinnott 1984 stress structural (center-periphery) factors in different ways. For historians, Carty and Whyte are more accessible. The important question of how allegiances were passed on down the generations awaits its historian, although Whyte 1974 is a useful place to start. Some of this literature is more political science than history but is essential reading.
Carty, Raymond K. “Social Cleavages and Party Systems: A Reconsideration of the Irish Case.” European Journal of Political Research 4 (1976): 195–203.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1976.tb00528.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that comparative models of party systems do not do justice to the important role the civil war divisions played in shaping the Irish party system. Good introduction to the debate.
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Garvin, Tom. “Political Cleavages, Party Politics and Urbanisation in Ireland: The Case of the Periphery-Dominated Centre.” European Journal of Political Research 2 (1974): 307–327.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1974.tb01238.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Sees the roots of Fianna Fáil in the successful mobilization of the western periphery against the center. Has been criticized by Sinnott 1984, but there is no doubt that anti-treaty support got stronger the farther west one went.
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Sinnott, Richard. “Interpretations of the Irish Party System.” European Journal of Political Research 12.3 (1984): 259–307.
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Should be read as an alternative perspective to Carty 1976, since it argues that the civil war only reinforced a center versus periphery cleavage that predated independence. An article more for political scientists, but one that answers many questions and summarizes other views.
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Whyte, John. “Ireland: Politics without Social Bases.” In Electoral Behavior: A Comparative Handbook. Edited by Richard Rose, 619–651. New York: Free Press, 1974.
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Also sees Ireland as an exceptional case in the European context. This article has formed the point of departure for a major debate about the uniqueness of the Irish party system.
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The Ira and Irish Republicanism
The culture of Irish republicanism and the experience of repression and defeat in the civil war are the subject of many studies. The process had its roots in the 1916 Rising and the War of Independence, and Augusteijn 1996 and McGarry 2010 are selected as guides to the politicization of a generation of young people in 1916 and after. Hart 2003 is the most innovative and traces the republican mind-set in the civil war to the spirit of 1916. The experience of republicans after the civil war can be examined through English 1994 and Horgan 1998, although Bowyer Bell 1972 also contains insights.
Augusteijn, Joost. From Public Defiance to Guerrilla Warfare: The Experience of Ordinary Volunteers in the Irish War of Independence, 1916–1921. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1996.
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Detailed study of why ordinary young men joined the IRA; forms a useful counterpart to Hart’s work.
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Bowyer Bell, John. “Societal Patterns and Lessons: The Irish Case.” In Civil Wars in the Twentieth Century. Edited by Robin D. S. Higham, 217–229. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1972.
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Written by an expert on the Provisional IRA of the Northern Ireland Troubles, stresses that the defeated ranks of the IRA after 1923 were normally well integrated into society afterward, even while they rejected the legitimacy of the new state.
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English, Richard. Radicals and the Republic: Socialist Republicanism in the Irish Free State 1925–1937. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
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Critical study of one important group, the republican left, who remained dissidents within the Free State into the 1930s and found it difficult to reconcile their radical views of the Republic with the social order that was then consolidating.
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Hart, Peter. The I.R.A. at War 1916–1923. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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Contains formidable quantitative research on the social backgrounds of IRA volunteers and the geography of political violence, as well as an attempt to define the period as a revolutionary one. Maps are especially important.
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Horgan, John. “Arms Dumps and the I.R.A. 1923–32.” History Today 48.2 (1998): 11–16.
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Short article, useful for general readers and undergraduates, which shows the importance in 1922–1923 of an issue that was to become crucial to the Northern Irish peace process, the decommissioning of IRA arms.
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McGarry, Fearghal. The Rising: Ireland, Easter 1916. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
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The most recent study uses interviews from the recently released Bureau of Military History, which interviewed former IRA volunteers in the 1940s, to explore the politicization of ordinary people.
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Michael Collins
There are more than a dozen biographies of Collins, and those listed here are the most important and perceptive. Collins’s own political writings are contained in Collins 2005 and reflect a mind, which shared the basic values of the Gaelic Revival. More generally, Coogan 1990, O’Connor 1979, and Hart 2005 provide sympathetic portraits, giving a “lost leader” perspective. Regan 2007 should be read as a corrective to the hero worship of Collins that set in with Neil Jordan’s Hollywood film Michael Collins.
Collins, Michael. A Path to Freedom. Sioux Falls, IA: Nuvision, 2005.
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A collection of articles written by Collins, which shows his strong Irish-Irelander sympathies. Should be read cautiously on political issues, since Collins tended to want to appear all things to all people.
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Coogan, Tim Pat. Michael Collins: A Biography. London: Hutchinson 1990.
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Popular classic that helped redeem Collins among republicans and argues that he remained essentially an IRB man committed to using force to reverse Irish partition long after the treaty was signed.
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Hart, Peter. Mick: The Real Michael Collins. London: Macmillan, 2005.
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Revisionist study, which is too determined to reveal a new Michael Collins to a young audience. Lacks a sense for the cultural milieu from which Collins came. For this see O’Connor 1979.
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O’Connor, Frank. The Big Fellow: Michael Collins and the Irish Revolution. Dublin: Poolbeg, 1979.
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Brilliantly insightful study of one famous Corkman by another who came to accept the pro-treaty position, even though he had fought as a young man on the antitreaty side. Very strong on the mainstream nationalist political culture that influenced Collins.
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Regan, John M. “Michael Collins, General Commander-in-Chief, as a Historiographical Problem.” History: The Journal of the Historical Society 92.307 (2007): 318–346.
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Shows the degree to which Collins was amassing a personal power base around the IRB at the time he died. In doing so, resurrects a debate about Collins’s instincts that the contemporary hero worship has forgotten.
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Eamon de Valera
There are also more than a dozen biographies of Eamon de Valera, and here some of those that deal with the civil war are presented. The issue of de Valera’s personal responsibility for the civil war is a perennial one. Its importance in the 1930s is stressed by Valiulis 1986. O’Neill and Pakenham 1970 come close to hero worship, but there are few studies as acerbic as Coogan 1993. Ferriter 2007 and Regan 2010 are better guides to the shifts in political culture that shaped popular perceptions of de Valera. After a period of revisionist hegemony, a reassessment is under way, but there is still no detailed study of de Valera’s role in the civil war, with Keogh 2003 and Kissane 2005 (see General Overviews) the best sources. Akenson 1971 assesses de Valera’s constitutional credentials more generally.
Akenson, Donald, H. “Was de Valera a Republican?” Review of Politics 33.2 (1971): 233–254.
DOI: 10.1017/S0034670500012250Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Denies de Valera to the republican tradition by identifying that tradition only with a fundamentalist physical-force tradition. Kissane 2002 (cited under The Aftermath of the Civil War), Kissane 2005 (under General Overviews) and Bowman 1982 (under The Partition of Ireland) are more nuanced.
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Coogan, Tim Pat. De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow. London: Hutchinson, 1993.
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Not so much a considered biography as a character assassination, although it contains new empirical information. Refers to de Valera as “Man of Power.”
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Ferriter, Diarmaid. Judging Dev: A Reassessment of the Life and Legacy of Eamon de Valera. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2007.
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Balanced reassessment. Considered so sympathetic to de Valera that a Fianna Fáil Minister of Education ordered two copies to be delivered to each secondary school.
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Keogh, Dermot. “Eamon de Valera and the Civil War in Ireland, 1922–23.” In De Valera’s Irelands. Edited by Gabriel Doherty and Dermot Keogh, 45–74. Cork: Mercier, 2003.
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One of the few studies of de Valera’s role in the civil war period, although less detailed than Kissane 2005 (under General Overviews).
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O’Neill, Thomas P., and Frank Pakenham. Eamon de Valera. London: Hutchinson, 1970.
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Close to being an official history, since it combines appreciation of de Valera’s achievements as a statesman with having access to his personal archive.
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Regan, John. M. “Public Histories as a Historiographical Problem.” Irish Historical Studies 37.146 (2010): 88–115.
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Assesses the increasing veneration of Michal Collins at the expense of de Valera in the context of changing attitudes to the partition issue in the Republic. Requires some knowledge of the politics of Irish academia to appreciate it.
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Valiulis, Maryann G. “‘The Man They Could Never Forgive’, the View of the Opposition: Eamon de Valera and the Civil War.” In De Valera and His Times. Edited by J. P. O’Carroll and J. A. Murphy, 92–100. Cork: Cork University Press, 1986.
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Valuable study of how de Valera was viewed by his civil war opponents when he came to power in 1932. A good insight on one aspect of what was known as “civil war politics.”
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The Cumann na Ngaedheal Administrations
Much of the literature on the first independent governments (1922–1932) is largely administrative history (see O’Halpin 2003), although Daniel 1976 on economics, Lee 1989 on mentalities, and Walker 1987 on propaganda are different. Curran 1980 was the first detailed and sympathetic study, while Regan 1999 has excellent chapters on the civil war, the 1932 changeover, and the Blueshirts. Meehan 2010, a sympathetic account of Cosgrave and his party, was published by the Royal Irish Academy and is an attractive volume with photographs. It is a good place to start for the general reader. Valiulis 1992 studies the life and career of one man within that elite, Richard Mulcahy, whom history tended to forget.
Curran, Joseph M. The Birth of the Irish Free State, 1921–1923. Mobile: University of Alabama Press, 1980.
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Thorough study, but more an administrative history than an analysis of the civil war. Identifies with the defense of democracy thesis.
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Daniel, T. K. “Griffith on his Noble Head: The Determinants of Cumann na nGaedheal Economic Policy, 1922–32.” Irish Economic and Social History 3 (1976): 55–65.
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Documents the about-turn on economic policy in favor of free trade after the civil war.
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Lee, Joe. Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
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As part of a broad and critical assessment of the performance of the independent state up to 1985, Lee singles out the first Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil governments for praise. Sees the early pro-treaty elite as uncommonly talented and perhaps typical of many revolutionary elites in that sense.
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Meehan, Ciara. The Cosgrave Party: A History of Cumann na nGaedheal 1923–33. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2010.
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Rescues William Cosgrave, who left no papers, from historical oblivion and is largely a sympathetic account. Good for undergraduates.
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O’Halpin, Eunan. “Politics and the State, 1922–32.” In A New History of Ireland. Vol. 7, Ireland, 1921–84. Edited by Jacqueline R. Hill, 86–125. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
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Strong on the pragmatic and gradualist approach to state building, in an era of tight centralized control and fiscal rectitude.
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Regan, John M. The Irish Counter-Revolution 1921–36: Treatyite Politics and Settlement in Independent Ireland. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 1999.
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Well-written study of the elite, which stresses the ruthlessness of the civilian elements within Sinn Féin during the civil war. Sees their victory as a counterrevolution carried out in the name of constitutional politics.
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Valiulis, Maryann Gialanella. Portrait of a Revolutionary: General Richard Mulcahy and the Founding of the Free State. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1992.
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Sympathetic study of the man who inherited military power after the death of Collins, but who, the author argues, shared Collin’s administrative ability.
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Walker, Graham. “Propaganda and Conservative Nationalism during the Irish Civil War 1922–23.” Éire-Ireland 22.4 (1987): 93–117.
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An early study of the propaganda efforts of the pro-treaty administrations, which focused on the material destruction caused by the antitreaty campaign. This propaganda seems to have succeeded, but there is no study as yet of the evolution of public opinion during the civil war.
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The Roots of Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil, which was formed after a split within Sinn Féin in 1926, went on to become the dominant party in Ireland. In the 1930s, the party used its mandate to revise the treaty settlement. Its roots in the antitreaty cause are documented by Ó Beacháin 2010, Pyne 1969, and Skinner 1946. The civil war elite would dominate the party until the 1960s. There is no comprehensive study, but Dunphy 1995 and Garvin 1978 focus on the class basis of the party’s early support and its alleged radicalism.
Dunphy, Richard. The Making of Fianna Fáil Power in Ireland 1921–1948. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198204749.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The first serious study of the rise of Fianna Fáil but too keen to fit the party into an essentially Marxist framework. Correct though in seeing the party as a cross-party alliance.
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Garvin, Tom. “The Destiny of the Soldiers: Tradition and Modernity in the Politics of de Valera’s Ireland.” Political Studies 36 (1978): 328–347.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1978.tb01297.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Colorful but idiosyncratic analysis of Fianna Fáil in the political science tradition, by someone not very sympathetic.
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Ó Beacháin, Donnacha. The Destiny of the Soldiers: Fianna Fáil, Irish Republicanism and the IRA 1926–1973. Dublin: Gill & MacMillan, 2010.
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Moralistic book, which discusses the tensions of a party with strong republican roots, but which nonetheless became a dominant party in a state often in conflict with radical republicanism.
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Pyne, Peter. “The Third Sinn Féin Party 1923–26.” Economic and Social Review 1 (1969): 29–50, 229–257.
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Detailed studies that emphasize the extent to which Fianna Fáil was the product of the failure of post–civil war Sinn Féin to achieve their objectives. Good on the underground state in making after 1923.
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Skinner, Liam. Politicians by Accident. Dublin: Metropolitan, 1946.
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Gives biographical details of the Fianna Fáil wartime cabinet, most of whom ended the civil war in prison or internment camps. By 1947 they had become respectable, as suggested by the stress of formal qualifications and family ties.
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The 1922 Constitution
The 1922 constitution was important in being the first test of Michael Collins’s “freedom to achieve freedom” approach to the treaty settlement. For a long time the documents of the drafting process were suppressed, but now a fuller picture of the drafting has emerged. Should the constitution be seen as essentially democratic or as a symbol of the Free State’s subordination to Britain? Townshend 1998 and Kissane 2011 (see The 1937 Constitution) focus on the issue of democracy, while Akenson and Fallon 1970, Farrell 1970, and Mohr 2008 provide accounts of the drafting process. Kohn 1932 is the only book-length study, but it says little about the drafting, which had been kept secret. The 1922 constitution was eventually rejected because of its ties to the treaty, and Prager 1986 sees some cultural tensions within the drafts.
Akenson, D. H., and J. F. Fallon. “The Irish Civil War and the Drafting of the Free State constitution.” Eire/Ireland 5.1 (1970): 10–26.
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Continued in Eire/Ireland 5.2 (1970): 42–93 and in Eire/Ireland 5.4 (1970): 28–70. An early study of the drafting process, which saw three drafts produced, this should be read alongside the more recent work of Mohr 2008 and Kissane 2011 (cited under The 1937 Constitution).
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Farrell, Brian. “The Drafting of the Irish Free State Constitution.” Irish Jurist 5 (1970): 115–343.
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Continued in Irish Jurist 6 (1971): 111–345. The work of one of Ireland’s first constitutional historians, but it should also be read alongside more recent work.
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Kohn, Leo. The Constitution of the Irish Free State. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1932.
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The major study of the Free State constitution, written by a legal scholar, who later helped draft Israel’s first potential constitution. Should be read with caution because the documents of the constitutional committee were kept secret at the time of its writing.
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Mohr, Thomas. “British Involvement in the Creation of the First Irish Constitution.” Dublin University Law Journal 30 (2008): 166–187.
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Brings out the extent to which the British government succeeding in vetoing many republican aspects of draft B of the 1922 constitution, including the ambition to phase out all titles of honor. Not that strong though on the importance of this issue for the civil war.
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Prager, Jeffrey. Building Democracy in Ireland. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511898273Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that there were divergent conceptions of the state within Sinn Féin, which influenced the constitutional drafts. Has been influential, but many feel this book was too ready too impose an interpretation on the documentary evidence.
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Townshend, Charles. “The Meaning of Irish Freedom: Constitutionalism in the Free State.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 8 (1998): 45–70.
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Well-written article, which sees a British concern with constitutionalism and personal liberty informing the Free State’s constitution and public appeal. Good contrast with Mohr 2008 and Kissane 2011 (cited under The 1937 Constitution).
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The 1937 Constitution
The 1937 constitution replaced that of 1922 and was thus an aspect of “civil war politics.” The argument that the civil war lies behind much of the new state’s constitutional history was first made by Grogan 1951. The prewar roots of the nationalist constitutional tradition, as expressed in both the 1922 drafts and the 1937 constitution, are explored by Kissane 2011, but evidence for this is also found in Keogh and McCarthy 2007, which is most authoritative on the religious content of Bunreacht ha hÉireann (the 1937 constitution).
Grogan, Vincent. “Irish Constitutional Development.” Studies 40.160 (1951): 385–398.
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Difficult to obtain, but a highly sophisticated summary of the state’s constitutional development by someone sympathetic to the antitreaty position.
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Keogh, Dermot, and Andrew McCarthy. The Making of the Irish Constitution 1937: Bunreacht na hÉireann. Cork: Mercier, 2007.
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Thorough account of the drafting process, and for researchers a useful volume since it contains many of the drafts that were produced between 1934 and 1937. It rejects the view that de Valera allowed the Catholic Church too much say in the drafting process.
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Kissane, Bill. New Beginnings: Constitutionalism and Democracy in Modern Ireland. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2011.
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Interrogating the concept of a constitution as “a new beginning,” examines the extent to which either constitution (1922 or 1937) realized the constitutional ideals of the independence movement. Rejects the view that the 1937 constitution was not important for reshaping institutions, but only for redefining the values of the political community.
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The Two Irelands
Because the experience of war, civil conflict, and the consolidation of state authority was common to both parts of Ireland that were formed in 1920–1923, some interesting comparative North-South studies have emerged. Fitzpatrick 1998 led the way with comparative essays on politics, which suggested the validity of such comparisons. Campbell 1994 and Jackson and McHardy 1984 are more specialized studies. This section also includes Lynch 2006, a study of the Northern IRA, since it is very much a cross-border study that shows the porous nature of the border in 1922–1923, and one piece by (Beiner 2007) on memory and commemoration, which exemplifies the potential of such comparisons.
Beiner, Guy. “Between Trauma and Triumphalism: The Easter Rising, the Somme, and the Crisis of Deep Meaning in Modern Ireland.” Journal of British History 46 (2007): 366–389.
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Not on the civil war, but a powerful study that shows the value of such comparisons.
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Campbell, Colm. Emergency Law in Ireland, 1918–1925. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
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Thorough but specialized legal analysis, which looks at Emergency Law in both parts of Ireland in this crucial period. For the specialist researcher.
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Fitzpatrick, David. The Two Irelands 1912–1939. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
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Innovative comparative study, dealing with the legacy of political violence in two states he sees as facing comparable challenges to their legitimacy in the early phases. Good as an introduction, but doesn’t dwell on why the Irish state overcame its founding divisions.
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Jackson, Harold, and Anne McHardy. The Two Irelands: The Problem of the Double Minority. 3d rev. ed. London: Minority Rights Group, 1984.
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A study of minority issues in both parts of Ireland, using the important concept of a double minority, which remains key to the Irish question. By now quite dated.
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Lynch, Robert. The Northern IRA and the Early Years of Partition, 1920–1922. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006.
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Formidably researched, this book argues that the Southern civil war cannot be understood without reference to events in Northern Ireland in 1920–1923 and vice versa. Critical of republican antipartitionism in this period and insightful on the role of Collins in this regard.
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Comparative Studies
Few people outside Ireland are aware that there was a Southern civil war distinct (to some extent, at least) from the War of Independence and the Northern Troubles. It has fallen to Irish experts to broaden perspectives, but so far no full-scale comparative study has been written, despite the fact that politicians in 1922–1923 frequently made such comparisons. Some Irish political scientists (Coakley 1987, Kissane 2004) have made comparisons with events in eastern and central Europe at the time, and younger historians (Eichenberg 2010) are also beginning to do so. Jorstad 1990 is skeptical about the comparability of the Irish case but is written at a level suitable for undergraduates.
Coakley, John. “Political Succession and Regime Change in New States in Inter-war Europe: Ireland, Finland, Czechoslovakia, and the Baltic Republics.” European Journal of Political Research 14 (1987): 187–207.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1986.tb00829.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
One of the few studies to systematically explore parallels with conflicts in the successor states of eastern Europe after 1918. Sees the civil war as a succession crisis and notes that external military intervention was key to the resolution of all these conflicts, including Ireland.
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Eichenberg, Julia. “The Dark Side of Independence: Paramilitary Violence in Ireland and Poland after the First World War.” Contemporary European History 19.3 (2010): 231–248.
DOI: 10.1017/S0960777310000147Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Stresses the parallels between postwar Poland and Ireland in terms of nationalist myths, paramilitary culture, and types of victims. Part of a general project that compares the effects of the legacy of World War I on paramilitarism in Europe.
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Jorstad, Jonas. “Nations Once Again: Ireland’s Civil War in European Context.” In Revolution? Ireland 1917–1923. Edited by David Fitzpatrick, 159–173. Dublin: Trinity History Workshop, 1990.
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Sees less strong parallels with events elsewhere in postwar Europe, but analysis is not that well informed; interesting more as an antidote to the other works in this section.
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Kissane, Bill. “Democratization, State Formation, and Civil War in Finland and Ireland: A Reflection on the Democratic Peace Hypothesis.” Comparative Political Studies 37.8 (2004): 969–986.
DOI: 10.1177/0010414004267983Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that the processes of polarization that led to the Finnish and Irish civil wars were similar, despite the strong class element in the Finnish civil war. A corrective to the view that the Finnish civil war came from below while the Irish civil war was the result of an elite split.
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Historiography
With present party political divisions in the Republic still rooted in the civil war, and with the ongoing Northern Ireland issue, there is a sense in which the civil war has not really ended. Truly scholarly historiographical work is recent, and works in this section (Augusteijn 2003, Kissane 2005, Regan 2007) are all by relatively young scholars. Apart from Foster 2006, all require some knowledge of the civil war and the current political context and are more suitable for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students. The place of the civil war within a larger revolution and the question of whether the Free State cause was that of democracy against dictatorship are the central issues.
Augusteijn, Joost. “Political Violence and Democracy: An Analysis of the Tensions within Irish Republican Strategy, 1914–2004.” Irish Political Studies 18.1 (2003): 1–27.
DOI: 10.1080/07907180312331293209Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Although not focused solely on the civil war, reflects on an issue essential to its interpretation, that of the relationship of republicanism to democracy. A corrective to the dominant approach of separating constitutional and republican nationalist traditions.
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Foster, Gavin. “In the Shadow of the Split: Writing the Irish Civil War.” Field Day Review 2 (2006): 295–305.
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Would serve as a very good introduction because it is one of the few literature reviews. Also reviews the “birth of democracy” thesis.
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Kissane, Bill. The Politics of the Irish Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273553.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The final chapter argues that much of the subsequent historiographical debate still rests on the MacArdle–O’Hegarty axis, and provides an analysis of the debate about democracy during and after the civil war.
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Regan, John M. “Southern Irish Nationalism as a Historiographical Problem.” Historical Journal 50.1 (March 2007): 197–223.
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X06005978Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Criticizes historians who place the issue of democracy at the heart of what the civil war was about for being “southern Irish nationalists,” constructing respectable constitutional origins for the independent state during the Northern Irish Troubles.
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The Civil War in Irish Literature
The War of Independence and the civil war form the background to much famous Irish literature in the 20th century, notably the poetry of W. B. Yeats (Yeats 1998). Some first-class literature was produced by people who were participants in the civil war, notably Frank O’Connor (O’Connor 1990, O’Connor 2005) who took the anti-treaty side, as did most intellectuals. An interesting aspect of the works cited in this section is how little the overall constitutional issue, Free State versus Republic, exercised the subjects of this literature, notably Francis Stuart (Stuart 1995), who saw the civil war as providing an opportunity for a personal rebellion in a restrictive society. O’Flaherty 2006 conveys well the atmosphere of the time, while Davenport 1971 is a work of literary criticism on this period.
Davenport, Gary T. Four Irish Writers in Time of Civil War: Liam O’ Flaherty, Frank O’ Connor, Sean O’ Faolain, and Elizabeth Bowen. PhD diss., University of South Carolina, 1971.
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An exercise in comparative literature of a kind. Available on microfilm in the National Library of Ireland.
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O’Connor, Frank. The Collected Stories of Frank O’Connor. London: Pan, 1990.
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O’Connor’s stories touch on most aspects of life in the new state, but those on the War of Independence and civil war stress how disorganized and at times farcical the experience was. Famous for observing that the Irish were play-acting at revolution and would eventually be shocked when faced with reality.
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O’Connor, Frank. An Only Child; and My Father’s Son: An Autobiography. London: Penguin, 2005.
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Autobiographical works, which focus on his growing up in Cork, his involvement in the independence movement, his time in an internment camp during the civil war, and the beginning of his literary career. O’Connor came to regret his embrace of the antitreaty position, and therefore this is a story about growing up politically, for which the Free State elite themselves argued.
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O’ Flaherty, Liam. The Informer. Dublin: Wolfhound, 2006.
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Atmospheric story about that bête noire of Irish republicanism, the informer.
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Stuart, Francis. Black List, Section H. Dublin: Lilliput, 1995.
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Written in autobiographical form, an interesting perspective on the civil war from someone who saw in it the opportunity to break with social conventions and national traditions. Remarkably free of any real political analysis.
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Yeats, William Butler. The Tower. London: Penguin, 1998.
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First published in 1928, this collection of poems represents Yeats’s increasing engagement with the political events that had transformed Ireland over the previous decades and contains some of his finest poems.
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