Irish War of Independence facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Irish War of Independence
Monument to IRA fighters in Phibsborough, Dublin
Date 21 January 1919 – 11 July 1921 (2 years, 5 months, 2 weeks and 6 days) Location Ireland Territorial changes Partition of Ireland Creation of the Irish Free State

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.

It began because of the 1916 Easter Rising held in Dublin. The men who fought the British soldiers that day wanted Britain to move its army out of Ireland and for Ireland to be its own country.

These men were defeated and sixteen of the leaders were executed. This angered Irish people. 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.

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