Anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army

Anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army
Óglaigh na hÉireann
Dates of operation	March 1922-December 1969
Split from	Irish Republican Army (original)
Split to	Official Irish Republican Army Provisional Irish Republican Army
Allegiance	Irish Republic
Ideology	Irish Republicanism Abstentionism Factions: Catholic Nationalism Socialism Communism
Political position	Big tent
Opponents	Irish Free State Republic of Ireland United Kingdom
Battles and wars	Irish Civil War S-Plan Northern Campaign Campaign of Resistance to British Occupation The Troubles
Organization(s)	Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin (political wing, sometimes)

The Anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army was an Irish Republican militant organization that existed from the split between the Pro-Treaty and Anti-Treaty IRA in 1922 to the split between the Provisional IRA and the Official IRA in 1969.

It participated in several armed campaigns against the United Kingdom and the collaborator Irish Free State and later Republic of Ireland.

History

The Anti-Treaty IRA split from the Irish Republican Army in March of 1922 after the Anglo-Irish Treaty was passed by the Dáil Éireann in a close vote. The split was within the Republican movement as a whole, with the political party Sinn Féin also fracturing and Republican women's organization Cumann na mBan and youth organization Fianna Éireann also siding with the Anti-Treaty forces.

In June a general election was held. The pro-treaty faction of Sinn Féin won, and quickly after the Anti-Treaty IRA occupied the Four Courts in Dublin. On June 28, 1922 the Pro-Treaty faction of the IRA, by then organized into the Army of the Irish Free State under British control, attacked the anti-treaty forces, beginning the Irish Civil War.

By the end of August the situation changed dramatically. Arthur Griffith, then president of the Dáil died of an illness on August 12, 1922, and 10 days later on the August 22 leader of the Free State military Michael Collins was killed in his home county Cork. This killing was blamed on Anti-Treaty assassins, but it is possible it was a ricocheted warning shot by his own guards that killed him. The same month the Anti-Treaty forces were forced out of the major cities, leading to a guerilla campaign in the West, particularly in Cork and Kerry.

Anti-Treaty IRA Chief of Staff Liam Lynch was killed in battle by Pro-Treaty forces on April 10, 1923. Shortly after this Frank Aiken, the new Chief of Staff, ordered the Anti-Treaty IRA to disarm and Anti-Treaty political leader Eamon de Valera affirming this desision on May 24, marking the end of the Civil War.

In 1926 Eamon de Valera and his supporters broke from Anti-Treaty Sinn Féin, affiliated with the Anti-Treaty IRA, over the issue of abstentionism. De Valera wished to participate in the elections within the Irish Free State, going against the long-standing practice of abstentionism in the Republican movement. This breakaway group became Fianna Fáil.

In 1927 Anti-Treaty IRA members assassinated Free State Minister for Justice Kevin O'Higgins leading to the passing of the Electoral Amendment Act, requiring all candidates in parliamentary elections to vow to take their seats if elected. This further marginalized the Anti-Treaty movement.

In 1936, with Eamon de Valera as President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, the IRA was banned, causing further decline in the organization.

In 1939 the Anti-Treaty IRA S-Plan began. It was a bombing campaign within Great Britain, targeting a variety of military and government buildings. This campaign was controversial within the IRA, with many prominent Republicans including Tom Barry resigning due to it. As part of this campaign the IRA raided the Magazine Fort in Phoenix Park, Dublin. This campaign led to the creation of the Offences Against the State Act and the Emergency Powers Act in the Irish Free State, creating courts to prosecute IRA members and allowing the internment and execution of them. The British government also increased its repression of IRA volunteers in the North. Many Republicans were interned during this period and nine were executed in the Free State and Northern Ireland. These nine in order of the date they were executed were:

• Peter Barnes and James McCormick, on February 7, 1940, for their roles in the Coventry Bombing, a planned attack on an electrical station where a bomb exploded prematurely in front of a shop instead as part of the S-Plan.
• Patrick McGrath and Thomas Harte, both executed on September 6, 1940 for the killing of two collaborator police officers.
• Richard Goss, executed on August 9, 1941 for shooting at government soldiers and police, though he was not charged with causing either of the two injuries to police and despite the fact none were killed.
• George Plant on March 5, 1942, who was executed for the killing of a suspected informant.
• Tom Williams, executed by hanging on September 2, 1942 in Northern Ireland for the killing of an RUC officer.
• Maurice O'Neill, executed on November 12, 1942. He was charged with 'shooting with intent' after a shootout at an IRA safehouse resulted in the death of a detective. Along with Goss, he is one of only two people executed for a crime other than murder in the Republic of Ireland.
• Chief of Staff of the IRA Charlie Kerins, hanged on December 1, 1944 for the killing of a collaborator detective.

In 1948 the Irish Free State became independent from the Commonwealth of Nations, creating the Republic of Ireland.

In December, 1956 the last major offensive by the Anti-Treaty IRA, The Campaign of Resistance to British Occupation, began. On January 1 of the next year 2 IRA volunteers, Sean South and Fergal O'Hanlon, were killed in an attempted attack on Brookeborough Barracks. Internment was reintroduced in response to the campaign, with revolutionary figures like Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Seamus Costello being imprisoned under these laws. The campaign ended in February 1962.

In 1966, after several years of growing tension due to the growing civil rights movement in Ireland, the Ulster Volunteer Force was founded. Its founding statement included a declaration of war against the IRA, with a vow to kill all members of it.

The Anti-Treaty IRA split on December 28, 1969. This split was over the issue of abstentionism, with the Official Irish Republican Army wishing to participate in elections, while the Provisional Irish Republican Army kept the old policy of abstentionism. This split marked the end of the Anti-Treaty IRA.

Ideology

The Anti-Treaty IRA was a broad organization throughout its history, encompassing most Anti-Treaty and Abstentionist Republicans committed to the armed struggle. However, most radical left and otherwise progressive elements such as the fledgling Communist Party of Ireland within the broader Republican movement aligned with the Anti-Treaty forces rather than the Free State, which was supported by, among others, Fascists like Eoin O'Duffy and the most reactionary elements within the Catholic Church and the bourgeoise in general.

Despite this, for a time during the 1940s, as Britain was fighting against Nazi Germany, some within the Irish Republican movement believed that the IRA should seek to collaborate with the Nazis against Britain. This mirrored IRA collaboration with the German Empire during the First World War, and was not done out of ideological similarity or sympathy, but rather out of the old Republican idea that "England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity". The Anti-Treaty IRA Chief of Staff who led many of these collaboration efforts, Seán Russell, even said:

"I am not a Nazi. I am not even pro-German. I am an Irishman fighting for the independence of Ireland. The British have been our enemies for hundreds of years. They are the enemy of Germany today. If it suits Germany to give us help to achieve independence, I am willing to accept it, but no more, and there must be no strings attached"

Despite this, today these ties are used by Anti-Republican and collaborationist figures to discredit the IRA as a form of Pinkwashing. In reality, those with actual Nazi sympathies included Éamon de Valera, the Prime Minister of the collaborator regime ruling Ireland at the time, Douglas Hyde, President of the same government, who both sent condolences to Nazi officials after Adolf Hitler's death, and Winston Churchill, who expressed similar Antisemitic beliefs to the Nazis and expressed admiration for their government.