A NATION DIVIDED
Revisionist historian Peter Cottrell explains how the conflict, and the subsequent civil war, can be explained as a struggle between two very different visions of an Irish nation
WAS THE RESULT OF THE WAR, AND THE EFFECTIVE BREAKUP THE UK WITH THE PARTITION, DUE TO BRITISH STRATEGIC BLUNDERS, OR AN EFFECTIVE IRISH MILITARY CAMPAIGN?
It is important to remember that until 1922, Ireland was an integral part of UK, which made British politicians extremely sensitive about any bad publicity resulting from security operations. That doesn’t mean that British security operations were ineffective – they were not. By 1922, the IRA’S intelligence network was thoroughly compromised and the IRA’S Chief of Staff, Richard Mulcahy, told the Dáil that the
IRA was incapable of defeating the British Army. That is why Michael Collins signed the Treaty, because the IRA couldn’t win.
DID BRITISH POLICY IN IRELAND, BOTH BEFORE AND AFTER THE WAR, MAKE THE ENSUING CIVIL WAR INEVITABLE? WHICH OTHER FACTORS HAD AN IMPACT?
In many respects the entire conflict from 1913-23 was a civil war, as it was fought by Irishmen on both sides with radically different views of how Ireland should be governed. By 1921 the reality was that the IRA was losing the war. Whilst the British were not winning, the treaty represented an acceptable compromise that allowed the violence to end. The treaty did not make civil war inevitable, the failure of a minority within the IRA to accept the result of the 1922 General Election did. Ironically, it also made a united Ireland even less appealing to Irish Unionists and opened divisions in Irish society that persist to this day.
WHAT EFFECT DID IRISH NATIONALISM HAVE BOTH ON THE PROGRESSION OF THE WAR, AND HOW IT HAS BEEN SUBSEQUENTLY REMEMBERED BY HISTORY?
Of course, Nationalism was a significant factor in the conflict, but it is important to draw a distinction between Nationalism and Republicanism. Nationalists fought on both sides. Over 200,000 Irishmen fought in WWI. The majority were Catholic, as were most Irish policemen, as were a significant number of the soldiers who put down the Easter Rising. Few of these men went on to join the IRA, but many did go on to join the British security forces and later the newly raised Irish National Army. These inconvenient truths were airbrushed out of the nationalist narrative because they fundamentally undermine the argument that the conflict was a straight forward struggle for liberation from an oppressive colonial power.
WHY IS THE ANGLO-IRISH WAR FAR LESS UNDERSTOOD OR REMEMBERED IN THE UK THAN IN IRELAND?
The conflict has been overshadowed by the much greater events of 1914-18 and whilst it may be better remembered in Ireland, it is a rather over-simplified version of events that has been perpetuated. I suspect that this is because neither side covered themselves in glory. The war consisted more of gunmen operating in the shadows than soldiers fighting pitched battles. From a British perspective the Troubles were a law and order issue as the army was much more focussed on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, where 200,000 troops were engaged in far bloodier counterinsurgencies. Ironically, despite more recent operations in both these areas, these conflicts have also largely been forgotten too.
MANY ARE OF THE OPINION THAT THE WAR SIGNALLED THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE – DO YOU AGREE WITH THIS?
While the stresses and strains of winning the Great War began the process, the Empire grew after the war. It was the Statute of Westminster (1931) that loosened control over the Dominions’ internal affairs as a reward for support during the Great War, rather than the Anglo-irish War, that began the process of unravelling the Empire. This process accelerated after WWII as a result of increasing pressure from the USA. During this period, Eire remained a Dominion within the Empire until it became a Republic in 1949 by the mutual consent of both the Irish and British governments.