Battle of Dublin
Battle of Dublin | |||||||
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Part of the Irish Civil War | |||||||
The Four Courts ablaze during the battle, 30 June 1922 | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Anti-Treaty IRA Irish Citizen Army | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Michael Collins Paddy Daly Tom Ennis | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
200 troops in Four Courts, ~500 more in city | 4,000 troops | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
At least 15 killed Unknown number wounded Over 450 captured[1] |
At least 29 killed 150 wounded[1] | ||||||
At least 35 civilians killed, over 100 wounded[1] |
The Battle of Dublin was a week of
The Irish Citizen Army also became involved in the battle, having supported the anti-Treaty IRA in the O'Connell Street area. The fighting began with an assault by Provisional Government forces on the Four Courts building, and ended in a decisive victory for the Provisional Government.
Background
On 14 April 1922 about 200
Winston Churchill and the British cabinet had been applying pressure on the Provisional Government to dislodge the rebels in the Four Courts, as they considered their presence a violation of the Treaty. Such pressure fell heaviest on Michael Collins, President of the Provisional Government Cabinet and effective head of the regular National Army. Collins, a chief IRA strategist during the War of Independence from Britain, had resisted giving open battle to the anti-Treaty militants since they had first occupied Four Courts the preceding April. His colleagues in the Provisional Government Cabinet, including Arthur Griffith, agreed that Collins must mount decisive military action against them.[3][4][5]
In June 1922 the Provisional Government engaged in intense negotiations with the British Cabinet over a draft Constitution that sought to avert the impending civil war. They particularly sought to remove the requirement of an oath to the British Crown by all members of the Dublin government, a key point of contention with anti-Treaty partisans. However, the conservative British Cabinet refused to cooperate.[3][6] The pro-treaty element of Sinn Féin won the elections on 16 June.
Following the assassination of
Churchill offered a loan of British
No authoritative record exists regarding the order to commence bombardment—when it was issued, by whom, where, etc. Historians have tended to attribute the order to Collins, but some biographers[who?] dispute this. Anti-Treaty survivors alleged that they were preparing for an 8:00 a.m. evacuation when the bombardment began at 4:00 a.m.[4][5]
Assault on the Four Courts
Inside the building were 12 members of the Irish Republican Army Executive, including Chief-of-Staff Joe McKelvey, Director of Engineering Rory O'Connor, Quartermaster General Liam Mellows and Director of Operations Ernie O'Malley. The garrison consisted of roughly 180 men drawn from the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the IRA's 1st Dublin Brigade, commanded by Commandant Paddy O'Brien, armed for the most part only with small arms (rifles, five Thompson submachine guns and two Lewis light machine guns) apart from one captured armoured car, which they named "The Mutineer". The members of the IRA Army Executive were the political leaders of the garrison, but served as common soldiers under the command of O'Brien. The Anti-Treaty side fortified the Four Courts to some extent, planting mines around the complex and barricading the doors and windows, but their leadership ordered them not to fire first, in order to retain the moral high ground, and so the Free State troops were allowed to surround the Four Courts.[11]
After the first day's bombardment proved ineffective, the British gave the Free State two more 18-pounder cannon and proffered 60-pounder howitzers along with an offer to bomb the Four Courts from the air. Collins turned down the latter two offers because of the risk of causing heavy civilian casualties.[12] On the 29th, Free State troops stormed the eastern wing of the Four Courts, losing three killed and 14 wounded and taking 33 prisoners. The republicans' armoured car, "The Mutineer", was disabled and abandoned by its crew. Early the next day O'Brien was injured by shrapnel and O'Malley took over military command in the Four Courts. By this time the shelling had caused the Four Courts to catch fire. In addition, orders arrived from Oscar Traynor, the anti-treaty IRA commander in Dublin, for the Four Courts garrison to surrender, as he could not reach their position to help them. O'Malley ruled this order invalid, as the Four Courts was a GHQ operation.[13] However, in view of the rapidly deteriorating situation, at 3:30 p.m. on 30 June, O'Malley surrendered the Four Courts to Brig. Gen. Paddy Daly of the Free State's Dublin Guard unit. Three of the republican garrison had died in the siege.[14]
Public Record Office explosion
Several hours before the surrender, at either 11:30 or 2:15 the
At this stage in the battle troops on each side still had a sense of kinship with the other, as most of them had fought together in the
The destruction of irreplaceable historical record in the PRO explosion (and the 1921
O'Connell Street fighting
Despite the Free State force's success in taking the Four Courts, fighting continued in Dublin until 5 July. On the 29th anti-Treaty IRA units from the Dublin Brigade led by Oscar Traynor had occupied O'Connell Street, part of Parnell Square, York Street and some of other locations to try to distract Free State attention from their attack on the Four Courts. Not all the IRA units in the capital were prepared to fight against the new Irish government, however, and their numbers were probably about 500 throughout the city. Their numbers were supplemented by about 150 Citizen Army men and women who brought with them arms and ammunition dumped since the insurrection of Easter 1916.[20]
The republicans occupied the northeastern part of O'Connell St., with their strong point at "the block", a group of buildings that the Anti-Treatyites had connected by tunneling through the walls. They had also taken over the adjoining Gresham, Crown, Granville and Hammam hotels. Their only position on the western side of the street was in the YMCA building. Additionally, they had an outpost south of the Liffey at the Swan Pub on Aungier St. Oscar Traynor apparently hoped to receive reinforcements from the rest of the country, but only Anti-Treaty units in Belfast and Tipperary replied and both of them arrived too late to take part in the fighting.[11]
The Provisional Government troops, commanded by Gen. Tom Ennis, started by clearing out the outlying anti-treaty garrisons, which was accomplished by 1 July. They then drew a tighter cordon around O'Connell St. Artillery was used to drive the Anti-Treaty fighters out of positions on Parnell St. and Gardiner St., which gave the Free State troops a clear field of fire down O'Connell St.
The republican outpost in the YMCA was eliminated when Free State troops tunnelled underneath it and detonated a bomb. Traynor's men in "the block" held out until artillery was brought up, under the cover of armored cars, to bombard them at point-blank range.
Left behind was Republican leader Cathal Brugha and a rear guard of 15 men, who stayed behind in the Hammam Hotel after Traynor and most other IRA men had left. At 5:00 p.m. on 5 July, when the fires made the hotel untenable, Brugha ordered his men to surrender. He, however, stayed behind, only to emerge from the building alone, armed with a revolver. He was shot in the thigh by Free State troops and died later from blood loss. There were some further sporadic incidents of fighting around the city as Free State troops dispersed anti-treaty IRA groups.
Cathal Brugha was the last casualty in the battle for Dublin, which had cost the lives of at least 80 people (15 anti-Treaty IRA Volunteers, 29 National Army soldiers, one British Royal Air Force serviceman and 35 civilians) and over 280 wounded. In addition, the Free State took over 450 Republican prisoners.[1] The high civilian casualties were doubtless the result of the use of heavy weapons, especially artillery, in a densely populated urban area.[citation needed]
Aftermath
When the fighting in Dublin died down, the Free State government was left firmly in control of the Irish capital and the anti-treaty forces dispersed around the country. Round-ups after the fighting resulted in more Republican prisoners and the death of prominent anti-Treaty activist Harry Boland who was shot dead in Skerries, County Dublin on 31 July.
Oscar Traynor, Ernie O'Malley and the other anti-Treaty fighters who had escaped the fighting in Dublin regrouped in Blessington, around 30 km south-west of the city. An anti-Treaty IRA force from County Tipperary had arrived there but too late to participate in the Dublin fighting. Instead, this force headed south and took a string of towns, including Enniscorthy and Carlow, but quickly abandoned them when faced with superior Free State forces.[21] Most of the Republicans then retreated further south again to the so-called Munster Republic, territory south-west of a line running from Limerick to Waterford. This in turn was taken by the Free State in an offensive from July to August 1922.
Four of the Republican leaders captured in the Four Courts, Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows, Joe McKelvey and
See also
References
- ^ a b c d Dorney 2012.
- ^ Younger 1968, pp. 258–259.
- ^ a b Coogan 1990.
- ^ a b Feehan 1981.
- ^ a b Sigerson 2013.
- ^ British Cabinet proceedings 1922, Public Records Office, 1922
- ^ Neeson 1966, pp. 109–110.
- ^ Provisional Government Cabinet proceedings 1922, Dáil na hÉireann
- ^ Presenter: Mike Thomson (29 October 2012). "The British Gunner and the Irish Civil War". Document. BBC. Radio 4.
- ^ An Léigear 1922 / The Siege of 1922 (documentary). TG4 (Téiliflis na Gaeltachta). 2013.
- ^ a b c d Walsh 1998.
- ^ Hopkinson 2004, pp. 120–121.
- ^ O'Malley 1978, pp. 116.
- ^ "Remembering the past: The Four Courts attack". anphoblacht.com. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011.
- ^ "The Four Courts". Courts Service of Ireland. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
- ^ Healy, TM (1928). "46 (A Sunburst and Clouds; 1922)". Letters and Leaders of my Day (memoir).
- ^ Younger 1968, pp. 321, 326.
- ^ O'Malley 1978, pp. 125–27.
- ^ "Vision". Beyond 2022.
- ^ Gillis 2012, p. 57.
- ^ Dorney 2017, p. 106–109.
Sources
- Collins, M.E. (1993). Ireland 1868–1966. Dublin: Educational Company of Ireland. ISBN 978-0-86167-305-6.
- Coogan, Tim Pat (1990). Michael Collins: A Biography. Penguin Random House. ISBN 978-1-78475-326-9.
- Coogan, Tim Pat (1995). De Valera - Long Fellow, Long Shadow. Hutchinson. ISBN 978-0-09-175030-5.
- Dorney, John (19 June 2012). "Casualties of the Irish Civil War in Dublin". theirishstory.com.
- Dorney, John (2017). The Civil War in Dublin: The Fight for the Irish Capital, 1922–1924. Merrion Press. ISBN 978-1-78537-089-2.
- Feehan, John M (1981). The Shooting of Michael Collins: Murder or Accident?. Cork: Mercier. ISBN 978-0-946645-03-9.
- Gillis, Liz (2012). The Fall of Dublin. Mercier. ISBN 978-1-85635-680-0.
- Hopkinson, Michael (2004). Green against Green – the Irish Civil War. Gill & Macmillan Ltd. ISBN 978-0-7171-5819-5.
- ISBN 978-1-85371-013-1.
- ISBN 978-1-85635-885-9.
- Ryan, Meda (2012). The Real chief, Liam Lynch. Mercier Press. ISBN 978-1-85635-992-4.
- Sigerson, S M (2013). The Assassination of Michael Collins: What Happened at Béal na mBláth?. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1-4937-8471-4.
- Walsh, Paul V (1998). "The Irish Civil War 1922–23 -A Study of the Conventional Phase".
- Younger, Calton (1968). Ireland's Civil War. London: Muller. ISBN 978-0-8008-4240-6.