[PatsytheNazi]

Originally Posted by Denerick

The war was fought on a regional/local basis. Its the only way the war can be understood and its the main reason there have been so few satisfactory narrative accounts of the war in total. The volunteers swore allegiance to the centre (ie, the Dáil) but only after much prevarication. I'd struggle to call the war of independence a national war. It relied for the most part on good local leaders. For example the only reason longford was a hotspot was because of Seán MacEoin - After his arrest Collins exclaimed that only Cork was left in the struggle.

I'd doubt very much if Micheal Collins ever said the above, and if he did he was talking a load of bollox. It's implying that only Longford and Cork were putting any real pressure on the Brits If you have the link to prove he said so, well post it. Thanks.

Dublin, Tipperary, Galway, Mayo and Clare off the top of my head were as active as Cork any day.

[CDfm]

Originally Posted by PatsytheNazi

I'd doubt very much if Micheal Collins ever said the above, and if he did he was talking a load of bollox. It's implying that only Longford and Cork were putting any real pressure on the Brits If you have the link to prove he said so, well post it. Thanks.

Dublin, Tipperary, Galway, Mayo and Clare off the top of my head were as active as Cork any day.

I imagine what it refers to is West Cork being the only region where the British did not have effective military control and in that sense it was the polar opposite of Derry for instance.

So it is concieveable that he expressed that point of view from a military perspective and I am sure I have read something similar. At the time of the Treaty he gave the Republicans around 2 weeks against any sustained British pressure -so he was occassionally prudent if not downright pessimistic.

[deise go deo]

Activity in different areas differed greatly, Take Waterford as an example. The West Waterford brigade was relativly active, but not as active as East Cork. East Waterford on the other hand was about as active as Llyod George's back garden.

Brigades were extreamily independant and rarely worked together on operations and friction could often be caused when a column from one brigade area strayed into another brigades area.

Iv heared that a slogan at the time was 'Labour must wait'
ie the labour qustion would only be looked at after freedom was achieved.
Never said how long the wait would be though

[PatsytheNazi]

Originally Posted by CDfm

I imagine what it refers to is West Cork being the only region where the British did not have effective military control and in that sense it was the polar opposite of Derry for instance.

So it is concieveable that he expressed that point of view from a military perspective and I am sure I have read something similar. At the time of the Treaty he gave the Republicans around 2 weeks against any sustained British pressure -so he was occassionally prudent if not downright pessimistic.

Collins quote about the alleged pressure and possible collapse of the IRA was stated after his signing of the Treaty and in Dublin. Probably just politicking, just trying to sell the Treaty. Should you read the writings of Tom Barry, Ernie O'Malley, Dan Breen etc, they all express the exact opposite. All three affirmed the IRA was growing in strength far from declining and expected the war to gather momentum in much greater strength.

[CDfm]

Originally Posted by PatsytheNazi

Collins quote about the alleged pressure and possible collapse of the IRA was stated after his signing of the Treaty and in Dublin. Probably just politicking, just trying to sell the Treaty. Should you read the writings of Tom Barry, Ernie O'Malley, Dan Breen etc, they all express the exact opposite. All three affirmed the IRA was growing in strength far from declining and expected the war to gather momentum in much greater strength.

I accept that.

But he was reflecting on its capacity to survive a sustained military campaign. He was facing the real possibilty of achieving his political objective and in military terms hadnt a snowballs of an actual military victory in the conventional sense.

[deise go deo]

I think thats a good point, anything i'v read from the field comanders suggests that they were suprised when the truce came, most believed that it would only last a week or two. George Lennon the west waterford column comander felt that just before the truce things had been going well and that the IRA had never been stronger.

I have even read some extracts from the the Chief of the imperial staff that said that he felt that if the British sident break the IRA in the summer of 21 then it would prove almoast impossible to do so.
Llyod George threatened instant and terrible war and to flood Ireland with troops. I think Collins feard that everything that had been achieved so far would be lost and felt that Freedom could still be achieved through the treaty and that it was therefore the safer bet.

However from what I have seen from the comander of the British forces writings it seams that it would have been very dificult for them to have deployed that many troops to Ireland concidering their world wide commitments.

Hmm I seamed to have wandered a bit off topic

[Denerick]

Originally Posted by PatsytheNazi

Collins quote about the alleged pressure and possible collapse of the IRA was stated after his signing of the Treaty and in Dublin. Probably just politicking, just trying to sell the Treaty. Should you read the writings of Tom Barry, Ernie O'Malley, Dan Breen etc, they all express the exact opposite. All three affirmed the IRA was growing in strength far from declining and expected the war to gather momentum in much greater strength.

I have read the memoirs of the above three and they suffered badly from selective memory disorder.

Tom Barry oversaw one of the strongest IRA units of the war while Dan Breen wasn't nearly as influential as he portrayed himself in his memoir. Besides, Seán MacEoin and Michael Brennan among others were arguing the case that the IRA couldn't survive a sustained assault from the British army, especially not 100,000 troops when they had 50 men per bullet across the country.

Michael Collins did say something like the above. He wasn't speaking literally, but it is a good example of how important local leaders were to a national struggle.

[Denerick]

Originally Posted by PatsytheNazi

I'd doubt very much if Micheal Collins ever said the above, and if he did he was talking a load of bollox. It's implying that only Longford and Cork were putting any real pressure on the Brits If you have the link to prove he said so, well post it. Thanks.

Dublin, Tipperary, Galway, Mayo and Clare off the top of my head were as active as Cork any day.

These two counties were almost non existant during the war.

[deise go deo]

Well fair enough The odds were bad alright but I think the figure I saw for the number of British troops in Ireland at the time of the truce was around 80,000 and at this time the IRA were stil able to function.

Its true the British had started to implement new tactics such as the deployment of their own columns and large area round ups but the war ended before the effictiveness of these could be seen.

As for the arms suition there was evedience that this would have improved if the war had continued as there was an arms shipment planned, in the event this was brought in dureing the truce.

[Denerick]

Originally Posted by deise go deo

Well fair enough The odds were bad alright but I think the figure I saw for the number of British troops in Ireland at the time of the truce was around 80,000 and at this time the IRA were stil able to function.

Now imagine those numbers were more than doubled. There is significant statistical evidence that suggests that while 1920 saw the most amount of succesful IRA engagements (ie, the IRA ended up killing somebody) 1921 saw the biggest amount of engagements without any casualties - ie, the number of manoeuvres increased without a concurrent increase in casualties inflicted.

What the IRA achieved was remarkable. (and there is good reason why Tom Barry's 'Guerrila Days in Ireland' is required reading at Westpoint) They maintained de facto control of large parts of Munster and were King at night time in many rural areas. They forced a retreat of the RIC from rural police outposts. They made it practically impossible for the British Empire to function in large parts of the country due to sabotage of telgraphs, post etc. The Dáil courts destroyed the fundamental power of the law and hence stripped British authority down to its marrow. But I highly doubt they could have continued for much longer. Certainly not to the same extent.

As for the arms suition there was evedience that this would have improved if the war had continued as there was an arms shipment planned, in the event this was brought in dureing the truce.

I don't know where you are getting this from. There was little over 3,000 rifles in Ireland at the time and as I have already said, 1 bullet per 50 volunteers (Which suggests that the vast majority of units had absolutely no ammunition - even the best armed, such as Tom Barry's, had only 40 or 50 rounds at any time) The IRA were far from being well armed and there is little evidence to suggest they were capable of a large scale arms import. By God, they did try though.

[deise go deo]

Several sources, Of course the arms issue was critical, I am not denying that. In tom barrys book he says that there was a meeting between the 1st sotherens brigade comanders. one of the tings discuessed was plans to import arms. This was carried out during the truce. In dunmore east as far as I can remember. I read about the actual event in Rebel hart by terence o'reilly about George Lennon.

Tom barry said that there was 50 rounds per man in the column which would add up to about 5000 for the west cork brigade.
I thing we can assume that most other brigades would have had less.

[CDfm]

Originally Posted by deise go deo

However from what I have seen from the comander of the British forces writings it seams that it would have been very dificult for them to have deployed that many troops to Ireland concidering their world wide commitments.

Hmm I seamed to have wandered a bit off topic

Wander away deise - I usually muse on things that do not make sense to me. It put things in context and gives us a feel for the period.

It also gives us an idea of the type of men we were dealing with.

I didnt know that Connolly lectured to the IVF and that his technique was not to mention Marxism.

One of the planks of Unionism at that time was economic ties with the empire and shipbuilding etc.

There does not seem to have been much thought going on into the economics of the free state.What were we talking about in terrms economic policy that may have aggravated unionists?

Were there any guarantees on private property etc given as part of the treaty.

The Unionists were unified.

[Denerick]

Originally Posted by CDfm

There does not seem to have been much thought going on into the economics of the free state.What were we talking about in terrms economic policy that may have aggravated unionists?

Were there any guarantees on private property etc given as part of the treaty.

The Unionists were unified.

Outside of the left, there was minimal economic understanding in Republican ranks. Pearse never really thought about economic policy and even our more adept minds (Like Arthur Griffith) believed that Ireland could be an industrial power and sustain 20 million people. he didn't really outline how. Its safe to say the young men involved in the revolutionary project didn't exactly have economics on mind.

Age itself is an important contrast. Whereas most members of the first Free State cabinet were under 40 most members (If not all) of the first Northern cabinet were over 40. Don't underestimate the relevance of this.

[deise go deo]

that was a hallmark of the time, think of the jarrow march, goverments dident really see that they had a big role to play in economics other than tarrifs and taxes.

[CDfm]

Originally Posted by deise go deo

that was a hallmark of the time, think of the jarrow march, goverments dident really see that they had a big role to play in economics other than tarrifs and taxes.

Aha,but the Northern Unionists did appreciate where the money came from and I imagine this bit is underestimated.

The Home Rule Party may also have been more business friendly as you were talking about a small agrarian economy with no natural resourses.