page_title: Irish Republican Army (1919–1922)
section_title: IRA campaign and organisation
hierarchical_section_title: Irish Republican Army (1919–1922) / Irish War of Independence / IRA campaign and organisation
caption_attribution_description: English: Sean Treacy Vice o/c Third Tipperary Brigade
context_page_description: The Irish Republican Army was an Irish republican revolutionary paramilitary organisation. The ancestor of many groups also known as the Irish Republican Army, and distinguished from them as the Old IRA, it was descended from the Irish Volunteers, an organisation established on 25 November 1913 that staged the Easter Rising in April 1916. In 1919, the Irish Republic that had been proclaimed during the Easter Rising was formally established by an elected assembly, and the Irish Volunteers were recognised by Dáil Éireann as its legitimate army. Thereafter, the IRA waged a guerrilla campaign against the British occupation of Ireland in the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence.
  Following the signing in 1921 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which ended the War of Independence, a split occurred within the IRA. Members who supported the treaty formed the nucleus of the Irish National Army. However, the majority of the IRA was opposed to the treaty. The anti-treaty IRA fought a civil war against the Free State Army in 1922–23, with the intention of creating a fully independent all-Ireland republic.
context_section_description: The IRA fought a guerrilla war against the Crown forces in Ireland from 1919 to July 1921. The most intense period of the war was from November 1920 onwards. The IRA campaign can broadly be split into three phases. The first, in 1919, involved the re-organisation of the Irish Volunteers as a guerrilla army and only sporadic attacks. Organisers such as Ernie O'Malley were sent around the country to set up viable guerrilla units. On paper, there were 100,000 or so Volunteers enrolled after the conscription crisis of 1918. However, only about 15,000 of these participated in the guerrilla war. In 1919, Collins, the IRA's Director of Intelligence, organised the "Squad"—an assassination unit based in Dublin which killed police involved in intelligence work (the Irish playwright Brendan Behan's father Stephen Behan was a member of the Squad). Typical of Collins's sardonic sense of humour, the Squad was often referred to as his "Twelve Apostles". In addition, there were some arms raids on RIC barracks. By the end of 1919, four Dublin Metropolitan Police and 11 RIC men had been killed. The RIC abandoned most of their smaller rural barracks in late 1919. Around 400 of these were burned in a co-ordinated IRA operation around the country in April 1920.
  The second phase of the IRA campaign, roughly from January to July 1920, involved attacks on the fortified police barracks located in the towns. Between January and June 1920, 16 of these were destroyed and 29 badly damaged. Several events of late 1920 greatly escalated the conflict. Firstly, the British declared martial law in parts of the country—allowing for internment and executions of IRA men. Secondly they deployed paramilitary forces, the Black and Tans and Auxiliary Division, and more British Army personnel into the country. Thus, the third phase of the war (roughly August 1920 – July 1921) involved the IRA taking on a greatly expanded British force, moving away from attacking well-defended barracks and instead using ambush tactics. To this end the IRA was re-organised into "flying columns"—permanent guerrilla units, usually about 20 strong, although sometimes larger. In rural areas, the flying columns usually had bases in remote mountainous areas.
  While most areas of the country saw some violence in 1919–1921, the brunt of the war was fought in Dublin and the southern province of Munster. In Munster, the IRA carried out a significant number of successful actions against British troops, for instance the ambushing and killing of 17 of 18 Auxiliaries by Tom Barry's column at Kilmicheal in West Cork in November 1920, or Liam Lynch's men killing 13 British soldiers near Millstreet early in the next year. At the Crossbarry Ambush in March 1921, 100 or so of Barry's men fought a sizeable engagement with a British column of 1,200, escaping from the British encircling manoeuvre. In Dublin, the "Squad" and elements of the IRA Dublin Brigade were amalgamated into the "Active Service Unit", under Oscar Traynor, which tried to carry out at least three attacks on British troops a day. Usually, these consisted of shooting or grenade attacks on British patrols. Outside Dublin and Munster, there were only isolated areas of intense activity. For instance, the County Longford IRA under Seán Mac Eoin carried out a number of well planned ambushes and successfully defended the village of Ballinalee against Black and Tan reprisals in a three-hour gun battle. In County Mayo, large-scale guerrilla action did not break out until spring 1921, when two British forces were ambushed at Carrowkennedy and Tourmakeady. Elsewhere, fighting was more sporadic and less intense.
  In Belfast, the war had a character all of its own. The city had a Protestant and unionist majority and IRA actions were responded to with reprisals against the Catholic population, including killings (such as the McMahon killings) and the burning of many homes – as on Belfast's Bloody Sunday. The IRA in Belfast and the north generally, although involved in protecting the Catholic community from loyalists and state forces, undertook an ar
caption: Sean Treacy circa 1919
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