The Civil War in Dublin: The Fight for the Irish Capital, 1922-1924

by John Dorney

While the Irish Civil War first erupted in Dublin, playing out through the seizure and eventual recapture of the Four Courts, it quickly swept over the entire country. In The Civil War in Dublin, John Dorney extends his study of Dublin beyond the Four Courts surrender, delivering shocking revelations of calculated violence and splits within the pro-Treaty armed forces. Dorney's exacting research, using primary sources and newly available eyewitness testimonies from both sides of the conflict, provides insight into how the entire city of Dublin operated under conditions of disorder and bloodshed: how civilians and guerrilla fighters controlled the streets, how female insurgents operated alongside their male counterparts, how the patterns of IRA violence and National Army counter-insurgency alternated, and-for the first time-how the pro-Treaty 'Murder Gang' emerged from Michael Collins' IRA Intelligence Department, 'the Squad', with devastating and ruthless effect. The Civil War in Dublin brings the chaos of life in the city of Dublin to life through meticulous detail, and it reveals unsettling truths about the extreme actions taken by a burgeoning Irish Free State and its Anti-Treaty opponents. [Subject: Irish Studies, History, Military History, Dublin]

366 pages, Paperback

First published July 2, 2017

Reviews

[Sean Connolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for help with history class, while not something I would’ve read otherwise meaning it wasn’t very interesting to me, it did help me learn a lot more about the Civil War and give me a clearer idea of it. It was very detailed and really showed the true extent of the war and its brutality which I really liked. Needless to say it did what it needed to do.