The Irish Civil War
Former comrades fight over the Treaty; the pro-Treaty Free State wins, but the bitterness lasts generations.
- Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (1988)
- Irish Civil War Fatalities Project: Research Findings — Andy Bielenberg and John Dorney, University College Cork
- Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society — J. J. Lee, Cambridge University Press (1989)
After anti-Treaty IRA men occupied the Four Courts in Dublin, the Provisional Government under Collins, under British pressure, shelled them on 28 June 1922. The better-armed National Army soon took the cities and towns, and the war became a guerrilla struggle, worst in Munster.
- Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (1988)
- Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society — J. J. Lee, Cambridge University Press (1989)
- Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (1988)
- Collins, Michael — Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy
A recent systematic count by the Irish Civil War Fatalities Project found about 1,485 deaths, far fewer than the several thousand often claimed in older accounts.
- Irish Civil War Fatalities Project: Research Findings — Andy Bielenberg and John Dorney, University College Cork
The Treaty was approved by the Dáil and by voters in the June 1922 election; the government had to defend democracy against armed men who would not accept it.
- Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (1988)
- Ireland 1912–1985: Politics and Society — J. J. Lee, Cambridge University Press (1989)
The Treaty was signed under threat of "immediate and terrible war" and betrayed the Republic declared in 1916 and 1919; the Free State's executions of prisoners were a crime.
- Green Against Green: The Irish Civil War — Michael Hopkinson, Gill and Macmillan (1988)
- de Valera, Éamon — Dictionary of Irish Biography, Royal Irish Academy
Why it matters today
"Civil War politics" shaped the Republic for most of a century: Fine Gael descends from the pro-Treaty side and Fianna Fáil from the anti-Treaty side. Many families still know which side their grandparents took, and for decades the war was rarely talked about.