What motivated the anti-treaty ira to commit sectarian atrocities?

William F

Most sectarian atrocities were committed during the truce and the civil war and the anti treaty ira were responsible for all of them.

I think Dunmanway is the most obvious one but there are individual cases dotted around the country.

Why did they feel the need to do this? I read somewhere too that they blew u a commemorative stone at the Battle of the Boyne site during the Civil War.

There actions didn't seem very republican.

Jesus.

There has to be a distinction made between killing who they believed had been informers for the British and just killing people because of their religion. I'm not sure how much was one and how much was the other but there was definitely a sectarian element. A lot of big houses were needlessly destroyed at this point as well.

Manach

Of course the flip side of the question would be, why so few massacres? I'd know some Irish history but would be skilled up on overseas'. In the previous century alone the among of inter-sectarian blood lettings in Europe runs into the innumerable: motivated from everything from state sanction to personal grudges of the local leaders of armed forces. Here in Ireland while there were, euphamistically speaking, human rights violations these did not reach the norm for these types of civil statis.

DarkyHughes

Lots of reasons, ill-discipline, probably a lust for revenge for Loyalist attacks on Catholics in Belfast, some were genuine informers.

Michael O'Neill a local anti-treaty IRA commander was killed by Loyalists around the same area the day before the Dunmanway killings.

DarkyHughes

Manach wrote: »

Of course the flip side of the question would be, why so few massacres? I'd know some Irish history but would be skilled up on overseas'. In the previous century alone the among of inter-sectarian blood lettings in Europe runs into the innumerable: motivated from everything from state sanction to personal grudges of the local leaders of armed forces. Here in Ireland while there were, euphamistically speaking, human rights violations these did not reach the norm for these types of civil statis.

Good point. Compared to other conflcts during the 20th century Ireland got of lightly. Half a million killed in the Spanish Civil War, 2million Russian Civil war&other giant numbers killed inYugoslav wars, Korea, Vietnam etc....

I'd say a lot of it is down to the fact that alot of people taking part in Irish conflicts had little conventional military training & were only trained for hit & run guerrilla tactics. So if your moving all the time you have little time to round people up & shoot them which might explain why a lot of these sectarian attacks took place during a truce period might also explain why during the 1974 - 75 truce between the British & IRA why attacks on the security forces went way down but sectarian attacks went way up.

Jesus.

DarkyHughes wrote: »

Michael O'Neill a local anti-treaty IRA commander was killed by Loyalists around the same area the day before the Dunmanway killings.

Link please Sir

tomwaterford

Jesus. wrote: »

There has to be a distinction made between killing who they believed had been informers for the British and just killing people because of their religion. I'm not sure how much was one and how much was the other but there was definitely a sectarian element. A lot of big houses were needlessly destroyed at this point as well.

A lot was to do with settling up generational old sores aswell....it was a complex thing...to put it down as completely sectarian is really trying to shoehorn it in to fit an agenda