Irish War of Independence facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Irish War of Independence |
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| Part of the Irish revolutionary period | |||||||||
 Monument to IRA fighters in Phibsborough, Dublin |
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Irish Republic |
 United Kingdom |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Military commanders:
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Military commanders:
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| Units involved | |||||||||
| Irish Republican Army |
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| Strength | |||||||||
| c. 15,000 IRA members | Total: c. 42,100
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 491 dead | 936 dead
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The Irish War of Independence was fought by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) against the British soldiers who were trying to keep Ireland under British control.
The war was fought between 1919 and July 1921, when the fighting was stopped while a peace treaty was worked out.
Contents
Origins of the conflict
Since the 1870s, Irish nationalists in the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) had been demanding Home Rule, or self-government, from Britain, while not ruling out eventual complete independence. Fringe organisations, such as Arthur Griffith's Sinn Féin, instead argued for some form of immediate Irish independence, but they were in a small minority.
The British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1914, known as the Home Rule Act, on 18 September 1914, but the Act's implementation was immediately postponed due to the outbreak of the First World War in the previous month. The majority of nationalists called to support Britain and the Allied war effort in Irish regiments of the New British Army, the intention being to ensure the commencement of Home Rule after the war. However, a significant minority of the Irish Volunteers opposed Ireland's involvement in the war. The Volunteer movement split, a majority leaving to form the National Volunteers under Redmond. The remaining Irish Volunteers, under Eoin MacNeill, held that they would maintain their organisation until Home Rule had been granted. Within this Volunteer movement, another faction, led by the separatist Irish Republican Brotherhood, began to prepare for a revolt against British rule in Ireland.
Easter Rising
The plan for revolt was realised in the Easter Rising of 1916, in which the Volunteers launched an insurrection whose aim was to end British rule. The insurgents issued the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, proclaiming Ireland's independence as a republic. The Rising, in which over four hundred people died, was almost exclusively confined to Dublin and was put down within a week, but the British response, executing the leaders of the insurrection and arresting thousands of nationalist activists, angered Irish people.
Course of the war
Many Irish people turned against British rule. Such Irish people were called Republicans. Republicans lived all over Ireland except in areas in Ulster where people called Unionists lived. The Unionists wanted to stay under control of the British Government. In Dublin, the political party Sinn Féin won most seats in the Irish Dáil. They set up the IRA (Irish Republican Army) to fight the British soldiers in Ireland. The British government hated the Dail. The British wanted to destroy the Dail.
In 1919, fighting started. By 1921, the IRA had beaten the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and Ireland had no police. In London, the British government began to row over Ireland. The war went on until 1922 when Irish Sinn Féin leaders and British MPs made a peace treaty. Besides six of the nine counties of Ulster where Unionists still lived (they were a majority of the population in four of those six counties while nationalists were a majority in the other two), Ireland was made its own country. The area where Ireland was its own independent country was called the Irish Free State and the area that stayed under British rule was called Northern Ireland.
Memorial
A memorial called the Garden of Remembrance was erected in Dublin in 1966, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising. The date of signing of the truce is commemorated by the National Day of Commemoration, when all those Irish men and women who fought in wars in specific armies (e.g., the Irish unit(s) fighting in the British Army in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme) are commemorated.
The last survivor of the conflict, Dan Keating (of the IRA), died in October 2007 at the age of 105.
Cultural depictions
Literature
- 1923 – The Shadow of a Gunman, play by Seán O'Casey
- 1929 – The Last September, novel by Elizabeth Bowen
- 1931 – Guests of the Nation, short story by Frank O'Connor
- 1970 – Troubles, novel by J. G. Farrell
- 1979 – The Old Jest, novel by Jennifer Johnston, winner of the Whitbread Award
- 1991 - "Amongst Women", novel by John McGahern
- 2010 – The Soldier's Song, novel by Alan Monaghan
Television and film
- 1926 – Irish Destiny, silent film
- 1929 – The Informer, part-talkie film
- 1934 – The Key, American Pre-Code film
- 1935 – The Informer, John Ford film
- 1936 – The Dawn, Irish film (also called Dawn Over Ireland)
- 1936 – Ourselves Alone, British film
- 1936 – Beloved Enemy, American drama film
- 1937 – The Plough and the Stars, John Ford film
- 1959 – Shake Hands with the Devil, feature film
- 1975 – Days of Hope, 1916: Joining Up
- 1988 – The Dawning, film, based on Jennifer Johnston's The Old Jest
- 1989 – The Shadow of Béalnabláth (1989) RTÉ TV Documentary by Colm Connolly about the life and death of Michael Collins.
- 1991 – The Treaty
- 1996 – Michael Collins, feature film
- 1999 – The Last September (film)
- 2001 – Rebel Heart, BBC miniseries. The theme music of the same name was composed by Sharon Corr.
- 2002 – An Deichniúr Dearmadta (The Forgotten Ten) a TG4 TV Documentary
- 2006 – The Wind That Shakes the Barley, feature film
- 2014 – A Nightingale Falling, film
- 2019 – Resistance, five-part RTÉ miniseries
Images for kids
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Result of the 1918 UK general election in Ireland
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RIC and British Army personnel near Limerick, c.1920
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West Connemara IRA flying column
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Police wanted poster for Dan Breen, one of those involved in the Soloheadbeg Ambush in 1919.
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Wall plaque in Great Denmark Street, Dublin where the Dublin IRA Active Service Unit was founded.
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A group of RIC officers in 1917
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Michael Collins
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A group of "Black and Tans" and Auxiliaries in Dublin, April 1921
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Aftermath of the burning of Cork by British forces
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A crowd gathers at the Mansion House in Dublin in the days before the truce
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Members of the Irish negotiation committee returning to Ireland in December 1921
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The funeral of Michael Collins St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, August 1922
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Catholic-owned businesses destroyed by loyalists in Lisburn, August 1920.
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Unionist leader James Craig.
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The Lord Lieutenant inspecting troops outside Belfast City Hall on the day Northern Ireland's parliament first met.
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A mural in Belfast depicting revenge killings by police in Belfast.
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Monument to IRA fighters in Phibsborough, Dublin
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Soldiers of a British cavalry regiment leaving Dublin in 1922
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Constance Markievicz was a member of the Irish Citizen Army and fought in the Easter Rising. In 1919 she was appointed Minister for Labour in the Government of the Irish Republic
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See also
In Spanish: Guerra de Independencia Irlandesa para niños
