100 years ago today: how the Irish Civil War began with the shelling of the Four Courts

At a minute to midnight on June 27th, 1922, the two British artillery pieces were handed over to the National Army and taken from Marlborough (McKee) Barracks. The guns were placed either side of the two bridges that flanked the Four Courts on the opposite side of the river Liffey. It was midsummer and a soft rain was falling.

The tramp of army boots followed by the rumble of armoured cars woke many residents and drew them to their windows. Two military ambulances followed on behind. An Irish Times correspondent looking from his window surmised “dire events were toward in the Irish capital”.

At 3.40am on June 28th, Tom Ennis, the National Army commander, issued the Four Courts garrison with a warning to leave within 20 minutes. These anti-Treaty rebels had been occupying the centre of Irish justice from April 13th in defiance of the provisional government.

Ennis declared: “I, acting under orders of the government, hereby order you to evacuate the buildings of the Four Courts and to parade your men under arrest without arms on the portion of the quays immediately in front of the Four Courts by 4am. Failing compliance with this order the building will be taken by me, by force. You will be held responsible for any life lost.”

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No response came from inside the Four Courts. The provisional government cut the power to the building and the lights went out on any chance of a peaceful resolution of the standoff that emerged after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in December 1921.

At 4am the 18-pounder located at Winetavern Street fired its first shell. It crashed into the metre-thick walls of the Four Courts at near point-blank range. The kinetic energy of the shell and its impact smashed windows in shops in the vicinity of the Four Courts and roused the people of Dublin for miles around.

Though it was the middle of the night the incident was in the morning edition of The Irish Times. “This morning an armoured car and a motorcar were stationed outside the Four Courts, where about 80 men in civilian clothes were engaged with picks and shovels, apparently preparing trenches,” the unnamed reporter wrote (there was bylines 100 years ago).

“By four o’clock a bomb was heard in the direct of the courts and its reports were followed by fierce outbursts of machine gun and rifle. At short intervals more bomb explosions and more volleys were heard. The firing was still active at 4.30am.”

The trigger for the Civil War had been the assassination of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson MP on June 22nd by two IRA volunteers Reginald Dunne and Joe O’Sullivan. This precipitated an ultimatum from the British government to its provisional Irish counterpart.

The British government blamed the anti-Treaty rebels, wrongly as it turned out, for the assassination of Wilson, and told the provisional Irish government that if it did not deal with the Four Court rebels the British would do it for them.

This concentrated the minds of Michael Collins and the rest of the Irish cabinet as it turned out the anti-Treaty side gave them a casus belli that did not involve the Wilson shooting and the British government ultimatum.

Just before midnight on June 26th, the anti-Treaty side captured the Free State general Ginger J.J O’Connell in retaliation for the capture of an anti-Treaty officer Leo Henderson. As a consequence the provisional government issued a proclamation. “Outrages such as these against the nation and the government must cease at once and cease forever. For some months past all classes of business in Ireland have suffered severely through the feeling of insecurity engendered by reckless and wicked acts which have tarnished the reputation of Ireland abroad.”

O’Connell was from Ballina, Co Mayo, and served two years in the US army between 1912 and 1914 before returning to Ireland. He was made deputy chief-of-staff in the National Army in 1922.

According to documents recently discovered by UCC historian Dr Jérôme aan de Wiel, O’Connell made a series of trips to Paris in early 1922 to forge a military alliance with the French against Great Britain. In January and February 1922 he entered the offices of the Deuxième Bureau, the French military intelligence. He asked the French government to train Irish military officers. O’Connell added that this must be done in secret as he did not want to antagonise the British.

The French prime minister Raymond Poincaré was informed that the new Irish government wanted a “Franco-Irish alliance against England”.

A document from O’Connell stated that France and England, erstwhile allies in the first World War, would soon come into conflict over their respective colonial empires and Ireland could be a valuable ally to the French.

Dr ann de Wiel told a recent national conference on the Civil War in Cork that O’Connell had proposed that French air bases be located in Cork and Waterford, within flying distance of Great Britain. Ireland was to be the “left flank of the French forces in a war against England”.

Not only was this against the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Dr ann de Wiel stated, it was naïve to expect France to side with Ireland against Great Britain given how France and Britain had been allies in the first World War.

Nobody knows who sanctioned the O’Connell visit, he added, but the suspicion must fall on Michael Collins, who was the chairman of the provisional government.

Ronan McGreevy is the author of Great Hatred: The Assassination of Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson MP.