A quark (/kwɔːrk, kwɑːrk/) is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental

constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons,

the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei.
[1] Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never found in
isolation; they can be found only within hadrons, which include baryons (such as
protons and neutrons) and mesons, or in quark–gluon plasmas.[2][3][nb 1] For this
reason, much of what is known about quarks has been drawn from observations of
hadrons.

Quarks have various intrinsic properties, including electric charge, mass, color
charge, and spin. They are the only elementary particles in the Standard Model of
particle physics to experience all four fundamental interactions, also known as
fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravitation, strong interaction, and weak
interaction), as well as the only known particles whose electric charges are not
integer multiples of the elementary charge.

There are six types, known as flavors, of quarks: up, down, strange, charm, bottom,
and top.[4] Up and down quarks have the lowest masses of all quarks. The heavier
quarks rapidly change into up and down quarks through a process of particle decay:
the transformation from a higher mass state to a lower mass state. Because of this,
up and down quarks are generally stable and the most common in the universe,
whereas strange, charm, bottom, and top quarks can only be produced in high energy
collisions (such as those involving cosmic rays and in particle accelerators). For
every quark flavor there is a corresponding type of antiparticle, known as an
antiquark, that differs from the quark only in that some of its properties (such as
the electric charge) have equal magnitude but opposite sign.

The quark model was independently proposed by physicists Murray Gell-Mann and
George Zweig in 1964.[5] Quarks were introduced as parts of an ordering scheme for
hadrons, and there was little evidence for their physical existence until deep
inelastic scattering experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in 1968.
[6][7] Accelerator experiments have provided evidence for all six flavors. The top
quark, first observed at Fermilab in 1995, was the last to be discovered.[5]

Classification
See also: Standard Model
A four-by-four table of particles. Columns are three generations of matter
(fermions) and one of forces (bosons). In the first three columns, two rows contain
quarks and two leptons. The top two rows' columns contain up (u) and down (d)
quarks, charm (c) and strange (s) quarks, top (t) and bottom (b) quarks, and photon
(γ) and gluon (g), respectively. The bottom two rows' columns contain electron
neutrino (ν sub e) and electron (e), muon neutrino (ν sub μ) and muon (μ), and tau
neutrino (ν sub τ) and tau (τ), and Z sup 0 and W sup ± weak force. Mass, charge,
and spin are listed for each particle.
Six of the particles in the Standard Model are quarks (shown in purple). Each of
the first three columns forms a generation of matter.
The Standard Model is the theoretical framework describing all the currently known
elementary particles. This model contains six flavors of quarks (

).[4] Antiparticles of quarks are called antiquarks, and are denoted by a bar over
the symbol for the corresponding quark, such as
for an up antiquark. As with antimatter in general, antiquarks have the same mass,
mean lifetime, and spin as their respective quarks, but the electric charge and
other charges have the opposite sign.[8]

Quarks are spin-1⁄2 particles, implying that they are fermions according to the
spin–statistics theorem. They are subject to the Pauli exclusion principle, which
states that no two identical fermions can simultaneously occupy the same quantum
state. This is in contrast to bosons (particles with integer spin), of which any
number can be in the same state.[9] Unlike leptons, quarks possess color charge,
which causes them to engage in the strong interaction. The resulting attraction
between different quarks causes the formation of composite particles known as
hadrons (see "Strong interaction and color charge" below).

The quarks that determine the quantum numbers of hadrons are called valence quarks;
apart from these, any hadron may contain an indefinite number of virtual "sea"
quarks, antiquarks, and gluons, which do not influence its quantum numbers.[10]
There are two families of hadrons: baryons, with three valence quarks, and mesons,
with a valence quark and an antiquark.[11] The most common baryons are the proton
and the neutron, the building blocks of the atomic nucleus.[12] A great number of
hadrons are known (see list of baryons and list of mesons), most of them
differentiated by their quark content and the properties these constituent quarks
confer. The existence of "exotic" hadrons with more valence quarks, such as
tetraquarks (

), was conjectured from the beginnings of the quark model[13] but not discovered
until the early 21st century.[14][15][16][17]

Elementary fermions are grouped into three generations, each comprising two leptons
and two quarks. The first generation includes up and down quarks, the second
strange and charm quarks, and the third bottom and top quarks. All searches for a
fourth generation of quarks and other elementary fermions have failed,[18][19] and
there is strong indirect evidence that no more than three generations exist.[nb 2]
[20][21][22] Particles in higher generations generally have greater mass and less
stability, causing them to decay into lower-generation particles by means of weak
interactions. Only first-generation (up and down) quarks occur commonly in nature.
Heavier quarks can only be created in high-energy collisions (such as in those
involving cosmic rays), and decay quickly; however, they are thought to have been
present during the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang, when the
universe was in an extremely hot and dense phase (the quark epoch). Studies of
heavier quarks are conducted in artificially created conditions, such as in
particle accelerators.[23]

Having electric charge, mass, color charge, and flavor, quarks are the only known
elementary particles that engage in all four fundamental interactions of
contemporary physics: electromagnetism, gravitation, strong interaction, and weak
interaction.[12] Gravitation is too weak to be relevant to individual particle
interactions except at extremes of energy (Planck energy) and distance scales
(Planck distance). However, since no successful quantum theory of gravity exists,
gravitation is not described by the Standard Model.

See the table of properties below for a more complete overview of the six quark
flavors' properties.

History

Murray Gell-Mann

George Zweig
The quark model was independently proposed by physicists Murray Gell-Mann[24] and
George Zweig[25][26] in 1964.[5] The proposal came shortly after Gell-Mann's 1961
formulation of a particle classification system known as the Eightfold Way – or, in
more technical terms, SU(3) flavor symmetry, streamlining its structure.[27]
Physicist Yuval Ne'eman had independently developed a scheme similar to the
Eightfold Way in the same year.[28][29] An early attempt at constituent
organization was available in the Sakata model.
At the time of the quark theory's inception, the "particle zoo" included, among
other particles, a multitude of hadrons. Gell-Mann and Zweig posited that they were
not elementary particles, but were instead composed of combinations of quarks and
antiquarks. Their model involved three flavors of quarks, up, down, and strange, to
which they ascribed properties such as spin and electric charge.[24][25][26] The
initial reaction of the physics community to the proposal was mixed. There was
particular contention about whether the quark was a physical entity or a mere
abstraction used to explain concepts that were not fully understood at the time.
[30]

In less than a year, extensions to the Gell-Mann–Zweig model were proposed. Sheldon
Lee Glashow and James Bjorken predicted the existence of a fourth flavor of quark,
which they called charm. The addition was proposed because it allowed for a better
description of the weak interaction (the mechanism that allows quarks to decay),
equalized the number of known quarks with the number of known leptons, and implied
a mass formula that correctly reproduced the masses of the known mesons.[31]

In 1968, deep inelastic scattering experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator

Center (SLAC) showed that the proton contained much smaller, point-like objects and
was therefore not an elementary particle.[6][7][32] Physicists were reluctant to
firmly identify these objects with quarks at the time, instead calling them
"partons" – a term coined by Richard Feynman.[33][34][35] The objects that were
observed at SLAC would later be identified as up and down quarks as the other
flavors were discovered.[36] Nevertheless, "parton" remains in use as a collective
term for the constituents of hadrons (quarks, antiquarks, and gluons).

Photo of bubble chamber tracks next to diagram of same tracks. A neutrino (unseen
in photo) enters from below and collides with a proton, producing a negatively
charged muon, three positively charged pions, and one negatively charged pion, as
well as a neutral lambda baryon (unseen in photograph). The lambda baryon then
decays into a proton and a negative pion, producing a "V" pattern.
Photograph of the event that led to the discovery of the
Σ++
c baryon, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1974
The strange quark's existence was indirectly validated by SLAC's scattering
experiments: not only was it a necessary component of Gell-Mann and Zweig's three-
quark model, but it provided an explanation for the kaon
) and pion hadrons discovered in cosmic rays in 1947.[37]

In a 1970 paper, Glashow, John Iliopoulos and Luciano Maiani presented the so-
called GIM mechanism to explain the experimental non-observation of flavor-changing
neutral currents. This theoretical model required the existence of the as-yet
undiscovered charm quark.[38][39] The number of supposed quark flavors grew to the
current six in 1973, when Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa noted that the
experimental observation of CP violation[nb 3][40] could be explained if there were
another pair of quarks.

Charm quarks were produced almost simultaneously by two teams in November 1974 (see
November Revolution) – one at SLAC under Burton Richter, and one at Brookhaven
National Laboratory under Samuel Ting. The charm quarks were observed bound with
charm antiquarks in mesons. The two parties had assigned the discovered meson two
different symbols, J and ψ; thus, it became formally known as the meson. The
discovery finally convinced the physics community of the quark model's validity.
[35]

In the following years a number of suggestions appeared for extending the quark
model to six quarks. Of these, the 1975 paper by Haim Harari[41] was the first to
coin the terms top and bottom for the additional quarks.[42]
In 1977, the bottom quark was observed by a team at Fermilab led by Leon Lederman.
[43][44] This was a strong indicator of the top quark's existence: without the top
quark, the bottom quark would have been without a partner. However, it was not
until 1995 that the top quark was finally observed, also by the CDF[45] and DØ[46]
teams at Fermilab.[5] It had a mass much larger than had been previously expected,
[47] almost as large as that of a gold atom.[48]

Etymology
For some time, Gell-Mann was undecided on an actual spelling for the term he
intended to coin, until he found the word quark in James Joyce's book Finnegans
Wake:[49]

– Three quarks for Muster Mark!

Sure he hasn't got much of a bark
And sure any he has it's all beside the mark.

The word quark itself is a Slavic borrowing in German and denotes a dairy product,
[50] but is also a colloquial term for "rubbish".[51][52] Gell-Mann went into
further detail regarding the name of the quark in his book The Quark and the
Jaguar:[53]

In 1963, when I assigned the name "quark" to the fundamental constituents of the
nucleon, I had the sound first, without the spelling, which could have been
"kwork". Then, in one of my occasional perusals of Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce,
I came across the word "quark" in the phrase "Three quarks for Muster Mark". Since
"quark" (meaning, for one thing, the cry of the gull) was clearly intended to rhyme
with "Mark", as well as "bark" and other such words, I had to find an excuse to
pronounce it as "kwork". But the book represents the dream of a publican named
Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker. Words in the text are typically drawn from several
sources at once, like the "portmanteau" words in Through the Looking-Glass. From
time to time, phrases occur in the book that are partially determined by calls for
drinks at the bar. I argued, therefore, that perhaps one of the multiple sources of
the cry "Three quarks for Muster Mark" might be "Three quarts for Mister Mark", in
which case the pronunciation "kwork" would not be totally unjustified. In any case,
the number three fitted perfectly the way quarks occur in nature.

Zweig preferred the name ace for the particle he had theorized, but Gell-Mann's
terminology came to prominence once the quark model had been commonly accepted.[54]

The quark flavors were given their names for several reasons. The up and down
quarks are named after the up and down components of isospin, which they carry.[55]
Strange quarks were given their name because they were discovered to be components
of the strange particles discovered in cosmic rays years before the quark model was
proposed; these particles were deemed "strange" because they had unusually long
lifetimes.[56] Glashow, who co-proposed charm quark with Bjorken, is quoted as
saying, "We called our construct the 'charmed quark', for we were fascinated and
pleased by the symmetry it brought to the subnuclear world."[57] The names "bottom"
and "top", coined by Harari, were chosen because they are "logical partners for up
and down quarks".[41][42][56] In the past, bottom and top quarks were sometimes
referred to as "beauty" and "truth" respectively,[nb 4] but these names have
somewhat fallen out of use.[61] While "truth" never did catch on, accelerator
complexes devoted to massive production of bottom quarks are sometimes called
"beauty factories".[62]

Properties
Electric charge
See also: Electric charge
Quarks have fractional electric charge values – either (−1⁄3) or (+2⁄3) times the
elementary charge (e), depending on flavor. Up, charm, and top quarks (collectively
referred to as up-type quarks) have a charge of +2⁄3 e, while down, strange, and
bottom quarks (down-type quarks) have −1⁄3 e. Antiquarks have the opposite charge
to their corresponding quarks; up-type antiquarks have charges of −2⁄3 e and down-
type antiquarks have charges of +1⁄3 e. Since the electric charge of a hadron is
the sum of the charges of the constituent quarks, all hadrons have integer charges:
the combination of three quarks (baryons), three antiquarks (antibaryons), or a
quark and an antiquark (mesons) always results in integer charges.[63] For example,
the hadron constituents of atomic nuclei, neutrons and protons, have charges of 0 e
and +1 e respectively; the neutron is composed of two down quarks and one up quark,
and the proton of two up quarks and one down quark.[12]

Spin
See also: Spin (physics)
Spin is an intrinsic property of elementary particles, and its direction is an
important degree of freedom. It is sometimes visualized as the rotation of an
object around its own axis (hence the name "spin"), though this notion is somewhat
misguided at subatomic scales because elementary particles are believed to be
point-like.[64]

Spin can be represented by a vector whose length is measured in units of the

reduced Planck constant ħ (pronounced "h bar"). For quarks, a measurement of the
spin vector component along any axis can only yield the values +ħ/2 or −ħ/2; for
this reason quarks are classified as spin-1⁄2 particles.[65] The component of spin
along a given axis – by convention the z axis – is often denoted by an up arrow ↑
for the value +1⁄2 and down arrow ↓ for the value −1⁄2, placed after the symbol for
flavor. For example, an up quark with a spin of +1⁄2 along the z axis is denoted by
u↑.[66]

Weak interaction
Main article: Weak interaction
A tree diagram consisting mostly of straight arrows. A down quark forks into an up
quark and a wavy-arrow W[superscript minus] boson, the latter forking into an
electron and reversed-arrow electron antineutrino.
Feynman diagram of beta decay with time flowing upwards. The CKM matrix (discussed
below) encodes the probability of this and other quark decays.
A quark of one flavor can transform into a quark of another flavor only through the
weak interaction, one of the four fundamental interactions in particle physics. By
absorbing or emitting a W boson, any up-type quark (up, charm, and top quarks) can
change into any down-type quark (down, strange, and bottom quarks) and vice versa.
This flavor transformation mechanism causes the radioactive process of beta decay,
in which a neutron (
(Beta decay, quark notation)
Both beta decay and the inverse process of inverse beta decay are routinely used in
medical applications such as positron emission tomography (PET) and in experiments
involving neutrino detection.

Three balls "u", "c", and "t" noted "up-type quarks" stand above three balls "d",
"s", "b" noted "down-type quark". The "u", "c", and "t" balls are vertically
aligned with the "d", "s", and b" balls respectively. Colored lines connect the
"up-type" and "down-type" quarks, with the darkness of the color indicating the
strength of the weak interaction between the two; The lines "d" to "u", "c" to "s",
and "t" to "b" are dark; The lines "c" to "d" and "s" to "u" are grayish; and the
lines "b" to "u", "b" to "c", "t" to "d", and "t" to "s" are almost white.
The strengths of the weak interactions between the six quarks. The "intensities" of
the lines are determined by the elements of the CKM matrix.
While the process of flavor transformation is the same for all quarks, each quark
has a preference to transform into the quark of its own generation. The relative
tendencies of all flavor transformations are described by a mathematical table,
called the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix (CKM matrix). Enforcing unitarity, the
approximate magnitudes of the entries of the CKM matrix are:[68]

{\displaystyle {\begin{bmatrix}|V_{\mathrm {ud} }|&|V_{\mathrm {us} }|&|V_{\mathrm

{ub} }|\\|V_{\mathrm {cd} }|&|V_{\mathrm {cs} }|&|V_{\mathrm {cb} }|\\|V_{\mathrm
{td} }|&|V_{\mathrm {ts} }|&|V_{\mathrm {tb} }|\end{bmatrix}}\approx
{\begin{bmatrix}0.974&0.225&0.003\\0.225&0.973&0.041\\0.009&0.040&0.999\end{bmatrix
}},}{\begin{bmatrix}|V_{\mathrm {ud} }|&|V_{\mathrm {us} }|&|V_{\mathrm {ub} }|\\|
V_{\mathrm {cd} }|&|V_{\mathrm {cs} }|&|V_{\mathrm {cb} }|\\|V_{\mathrm {td} }|&|
V_{\mathrm {ts} }|&|V_{\mathrm {tb} }|\end{bmatrix}}\approx
{\begin{bmatrix}0.974&0.225&0.003\\0.225&0.973&0.041\\0.009&0.040&0.999\end{bmatrix
}},
where Vij represents the tendency of a quark of flavor i to change into a quark of
flavor j (or vice versa).[nb 5]

There exists an equivalent weak interaction matrix for leptons (right side of the W
boson on the above beta decay diagram), called the Pontecorvo–Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata
matrix (PMNS matrix).[69] Together, the CKM and PMNS matrices describe all flavor
transformations, but the links between the two are not yet clear.[70]

Strong interaction and color charge

See also: Color charge and Strong interaction
A green and a magenta ("antigreen") arrow canceling out each other out white,
representing a meson; a red, a green, and a blue arrow canceling out to white,
representing a baryon; a yellow ("antiblue"), a magenta, and a cyan ("antired")
arrow canceling out to white, representing an antibaryon.
All types of hadrons have zero total color charge.

The pattern of strong charges for the three colors of quark, three antiquarks, and
eight gluons (with two of zero charge overlapping).
According to quantum chromodynamics (QCD), quarks possess a property called color
charge. There are three types of color charge, arbitrarily labeled blue, green, and
red.[nb 6] Each of them is complemented by an anticolor – antiblue, antigreen, and
antired. Every quark carries a color, while every antiquark carries an anticolor.
[71]

The system of attraction and repulsion between quarks charged with different
combinations of the three colors is called strong interaction, which is mediated by
force carrying particles known as gluons; this is discussed at length below. The
theory that describes strong interactions is called quantum chromodynamics (QCD). A
quark, which will have a single color value, can form a bound system with an
antiquark carrying the corresponding anticolor. The result of two attracting quarks
will be color neutrality: a quark with color charge ξ plus an antiquark with color
charge −ξ will result in a color charge of 0 (or "white" color) and the formation
of a meson. This is analogous to the additive color model in basic optics.
Similarly, the combination of three quarks, each with different color charges, or
three antiquarks, each with anticolor charges, will result in the same "white"
color charge and the formation of a baryon or antibaryon.[72]

In modern particle physics, gauge symmetries – a kind of symmetry group – relate

interactions between particles (see gauge theories). Color SU(3) (commonly
abbreviated to SU(3)c) is the gauge symmetry that relates the color charge in
quarks and is the defining symmetry for quantum chromodynamics.[73] Just as the
laws of physics are independent of which directions in space are designated x, y,
and z, and remain unchanged if the coordinate axes are rotated to a new
orientation, the physics of quantum chromodynamics is independent of which
directions in three-dimensional color space are identified as blue, red, and green.
SU(3)c color transformations correspond to "rotations" in color space (which,
mathematically speaking, is a complex space). Every quark flavor f, each with
subtypes fB, fG, fR corresponding to the quark colors,[74] forms a triplet: a
three-component quantum field that transforms under the fundamental representation
of SU(3)c.[75] The requirement that SU(3)c should be local – that is, that its
transformations be allowed to vary with space and time – determines the properties
of the strong interaction. In particular, it implies the existence of eight gluon
types to act as its force carriers.[73][76]

Mass

Current quark masses for all six flavors in comparison, as balls of proportional
volumes. Proton (gray) and electron (red) are shown in bottom left corner for scale
See also: Invariant mass
Two terms are used in referring to a quark's mass: current quark mass refers to the
mass of a quark by itself, while constituent quark mass refers to the current quark
mass plus the mass of the gluon particle field surrounding the quark.[77] These
masses typically have very different values. Most of a hadron's mass comes from the
gluons that bind the constituent quarks together, rather than from the quarks
themselves. While gluons are inherently massless, they possess energy – more
specifically, quantum chromodynamics binding energy (QCBE) – and it is this that
contributes so greatly to the overall mass of the hadron (see mass in special
relativity). For example, a proton has a mass of approximately 938 MeV/c2, of which
the rest mass of its three valence quarks only contributes about 9 MeV/c2; much of
the remainder can be attributed to the field energy of the gluons.[78][79] See
Chiral symmetry breaking. The Standard Model posits that elementary particles
derive their masses from the Higgs mechanism, which is associated to the Higgs
boson. It is hoped that further research into the reasons for the top quark's large
mass of ~173 GeV/c2, almost the mass of a gold atom,[78][80] might reveal more
about the origin of the mass of quarks and other elementary particles.[81]

Size
In QCD, quarks are considered to be point-like entities, with zero size. As of
2014, experimental evidence indicates they are no bigger than 10−4 times the size
of a proton, i.e. less than 10−19 metres.[82]

Table of properties
See also: Flavor (particle physics)
The following table summarizes the key properties of the six quarks. Flavor quantum
numbers (isospin (I3), charm (C), strangeness (S, not to be confused with spin),
topness (T), and bottomness (B′)) are assigned to certain quark flavors, and denote
qualities of quark-based systems and hadrons. The baryon number (B) is +1⁄3 for all
quarks, as baryons are made of three quarks. For antiquarks, the electric charge
(Q) and all flavor quantum numbers (B, I3, C, S, T, and B′) are of opposite sign.
Mass and total angular momentum (J; equal to spin for point particles) do not
change sign for the antiquarks.

b
J = total angular momentum, B = baryon number, Q = electric charge, I3 = isospin, C
= charm, S = strangeness, T = topness, B′ = bottomness.
* Notation such as 173210±510 ± 710 denotes two types of measurement uncertainty.
In the case of the top quark, the first uncertainty is statistical in nature, and
the second is systematic.
Interacting quarks
See also: Color confinement and Gluon
As described by quantum chromodynamics, the strong interaction between quarks is
mediated by gluons, massless vector gauge bosons. Each gluon carries one color
charge and one anticolor charge. In the standard framework of particle interactions
(part of a more general formulation known as perturbation theory), gluons are
constantly exchanged between quarks through a virtual emission and absorption
process. When a gluon is transferred between quarks, a color change occurs in both;
for example, if a red quark emits a red–antigreen gluon, it becomes green, and if a
green quark absorbs a red–antigreen gluon, it becomes red. Therefore, while each
quark's color constantly changes, their strong interaction is preserved.[83][84]
[85]

Since gluons carry color charge, they themselves are able to emit and absorb other
gluons. This causes asymptotic freedom: as quarks come closer to each other, the
chromodynamic binding force between them weakens.[86] Conversely, as the distance
between quarks increases, the binding force strengthens. The color field becomes
stressed, much as an elastic band is stressed when stretched, and more gluons of
appropriate color are spontaneously created to strengthen the field. Above a
certain energy threshold, pairs of quarks and antiquarks are created. These pairs
bind with the quarks being separated, causing new hadrons to form. This phenomenon
is known as color confinement: quarks never appear in isolation.[87][88] This
process of hadronization occurs before quarks, formed in a high energy collision,
are able to interact in any other way. The only exception is the top quark, which
may decay before it hadronizes.[89]

Sea quarks
q
s). Sea quarks form when a gluon of the hadron's color field splits; this process
also works in reverse in that the annihilation of two sea quarks produces a gluon.
The result is a constant flux of gluon splits and creations colloquially known as
"the sea".[90] Sea quarks are much less stable than their valence counterparts, and
they typically annihilate each other within the interior of the hadron. Despite
this, sea quarks can hadronize into baryonic or mesonic particles under certain
circumstances.[91]

Other phases of quark matter

Main article: QCD matter
Quark–gluon plasma exists at very high temperatures; the hadronic phase exists at
lower temperatures and baryonic densities, in particular nuclear matter for
relatively low temperatures and intermediate densities; color superconductivity
exists at sufficiently low temperatures and high densities.
A qualitative rendering of the phase diagram of quark matter. The precise details
of the diagram are the subject of ongoing research.[92][93]
Under sufficiently extreme conditions, quarks may become "deconfined" out of bound
states and propagate as thermalized "free" excitations in the larger medium. In the
course of asymptotic freedom, the strong interaction becomes weaker at increasing
temperatures. Eventually, color confinement would be effectively lost in an
extremely hot plasma of freely moving quarks and gluons. This theoretical phase of
matter is called quark–gluon plasma.[94]

The exact conditions needed to give rise to this state are unknown and have been
the subject of a great deal of speculation and experimentation. An estimate puts
the needed temperature at (1.90±0.02)×1012 kelvin.[95] While a state of entirely
free quarks and gluons has never been achieved (despite numerous attempts by CERN
in the 1980s and 1990s),[96] recent experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion
Collider have yielded evidence for liquid-like quark matter exhibiting "nearly
perfect" fluid motion.[97]

The quark–gluon plasma would be characterized by a great increase in the number of

heavier quark pairs in relation to the number of up and down quark pairs. It is
believed that in the period prior to 10−6 seconds after the Big Bang (the quark
epoch), the universe was filled with quark–gluon plasma, as the temperature was too
high for hadrons to be stable.[98]

Given sufficiently high baryon densities and relatively low temperatures – possibly
comparable to those found in neutron stars – quark matter is expected to degenerate
into a Fermi liquid of weakly interacting quarks. This liquid would be
characterized by a condensation of colored quark Cooper pairs, thereby breaking the
local SU(3)c symmetry. Because quark Cooper pairs harbor color charge, such a phase
of quark matter would be color superconductive; that is, color charge would be able
to pass through it with no resistance.[99]

The Irish War of Independence (Irish: Cogadh na Saoirse)[4] or Anglo-Irish War was
a guerrilla war fought in Ireland from 1919 to 1921 between the Irish Republican
Army (IRA, the army of the Irish Republic) and British forces: the British Army,
along with the quasi-military Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and its paramilitary
forces the Auxiliaries and Ulster Special Constabulary (USC). It was an escalation
of the Irish revolutionary period into warfare.

In April 1916, Irish republicans launched the Easter Rising against British rule
and proclaimed an Irish Republic. Although it was crushed after a week of fighting,
the Easter Rising and the British response led to greater popular support for Irish
independence. In the December 1918 election, the republican party Sinn Féin won a
landslide victory in Ireland. On 21 January 1919 they formed a breakaway government
(Dáil Éireann) and declared Irish independence. That day, two RIC officers were
shot dead in the Soloheadbeg ambush by IRA volunteers acting on their own
initiative. The conflict developed gradually. For much of 1919, IRA activity
involved capturing weaponry and freeing republican prisoners, while the Dáil set
about building a state. In September, the British government outlawed the Dáil and
Sinn Féin and the conflict intensified. The IRA began ambushing RIC and British
Army patrols, attacking their barracks and forcing isolated barracks to be
abandoned. The British government bolstered the RIC with recruits from Britain—the
Black and Tans and Auxiliaries—who became notorious for ill-discipline and reprisal
attacks on civilians,[5] some of which were authorised by the British government.
[6] Thus the conflict is sometimes called the Black and Tan War.[7][8][9] The
conflict also involved civil disobedience, notably the refusal of Irish railwaymen
to transport British forces or military supplies.

In mid-1920, republicans won control of most county councils, and British authority
collapsed in most of the south and west, forcing the British government to
introduce emergency powers. About 300 people had been killed by late 1920, but the
conflict escalated in November. On Bloody Sunday in Dublin, 21 November 1920,
fourteen British intelligence operatives were assassinated in the morning; then in
the afternoon the RIC opened fire on a crowd at a Gaelic football match, killing
fourteen civilians and wounding sixty-five. A week later, seventeen Auxiliaries
were killed by the IRA in the Kilmichael Ambush in County Cork. The British
government declared martial law in much of southern Ireland. The centre of Cork
city was burnt out by British forces in December 1920. Violence continued to
escalate over the next seven months, when 1,000 people were killed and 4,500
republicans were interned. Much of the fighting took place in Munster (particularly
County Cork), Dublin and Belfast, which together saw over 75 percent of the
conflict deaths.[10]

The conflict in north-east Ulster had a sectarian aspect. While the Catholic
minority there mostly backed Irish independence, the Protestant majority were
mostly unionist/loyalist. A Special Constabulary was formed, made up mostly of
Protestants, and loyalist paramilitaries were active. They attacked Catholics in
reprisal for IRA actions, and in Belfast a sectarian conflict raged in which almost
500 were killed, most of them Catholics.[11]

In May 1921, Ireland was partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland
Act, which created Northern Ireland. Both sides agreed to a ceasefire (or 'truce')
on 11 July 1921. The post-ceasefire talks led to the signing of the Anglo-Irish
Treaty on 6 December 1921. This ended British rule in most of Ireland and, after a
ten-month transitional period overseen by a provisional government, the Irish Free
State was created as a self-governing Dominion on 6 December 1922. Northern Ireland
remained within the United Kingdom. After the ceasefire, violence in Belfast and
fighting in border areas of Northern Ireland continued, and the IRA launched a
failed Northern offensive in May 1922. In June 1922, disagreement among republicans
over the Anglo-Irish Treaty led to the eleven-month Irish Civil War. The Irish Free
State awarded 62,868 medals for service during the War of Independence, of which
15,224 were issued to IRA fighters of the flying columns.[12]

Since the 1870s, Irish nationalists in the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) had been
demanding Home Rule, or self-government, from Britain. Fringe organisations, such
as Arthur Griffith's Sinn Féin, instead argued for some form of Irish independence,
but they were in a small minority.[13]

The demand for Home Rule was eventually granted by the British Government in
1912[14], immediately prompting a prolonged crisis within the United Kingdom as
Ulster unionists formed an armed organisation – the Ulster Volunteers (UVF) – to
resist this measure of devolution, at least in territory they could control. In
turn, nationalists formed their own paramilitary organisation, the Irish
Volunteers.[15]

The British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1914, known as the Home
Rule Act, on 18 September 1914 with an amending Bill for the partition of Ireland
introduced by Ulster Unionist MPs, but the Act's implementation was immediately
postponed by the Suspensory Act 1914 due to the outbreak of the First World War in
the previous month.[16] The majority of nationalists followed their IPP leaders and
John Redmond's call to support Britain and the Allied war effort in Irish regiments
of the New British Army, the intention being to ensure the commencement of Home
Rule after the war.[17] However, a significant minority of the Irish Volunteers
opposed Ireland's involvement in the war. The Volunteer movement split, a majority
leaving to form the National Volunteers under Redmond. The remaining Irish
Volunteers, under Eoin MacNeill, held that they would maintain their organisation
until Home Rule had been granted. Within this Volunteer movement, another faction,
led by the separatist Irish Republican Brotherhood, began to prepare for a revolt
against British rule in Ireland.[18]

Easter Rising
Main article: Easter Rising
The plan for revolt was realised in the Easter Rising of 1916, in which the
Volunteers launched an insurrection whose aim was to end British rule. The
insurgents issued the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, proclaiming Ireland's
independence as a republic.[19] The Rising, in which over four hundred people
died[20], was almost exclusively confined to Dublin and was put down within a week,
but the British response, executing the leaders of the insurrection and arresting
thousands of nationalist activists, galvanised support for the separatist Sinn
Féin[21] – the party which the republicans first adopted and then took over as well
as followers from Countess Markievicz, the female lead of the Easter Rising.[22] By
now, support for the British war effort was waning, and Irish public opinion was
shocked and outraged by some of the actions committed by British troops,
particularly the murder of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington and the imposition of wartime
martial law.[23]

First Dáil
Main article: First Dáil

Result of the 1918 UK general election in Ireland

In April 1918, the British Cabinet, in the face of the crisis caused by the German
Spring Offensive, attempted with a dual policy to simultaneously link the enactment
of conscription into Ireland with the implementation of Home Rule, as outlined in
the report of the Irish Convention of 8 April 1918. This further alienated Irish
nationalists and produced mass demonstrations during the Conscription Crisis of
1918.[24] In the 1918 general election Irish voters showed their disapproval of
British policy by giving Sinn Féin 70% (73 seats out of 105,) of Irish seats, 25 of
these uncontested.[25][26] Sinn Féin won 91% of the seats outside of Ulster on
46.9% of votes cast but was in a minority in Ulster, where unionists were in a
majority. Sinn Féin pledged not to sit in the UK Parliament at Westminster, but
rather to set up an Irish Parliament.[27] This parliament, known as the First Dáil,
and its ministry, called the Aireacht, consisting only of Sinn Féin members, met at
the Mansion House on 21 January 1919. The Dáil reaffirmed the 1916 Proclamation
with the Irish Declaration of Independence,[28] and issued a Message to the Free
Nations of the World, which stated that there was an "existing state of war,
between Ireland and England". The Irish Volunteers were reconstituted as the "Irish
Republican Army" or IRA.[29] The IRA was perceived by some members of Dáil Éireann
to have a mandate to wage war on the British Dublin Castle administration.

Forces
British

RIC and British Army personnel near Limerick, c.1920

The heart of British power in Ireland was the Dublin Castle administration, often
known to the Irish as "the Castle".[30] The head of the Castle administration was
the Lord Lieutenant, to whom a Chief Secretary was responsible, leading—in the
words of the British historian Peter Cottrell—to an "administration renowned for
its incompetence and inefficiency".[30] Ireland was divided into three military
districts. During the course of the war, two British divisions, the 5th and the
6th, were based in Ireland with their respective headquarters in the Curragh and
Cork.[30] By July 1921 there were 50,000 British troops based in Ireland; by
contrast there were 14,000 soldiers in metropolitan Britain.[31] The two main
police forces in Ireland were the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) and the Dublin
Metropolitan Police.[32] Of the 17,000 policemen in Ireland, 513 were killed by the
IRA between 1919–21 while 682 were wounded.[32] Of the RIC's senior officers, 60%
were Irish Protestants and rest Catholic while 70% of the rank and file of the RIC
were Irish Catholic with the rest Protestant.[32] The RIC was trained for police
work, not war, and was woefully ill-prepared to take on counter-insurgency duties.
[33] Until March 1920, London regarded the unrest in Ireland as primarily an issue
for the police and did not regard it as a war.[34] The purpose of the Army was to
back up the police. During the course of the war, about a quarter of Ireland was
put under martial law, mostly in Munster; in the rest of the country British
authority was not deemed sufficiently threatened to warrant it.[31] During the
course of the war, the British created two paramilitary police forces to supplement
the work of the RIC, recruited mostly from World War I veterans, namely the
Temporary Constables (better known as the "Black and Tans") and the Temporary
Cadets or Auxiliary Division (known as the "Auxies").[35]

Irish republican
On 25 November 1913, the Irish Volunteers were formed by Eoin MacNeill in response
to the paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force that had been founded earlier in the
year to fight against Home Rule.[36] Also in 1913, the Irish Citizen Army was
founded by the trade unionists and socialists James Larkin and James Connolly
following a series of violent incidents between trade unionists and the Dublin
police in the Dublin lock-out.[37] In June 1914, Nationalist leader John Redmond
forced the Volunteers to give his nominees a majority on the ruling committee.
When, in September 1914, Redmond encouraged the Volunteers to enlist in the British
Army, a faction led by Eoin MacNeill broke with the Redmondites, who became known
as the National Volunteers, rather than fight for Britain in the war.[37] Many of
the National Volunteers did enlist, and the majority of the men in the 16th (Irish)
Division of the British Army had formerly served in the National Volunteers.[38]
The Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army launched the Easter Rising against
British rule in 1916, when an Irish Republic was proclaimed. Thereafter they became
known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Between 1919 and 1921 the IRA claimed to
have a total strength of 70,000, but only about 3,000 were actively engaged in
fighting against the Crown.[39] The IRA distrusted those Irishmen who had fought in
the British Army during the First World War, but there were a number of exceptions
such as Emmet Dalton, Tom Barry and Martin Doyle.[39] The basic structure of the
IRA was the "flying column" which could number between 20 and 100 men.[39] Finally,
Michael Collins created the "Squad"—gunmen responsible to himself who were assigned
special duties such as the assassination of policemen and suspected informers
within the IRA.[39]

Course of the war

Further information: Timeline of the Irish War of Independence
Pre-war violence
The years between the Easter Rising of 1916 and the beginning of the War of
Independence in 1919 were not bloodless. Thomas Ashe, one of the Volunteer leaders
imprisoned for his role in the 1916 rebellion, died on hunger strike, after
attempted force-feeding in 1917. In 1918, during disturbances arising out of the
anti-conscription campaign, six civilians died in confrontations with the police
and British Army and over 1,000 were arrested. Armistice Day was marked by severe
rioting in Dublin, which left over 100 British soldiers injured.[40] There were
also raids for arms by the Volunteers,[41] at least one shooting of a Royal Irish
Constabulary (RIC) policeman and the burning of an RIC barracks in Kerry.[42] In
County Cork, four rifles were seized from the Eyeries barracks in March 1918 and
men from the barracks were beaten that August.[43] In early July 1918, Volunteers
ambushed two RIC men who had been stationed to stop a feis being held on the road
between Ballingeary and Ballyvourney in the first armed attack on the RIC since the
Easter Rising – one was shot in the neck, the other beaten, and police carbines and
ammunition were seized.[43][44][45] Patrols in Bantry and Ballyvourney were badly
beaten in September and October. The attacks brought a British military presence
from the summer of 1918, which only briefly quelled the violence, and an increase
in police raids.[43] However, there was as yet no co-ordinated armed campaign
against British forces or RIC.

Initial hostilities

Police wanted poster for Dan Breen, one of those involved in the Soloheadbeg Ambush
in 1919.
While it was not clear in the beginning of 1919 that the Dáil ever intended to gain
independence by military means, and war was not explicitly threatened in Sinn
Féin's 1918 manifesto,[46][47] an incident occurred on 21 January 1919, the same
day as the First Dáil convened. The Soloheadbeg Ambush, in County Tipperary, was
led by Seán Treacy, Séumas Robinson, Seán Hogan and Dan Breen acting on their own
initiative. The IRA attacked and shot two RIC officers, Constables James McDonnell
and Patrick O'Connell,[48] who were escorting explosives. Breen later recalled:

...we took the action deliberately, having thought over the matter and talked it
over between us. Treacy had stated to me that the only way of starting a war was to
kill someone, and we wanted to start a war, so we intended to kill some of the
police whom we looked upon as the foremost and most important branch of the enemy
forces. The only regret that we had following the ambush was that there were only
two policemen in it, instead of the six we had expected.[49]

This is widely regarded as the beginning of the War of Independence.[50][51][52]

[53] The British government declared South Tipperary a Special Military Area under
the Defence of the Realm Act two days later.[54][55] The war was not formally
declared by the Dáil, and it ran its course parallel to the Dáil's political life.
On 10 April 1919 the Dáil was told:
As regards the Republican prisoners, we must always remember that this country is
at war with England and so we must in a sense regard them as necessary casualties
in the great fight.[56]

In January 1921, two years after the war had started, the Dáil debated "whether it
was feasible to accept formally a state of war that was being thrust on them, or
not", and decided not to declare war.[57] Then on 11 March, Dáil Éireann President
Éamon de Valera called for acceptance of a "state of war with England". The Dail
voted unanimously to empower him to declare war whenever he saw fit, but he did not
formally do so.[58][59]

Violence spreads

Wall plaque in Great Denmark Street, Dublin where the Dublin IRA Active Service
Unit was founded.
Volunteers began to attack British government property, carry out raids for arms
and funds and target and kill prominent members of the British administration. The
first was Resident Magistrate John C. Milling, who was shot dead in Westport,
County Mayo, for having sent Volunteers to prison for unlawful assembly and
drilling.[60] They mimicked the successful tactics of the Boers' fast violent raids
without uniform. Although some republican leaders, notably Éamon de Valera,
favoured classic conventional warfare to legitimise the new republic in the eyes of
the world, the more practically experienced Michael Collins and the broader IRA
leadership opposed these tactics as they had led to the military débacle of 1916.
Others, notably Arthur Griffith, preferred a campaign of civil disobedience rather
than armed struggle.[61] The violence used was at first deeply unpopular with Irish
people and it took the heavy-handed British response to popularise it among much of
the population.[62]

During the early part of the conflict, roughly from 1919 to the middle of 1920,
there was a relatively limited amount of violence. Much of the nationalist campaign
involved popular mobilisation and the creation of a republican "state within a
state" in opposition to British rule. British journalist Robert Lynd wrote in The
Daily News in July 1920 that:

So far as the mass of people are concerned, the policy of the day is not active but
a passive policy. Their policy is not so much to attack the Government as to ignore
it and to build up a new government by its side.[63]

Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) as special target

A group of RIC officers in 1917

The IRA's main target throughout the conflict was the mainly Irish Catholic Royal
Irish Constabulary (RIC), the British government's police in Ireland, outside
Dublin. Its members and barracks (especially the more isolated ones) were
vulnerable, and they were a source of much-needed arms. The RIC numbered 9,700 men
stationed in 1,500 barracks throughout Ireland.[64]

A policy of ostracism of RIC men was announced by the Dáil on 11 April 1919.[65]
This proved successful in demoralising the force as the war went on, as people
turned their faces from a force increasingly compromised by association with
British government repression.[66] The rate of resignation went up and recruitment
in Ireland dropped off dramatically. Often, the RIC were reduced to buying food at
gunpoint, as shops and other businesses refused to deal with them. Some RIC men co-
operated with the IRA through fear or sympathy, supplying the organisation with
valuable information. By contrast with the effectiveness of the widespread public
boycott of the police, the military actions carried out by the IRA against the RIC
at this time were relatively limited. In 1919, 11 RIC men and 4 Dublin Metropolitan
Police G Division detectives were killed and another 20 RIC wounded.[67]

Other aspects of mass participation in the conflict included strikes by organised

workers, in opposition to the British presence in Ireland. In Limerick in April
1919, a general strike was called by the Limerick Trades and Labour Council, as a
protest against the declaration of a "Special Military Area" under the Defence of
the Realm Act, which covered most of Limerick city and a part of the county.
Special permits, to be issued by the RIC, would now be required to enter the city.
The Trades Council's special Strike Committee controlled the city for fourteen days
in an episode that is known as the Limerick Soviet.[68]

Similarly, in May 1920, Dublin dockers refused to handle any war matériel and were
soon joined by the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union, who banned railway
drivers from carrying members of the British forces. Blackleg train drivers were
brought over from England, after drivers refused to carry British troops. The
strike badly hampered British troop movements until December 1920, when it was
called off.[69] The British government managed to bring the situation to an end,
when they threatened to withhold grants from the railway companies, which would
have meant that workers would no longer have been paid.[70] Attacks by the IRA also
steadily increased, and by early 1920, they were attacking isolated RIC stations in
rural areas, causing them to be abandoned as the police retreated to the larger
towns.

Collapse of the British administration

In early April 1920, 400 abandoned RIC barracks were burned to the ground to
prevent them being used again, along with almost one hundred income tax offices.
The RIC withdrew from much of the countryside, leaving it in the hands of the IRA.
[71] In June–July 1920, assizes failed all across the south and west of Ireland;
trials by jury could not be held because jurors would not attend. The collapse of
the court system demoralised the RIC and many police resigned or retired. The Irish
Republican Police (IRP) was founded between April and June 1920, under the
authority of Dáil Éireann and the former IRA Chief of Staff Cathal Brugha to
replace the RIC and to enforce the ruling of the Dáil Courts, set up under the
Irish Republic. By 1920, the IRP had a presence in 21 of Ireland's 32 counties.[72]
The Dáil Courts were generally socially conservative, despite their revolutionary
origins, and halted the attempts of some landless farmers at redistribution of land
from wealthier landowners to poorer farmers.[73]

The Inland Revenue ceased to operate in most of Ireland. People were instead
encouraged to subscribe to Collins' "National Loan", set up to raise funds for the
young government and its army. By the end of the year the loan had reached
£358,000. It eventually reached £380,000. An even larger amount, totalling over $5
million, was raised in the United States by Irish Americans and sent to Ireland to
finance the Republic.[70] Rates were still paid to local councils but nine out of
eleven of these were controlled by Sinn Féin, who naturally refused to pass them on
to the British government.[73] By mid-1920, the Irish Republic was a reality in the
lives of many people, enforcing its own law, maintaining its own armed forces and
collecting its own taxes. The British Liberal journal, The Nation, wrote in August
1920 that "the central fact of the present situation in Ireland is that the Irish
Republic exists".[63]

The British forces, in trying to re-assert their control over the country, often
resorted to arbitrary reprisals against republican activists and the civilian
population. An unofficial government policy of reprisals began in September 1919 in
Fermoy, County Cork, when 200 British soldiers looted and burned the main
businesses of the town, after one of their number – a soldier of the King's
Shropshire Light Infantry who was the first British Army death in the campaign –
had been killed in an armed raid by the local IRA[74] on a church parade the day
before (7 September). The ambushers were a unit of the No 2 Cork Brigade, under
command of Liam Lynch, who wounded four of the other soldiers and disarmed the rest
before fleeing in their cars. The local coroner's inquest refused to return a
murder verdict over the soldier and local businessmen who had sat on the jury were
targeted in the reprisal.[75]

Arthur Griffith estimated that in the first 18 months of the conflict, British
forces carried out 38,720 raids on private homes, arrested 4,982 suspects,
committed 1,604 armed assaults, carried out 102 indiscriminate shootings and
burnings in towns and villages, and killed 77 people including women and children.
[76] In March 1920, Tomás Mac Curtain, the Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Cork, was shot
dead in front of his wife at his home, by men with blackened faces who were seen
returning to the local police barracks. The jury at the inquest into his death
returned a verdict of wilful murder against David Lloyd George (the British Prime
Minister) and District Inspector Swanzy, among others. Swanzy was later tracked
down and killed in Lisburn, County Antrim. This pattern of killings and reprisals
escalated in the second half of 1920 and in 1921.[77]

IRA organisation and operations

Michael Collins
Michael Collins was a driving force behind the independence movement. Nominally the
Minister of Finance in the republic's government and IRA Director of Intelligence,
he was involved in providing funds and arms to the IRA units and in the selection
of officers. Collins' charisma and organisational capability galvanised many who
came in contact with him. He established what proved an effective network of spies
among sympathetic members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police's (DMP) G Division and
other important branches of the British administration. The G Division men were a
relatively small political division active in subverting the republican movement
and were detested by the IRA as often they were used to identify volunteers, who
would have been unknown to British soldiers or the later Black and Tans. Collins
set up the "Squad", a group of men whose sole duty was to seek out and kill "G-men"
and other British spies and agents. Collins' Squad began killing RIC intelligence
officers in July 1919.[78] Many G-men were offered a chance to resign or leave
Ireland by the IRA. One spy who escaped with his life was F. Digby Hardy, who was
exposed by Arthur Griffith before an "IRA" meeting, which in fact consisted of
Irish and foreign journalists, and then advised to take the next boat out of
Dublin.[79]

The Chief of Staff of the IRA was Richard Mulcahy, who was responsible for
organising and directing IRA units around the country. In theory, both Collins and
Mulcahy were responsible to Cathal Brugha, the Dáil's Minister of Defence, but, in
practice, Brugha had only a supervisory role, recommending or objecting to specific
actions. A great deal also depended on IRA leaders in local areas (such as Liam
Lynch, Tom Barry, Seán Moylan, Seán Mac Eoin and Ernie O'Malley) who organised
guerrilla activity, largely on their own initiative. For most of the conflict, IRA
activity was concentrated in Munster and Dublin, with only isolated active IRA
units elsewhere, such as in County Roscommon, north County Longford and western
County Mayo.

While the paper membership of the IRA, carried over from the Irish Volunteers, was
over 100,000 men, Michael Collins estimated that only 15,000 were active in the IRA
during the course of the war, with about 3,000 on active service at any time. There
were also support organisations Cumann na mBan (the IRA women's group) and Fianna
Éireann (youth movement), who carried weapons and intelligence for IRA men and
secured food and lodgings for them. The IRA benefitted from the widespread help
given to them by the general Irish population, who generally refused to pass
information to the RIC and the British military and who often provided "safe
houses" and provisions to IRA units "on the run".
Much of the IRA's popularity arose from the excessive reaction of the British
forces to IRA activity. When Éamon de Valera returned from the United States, he
demanded in the Dáil that the IRA desist from the ambushes and assassinations,
which were allowing the British to portray it as a terrorist group and to take on
the British forces with conventional military methods. The proposal was immediately
dismissed.

Martial law

A group of "Black and Tans" and Auxiliaries in Dublin, April 1921

The British increased the use of force; reluctant to deploy the regular British
Army into the country in greater numbers, they set up two paramilitary police units
to aid the RIC. The Black and Tans were seven thousand strong, mainly ex-British
soldiers demobilised after World War I. Deployed to Ireland in March 1920, most
came from English and Scottish cities. While officially they were part of the RIC,
in reality they were a paramilitary force. After their deployment in March 1920,
they rapidly gained a reputation for drunkenness and poor discipline, credited by
many with doing more harm to the British government's moral authority in Ireland
than any other group.[citation needed]

In response to and retaliation for IRA actions, in the summer of 1920, the Tans
burned and sacked numerous small towns throughout Ireland, including Balbriggan,
Trim, Templemore and others.[citation needed]

In July 1920, another quasi-military police body, the Auxiliaries, consisting of

2,215 former British army officers, arrived in Ireland. The Auxiliary Division had
a reputation just as bad as the Tans for their mistreatment of the civilian
population but tended to be more effective and more willing to take on the IRA. The
policy of reprisals, which involved public denunciation or denial and private
approval, was famously satirised by Lord Hugh Cecil when he said: "It seems to be
agreed that there is no such thing as reprisals but they are having a good
effect."[80]

On 9 August 1920, the British Parliament passed the Restoration of Order in Ireland
Act. It replaced the trial by jury by courts-martial by regulation for those areas
where IRA activity was prevalent.[81]

On 10 December 1920, martial law was proclaimed in Counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick
and Tipperary in Munster; in January 1921 martial law was extended to the rest of
Munster in Counties Clare and Waterford, as well as counties Kilkenny and Wexford
in Leinster.[82]

It also suspended all coroners' courts because of the large number of warrants
served on members of the British forces and replaced them with "military courts of
enquiry".[83] The powers of military courts-martial were extended to cover the
whole population and were empowered to use the death penalty and internment without
trial; Government payments to local governments in Sinn Féin hands were suspended.
This act has been interpreted by historians as a choice by Prime Minister David
Lloyd George to put down the rebellion in Ireland rather than negotiate with the
republican leadership.[84] As a result, violence escalated steadily from that
summer and sharply after November 1920 until July 1921. (It was in this period that
a mutiny broke out among the Connaught Rangers, stationed in India. Two were killed
whilst trying to storm an armoury and one was later executed.)[85]

Escalation: October–December 1920

British soldiers and relatives of the victims outside Jervis Street Hospital during
the military enquiry into the Bloody Sunday shootings at Croke Park
A number of events dramatically escalated the conflict in late 1920. First the Lord
Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison in London
in October, while two other IRA prisoners on hunger strike, Joe Murphy and Michael
Fitzgerald, died in Cork Jail.

Sunday, 21 November 1920, was a day of dramatic bloodshed in Dublin. In the early
morning, Collins' Squad attempted to wipe out leading British intelligence
operatives in the capital, in particular the Cairo Gang, killing 16 men (including
two cadets, one alleged informer, and one possible case of mistaken identity) and
wounding 5 others. The attacks took place at different places (hotels and lodgings)
in Dublin.[citation needed]

In response, RIC men drove in trucks into Croke Park (Dublin's GAA football and
hurling ground) during a football match, shooting into the crowd. Fourteen
civilians were killed, including one of the players, Michael Hogan, and a further
65 people were wounded.[86] Later that day two republican prisoners, Dick McKee,
Peadar Clancy and an unassociated friend, Conor Clune who had been arrested with
them, were killed in Dublin Castle. The official account was that the three men
were shot "while trying to escape", which was rejected by Irish nationalists, who
were certain the men had been tortured then murdered.[87][88]

For all of the above reasons, this day became known as Bloody Sunday.

On 28 November 1920, one week later, the West Cork unit of the IRA, under Tom
Barry, ambushed a patrol of Auxiliaries at Kilmichael in County Cork, killing all
but one of the 18-man patrol.

These actions marked a significant escalation of the conflict. In response, the

counties of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary – all in the province of Munster –
were put under martial law on 10 December under the Restoration of Order in Ireland
Act; this was followed on 5 January in the rest of Munster and in counties Kilkenny
and Wexford in the province of Leinster.[82] Shortly afterwards, in January 1921,
"official reprisals" were sanctioned by the British and they began with the burning
of seven houses in Midleton, County Cork.

Aftermath of the burning of Cork by British forces

On 11 December, the centre of Cork City was burnt out by the Black and Tans, who
then shot at firefighters trying to tackle the blaze, in reprisal for an IRA ambush
in the city on 11 December 1920 which killed one Auxiliary and wounded eleven.[89]

Attempts at a truce in December 1920 were scuppered by Hamar Greenwood, who

insisted on a surrender of IRA weapons first.[90]

Peak of violence: December 1920 – July 1921

During the following eight months until the Truce of July 1921, there was a
spiralling of the death toll in the conflict, with 1,000 people including the RIC
police, army, IRA volunteers and civilians, being killed in the months between
January and July 1921 alone.[91] This represents about 70% of the total casualties
for the entire three-year conflict. In addition, 4,500 IRA personnel (or suspected
sympathisers) were interned in this time.[92] In the middle of this violence, de
Valera (as President of Dáil Éireann) acknowledged the state of war with Britain in
March 1921.[93]

Between 1 November 1920 and 7 June 1921 twenty-four men were executed by the
British.[94] The first IRA volunteer to be executed was Kevin Barry, one of The
Forgotten Ten who were buried in unmarked graves in unconsecrated ground inside
Mountjoy Prison until 2001.[95] On 1 February, the first execution under martial
law of an IRA man took place: Cornelius Murphy, of Millstreet in County Cork, was
shot in Cork City. On 28 February, six more were executed, again in Cork.
On 19 March 1921, Tom Barry's 100-strong West Cork IRA unit fought an action
against 1,200 British troops – the Crossbarry Ambush. Barry's men narrowly avoided
being trapped by converging British columns and inflicted between ten and thirty
killed on the British side. Just two days later, on 21 March, the Kerry IRA
attacked a train at the Headford junction near Killarney. Twenty British soldiers
were killed or injured, as well as two IRA men and three civilians. Most of the
actions in the war were on a smaller scale than this, but the IRA did have other
significant victories in ambushes, for example at Millstreet in Cork and at
Scramogue in Roscommon, also in March 1921 and at Tourmakeady and Carowkennedy in
Mayo in May and June. Equally common, however, were failed ambushes, the worst of
which, for example at Mourneabbey,[citation needed] Upton and Clonmult in Cork in
February 1921, saw six, three, and twelve IRA men killed respectively and more
captured. The IRA in Mayo suffered a comparable reverse at Kilmeena, while the
Leitrim flying column was almost wiped out at Selton Hill. Fears of informers after
such failed ambushes often led to a spate of IRA shootings of informers, real and
imagined.

The biggest single loss for the IRA, however, came in Dublin. On 25 May 1921,
several hundred IRA men from the Dublin Brigade occupied and burned the Custom
House (the centre of local government in Ireland) in Dublin city centre.
Symbolically, this was intended to show that British rule in Ireland was untenable.
However, from a military point of view, it was a heavy defeat in which five IRA men
were killed and over eighty captured.[96] This showed the IRA was not well enough
equipped or trained to take on British forces in a conventional manner. However, it
did not, as is sometimes claimed, cripple the IRA in Dublin. The Dublin Brigade
carried out 107 attacks in the city in May and 93 in June, showing a falloff in
activity, but not a dramatic one. However, by July 1921, most IRA units were
chronically short of both weapons and ammunition, with over 3,000 prisoners
interned.[97] Also, for all their effectiveness at guerrilla warfare, they had, as
Richard Mulcahy recalled, "as yet not been able to drive the enemy out of anything
but a fairly good sized police barracks".[98]

Still, many military historians have concluded that the IRA fought a largely
successful and lethal guerrilla war, which forced the British government to
conclude that the IRA could not be defeated militarily.[99] The failure of the
British efforts to put down the guerrillas was illustrated by the events of "Black
Whitsun" on 13–15 May 1921. A general election for the Parliament of Southern
Ireland was held on 13 May. Sinn Féin won 124 of the new parliament's 128 seats
unopposed, but its elected members refused to take their seats. Under the terms of
the Government of Ireland Act 1920, the Parliament of Southern Ireland was
therefore dissolved, and executive and legislative authority over Southern Ireland
was effectively transferred to the Lord Lieutenant (assisted by Crown appointees).
Over the next two days (14–15 May), the IRA killed fifteen policemen. These events
marked the complete failure of the British Coalition Government's Irish policy—both
the failure to enforce a settlement without negotiating with Sinn Féin and a
failure to defeat the IRA.

By the time of the truce, however, many republican leaders, including Michael
Collins, were convinced that if the war went on for much longer, there was a chance
that the IRA campaign as it was then organised could be brought to a standstill.
Because of this, plans were drawn up to "bring the war to England". The IRA did
take the campaign to the streets of Glasgow.[100] It was decided that key economic
targets, such as the Liverpool docks, would be bombed. The units charged with these
missions would more easily evade capture because England was not under, and British
public opinion was unlikely to accept, martial law. These plans were abandoned
because of the truce.
Truce: July–December 1921

A crowd gathers at the Mansion House in Dublin in the days before the truce
The war of independence in Ireland ended with a truce on 11 July 1921. The conflict
had reached a stalemate. Talks that had looked promising the previous year had
petered out in December when David Lloyd George insisted that the IRA first
surrender their arms. Fresh talks, after the Prime Minister had come under pressure
from H. H. Asquith and the Liberal opposition, the Labour Party and the Trades
Union Congress, resumed in the spring and resulted in the Truce. From the point of
view of the British government, it appeared as if the IRA's guerrilla campaign
would continue indefinitely, with spiralling costs in British casualties and in
money. More importantly, the British government was facing severe criticism at home
and abroad for the actions of British forces in Ireland. On 6 June 1921, the
British made their first conciliatory gesture, calling off the policy of house
burnings as reprisals. On the other side, IRA leaders and in particular Michael
Collins, felt that the IRA as it was then organised could not continue
indefinitely. It had been hard pressed by the deployment of more regular British
soldiers to Ireland and by the lack of arms and ammunition.

The initial breakthrough that led to the truce was credited to three people: King
George V, Prime Minister of South Africa General Jan Smuts and Prime Minister of
the United Kingdom David Lloyd George. The King, who had made his unhappiness at
the behaviour of the Black and Tans in Ireland well known to his government, was
dissatisfied with the official speech prepared for him for the opening of the new
Parliament of Northern Ireland, created as a result of the partition of Ireland.
Smuts, a close friend of the King, suggested to him that the opportunity should be
used to make an appeal for conciliation in Ireland. The King asked him to draft his
ideas on paper. Smuts prepared this draft and gave copies to the King and to Lloyd
George. Lloyd George then invited Smuts to attend a British cabinet meeting
consultations on the "interesting" proposals Lloyd George had received, without
either man informing the Cabinet that Smuts had been their author. Faced with the
endorsement of them by Smuts, the King and the Prime Minister, ministers
reluctantly agreed to the King's planned 'reconciliation in Ireland' speech.

The speech, when delivered in Belfast on 22 June, was universally well received. It
called on "all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and
conciliation, to forgive and to forget, and to join in making for the land they
love a new era of peace, contentment, and good will."[101]

On 24 June 1921, the British Coalition Government's Cabinet decided to propose

talks with the leader of Sinn Féin. Coalition Liberals and Unionists agreed that an
offer to negotiate would strengthen the Government's position if Sinn Féin refused.
Austen Chamberlain, the new leader of the Unionist Party, said that "the King's
Speech ought to be followed up as a last attempt at peace before we go the full
lengths of martial law".[102] Seizing the momentum, Lloyd George wrote to Éamon de
Valera as "the chosen leader of the great majority in Southern Ireland" on 24 June,
suggesting a conference.[103] Sinn Féin responded by agreeing to talks. De Valera
and Lloyd George ultimately agreed to a truce that was intended to end the fighting
and lay the ground for detailed negotiations. Its terms were signed on 9 July and
came into effect on 11 July. Negotiations on a settlement, however, were delayed
for some months as the British government insisted that the IRA first decommission
its weapons, but this demand was eventually dropped. It was agreed that British
troops would remain confined to their barracks.

Most IRA officers on the ground interpreted the Truce merely as a temporary respite
and continued recruiting and training volunteers. Nor did attacks on the RIC or
British Army cease altogether. Between December 1921 and February of the next year,
there were 80 recorded attacks by the IRA on the soon to be disbanded RIC, leaving
12 dead.[104] On 18 February 1922, Ernie O'Malley's IRA unit raided the RIC
barracks at Clonmel, taking 40 policemen prisoner and seizing over 600 weapons and
thousands of rounds of ammunition.[105] In April 1922, in the Dunmanway killings,
an IRA party in Cork killed 10 local suspected Protestant informers in retaliation
for the shooting of one of their men. Those killed were named in captured British
files as informers before the Truce signed the previous July.[106] Over 100
Protestant families fled the area after the killings.

The continuing resistance of many IRA leaders was one of the main factors in the
outbreak of the Irish Civil War as they refused to accept the Anglo-Irish Treaty
that Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith had negotiated with the British.

Treaty

Members of the Irish negotiation committee returning to Ireland in December 1921

Ultimately, the peace talks led to the negotiation of the Anglo-Irish Treaty (6
December 1921), which was then ratified in triplicate: by Dáil Éireann on 7 January
1922 (so giving it legal legitimacy under the governmental system of the Irish
Republic), by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland in January 1922 (so giving
it constitutional legitimacy according to British theory of who was the legal
government in Ireland), and by both Houses of the British parliament.[107][108]
[109]

The treaty allowed Northern Ireland, which had been created by the Government of
Ireland Act 1920, to opt out of the Free State if it wished, which it duly did on 8
December 1922 under the procedures laid down. As agreed, an Irish Boundary
Commission was then created to decide on the precise location of the border of the
Free State and Northern Ireland.[110] The republican negotiators understood that
the Commission would redraw the border according to local nationalist or unionist
majorities. Since the 1920 local elections in Ireland had resulted in outright
nationalist majorities in County Fermanagh, County Tyrone, the City of Derry and in
many District Electoral Divisions of County Armagh and County Londonderry (all
north and west of the "interim" border), this might well have left Northern Ireland
unviable. However, the Commission chose to leave the border unchanged; as a trade-
off, the money owed to Britain by the Free State under the Treaty was not demanded.
[citation needed]

A new system of government was created for the new Irish Free State, though for the
first year two governments co-existed; an Aireacht answerable to the Dáil and
headed by President Griffith, and a Provisional Government nominally answerable to
the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and appointed by the Lord Lieutenant.[111]

Most of the Irish independence movement's leaders were willing to accept this
compromise, at least for the time being, though many militant republicans were not.
A majority[citation needed] of the pre-Truce IRA who had fought in the War of
Independence, led by Liam Lynch, refused to accept the Treaty and in March 1922
repudiated the authority of the Dáil and the new Free State government, which it
accused of betraying the ideal of the Irish Republic. It also broke the Oath of
Allegiance to the Irish Republic which the Dáil had instated on 20 August 1919.
[112] The anti-treaty IRA were supported by the former president of the Republic,
Éamon de Valera, and ministers Cathal Brugha and Austin Stack.[113]

The funeral of Michael Collins

St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Dublin, August 1922
While the violence in the North was still raging, the South of Ireland was
preoccupied with the split in the Dáil and in the IRA over the treaty. In April
1922, an executive of IRA officers repudiated the treaty and the authority of the
Provisional Government which had been set up to administer it. These republicans
held that the Dáil did not have the right to disestablish the Irish Republic. A
hardline group of Anti-Treaty IRA men occupied several public buildings in Dublin
in an effort to bring down the treaty and restart the war with the British. There
were a number of armed confrontations between pro and anti-treaty troops before
matters came to a head in late June 1922.[109] Desperate to get the new Irish Free
State off the ground and under British pressure, Michael Collins attacked the anti-
treaty militants in Dublin, causing fighting to break out around the country.[109]

The subsequent Irish Civil War lasted until mid-1923 and cost the lives of many of
the leaders of the independence movement, notably the head of the Provisional
Government Michael Collins, ex-minister Cathal Brugha, and anti-treaty republicans
Harry Boland, Rory O'Connor, Liam Mellows, Liam Lynch and many others: total
casualties have never been determined but were perhaps higher than those in the
earlier fighting against the British. President Arthur Griffith also died of a
cerebral haemorrhage during the conflict.[114]

Following the deaths of Griffith and Collins, W. T. Cosgrave became head of

government. On 6 December 1922, following the coming into legal existence of the
Irish Free State, W. T. Cosgrave became President of the Executive Council, the
first internationally recognised head of an independent Irish government.[citation
needed]

The civil war ended in mid-1923 in defeat for the anti-treaty side.[115]

North-east

Conflict deaths in Belfast 1920–1922.

50–100 deaths per km²
100–150 deaths per km²
over 150 deaths per km²

Sir James Craig, later Viscount Craigavon,

1st Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Craig tacitly approved of "organised
reprisals" on nationalists for IRA attacks.
In the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (enacted in December 1920), the British
government attempted to solve the conflict by creating two Home Rule parliaments in
Ireland: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. While Dáil Éireann ignored this,
deeming the Irish Republic to be already in existence, Unionists in the north-east
accepted it and prepared to form their own government. In this part of Ireland,
which was predominantly Protestant and Unionist, there was, as a result, a very
different pattern of violence from the rest of the country. Whereas in the south
and west, the conflict was between the IRA and British forces, in the north-east
and particularly in Belfast, it often developed into a cycle of sectarian killings
between Catholics, who were largely Nationalist, and Protestants, who were mostly
Unionist.

Summer 1920
While IRA attacks were less common in the north-east than elsewhere, the unionist
community saw itself as being besieged by armed Catholic nationalists who seemed to
have taken over the rest of Ireland. As a result, they retaliated against the
northern Catholic community as a whole.[citation needed] Such action was largely
condoned by the unionist leadership and abetted by state forces. James Craig, for
instance, wrote in 1920:

The Loyalist rank and file have determined to take action... they now feel the
situation is so desperate that unless the Government will take immediate action, it
may be advisable for them to see what steps can be taken towards a system of
'organised' reprisals against the rebels.[116]

The first cycle of attacks and reprisals broke out in the summer of 1920. On 19
June a week of inter-sectarian rioting and sniping started in Derry, resulting in
18 deaths.[117] On 17 July 1920, a British Colonel Gerald Smyth was assassinated by
the IRA in the County Club in Cork city in response to a speech that was made to
police officers of Listowel who had refused orders to move into the more urban
areas, in which he stated "you may make mistakes occasionally, and innocent persons
may be shot, but that cannot be helped. No policeman will get in trouble for
shooting any man".[118][119] Smyth came from Banbridge, County Down in the north-
east and his killing provoked retaliation there against Catholics in Banbridge and
Dromore. On 21 July 1920, partly in response to the killing of Smyth and partly
because of competition over jobs due to the high unemployment rate, loyalists
marched on the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast and forced over 7,000
Catholic and left-wing Protestant workers from their jobs.[120] Sectarian rioting
broke out in response in Belfast and Derry, resulting in about 40 deaths and many
Catholics and Protestants being expelled from their homes. On 22 August 1920, RIC
Detective Swanzy was shot dead by Cork IRA men while leaving church in Lisburn,
County Antrim. Swanzy had been blamed by an inquest jury for the killing of Cork
Mayor Tomás Mac Curtain. In revenge, local Loyalists burned Catholic residential
areas of Lisburn – destroying over 300 homes. While several people were later
prosecuted for the burnings, no attempt seems to have been made to halt the attacks
at the time. Michael Collins, acting on a suggestion by Seán MacEntee, organised a
boycott of Belfast goods in response to the attacks on the Catholic community. The
Dáil approved a partial boycott on 6 August and a more complete one was implemented
by the end of 1920.

Spring 1921
After a lull in violence in the north over the new year, killings there intensified
again in the spring of 1921. The northern IRA units came under pressure from the
leadership in Dublin to step up attacks in line with the rest of the country.
Predictably, this unleashed loyalist reprisals against Catholics. For example, in
April 1921, the IRA in Belfast shot dead two Auxiliaries in Donegal Place in
Belfast city centre. The same night, two Catholics were killed on the Falls Road.
On 10 July 1921 the IRA ambushed British forces in Raglan street in Belfast. In the
following week, sixteen Catholics were killed and 216 Catholic homes burned in
reprisal – events known as Belfast's Bloody Sunday.

Killings on the loyalist side were largely carried out by the Ulster Volunteer
Force (UVF), allegedly with the aid of the RIC and especially the auxiliary police
force, the Ulster Special Constabulary or "B-Specials". The Special Constabulary
(set up in September 1920), was largely recruited from Ulster Volunteer Force and
Orange Lodges and, in the words of historian Michael Hopkinson, "amounted to an
officially approved UVF".[121] In May James Craig came to Dublin to meet the
British Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord FitzAlan, and was smuggled by the IRA
through Dublin to meet Éamon de Valera. The two leaders discussed the possibility
of a truce in Ulster and an amnesty for prisoners. Craig proposed a compromise
settlement based on the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, with limited independence
for the South and autonomy for the North within a Home Rule context. However, the
talks came to nothing and violence in the north continued.[122]

July 1921 – May 1922

While the fighting in the south was largely ended by the Truce on 11 July 1921, in
the north killings continued and actually escalated until the summer of 1922. In
Belfast, 16 people were killed in the two days after the truce alone. The violence
in the city took place in bursts, as attacks on both Catholics and Protestants were
rapidly followed by reprisals on the other community. In this way, 20 people died
in street fighting and assassinations in north and west Belfast over 29 August to 1
September 1921 and another 30 from 21–25 November. Loyalists had by this time taken
to firing and throwing bombs randomly into Catholic areas and the IRA responded by
bombing trams which took Protestant workers to their places of employment.[123]
Moreover, despite the Dáil's acceptance of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in January 1922,
which confirmed the future existence of Northern Ireland, there were clashes
between the IRA and British forces along the new border from early 1922. In part,
this reflected Michael Collins' view that the Treaty was a tactical move, or
"stepping stone", rather than a final settlement. A number of IRA men were arrested
in Derry when they travelled there as part of the Monaghan Gaelic football team. In
retaliation, Michael Collins had forty-two loyalists taken hostage in Fermanagh and
Tyrone. Right after this incident, a group of B-Specials were confronted by an IRA
unit at Clones in Southern territory, who demanded that they surrender. The IRA
unit's leader was shot dead and a gun battle broke out, in which four Special
Constables were killed. The withdrawal of British troops from Ireland was
temporarily suspended as a result of this event. Despite the setting up of a Border
Commission to mediate between the two sides in late February, the IRA raided three
British barracks along the border in March. All of these actions provoked
retaliatory killings in Belfast. In the two days after the Fermanagh kidnappings,
30 people lost their lives in the city, including four Catholic children and two
women who were killed by a Loyalist bomb on Weaver Street. In March, 60 died in
Belfast, including six members of the Catholic McMahon family, who were targeted
for assassination by members of the Special Constabulary in revenge for the IRA
killing of two policemen (See McMahon murders).[124] In April, another 30 people
died in the Northern capital, including another so called 'uniform attack', the
Arnon Street massacre, when six Catholics were killed by uniformed policemen.[125]

Winston Churchill arranged a meeting between Collins and James Craig on 21 January
1922 and the southern boycott of Belfast goods was lifted but then re-imposed after
several weeks. The two leaders had several further meetings, but despite a joint
declaration that "Peace is declared" on 30 March, the violence continued.[126]

May–June 1922
In May and June 1922, Collins launched a guerrilla IRA offensive against Northern
Ireland. By this time, the IRA was split over the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but both pro
and anti-treaty units were involved in the operation. Some of the arms sent by the
British to arm the new Irish Army were in fact given to IRA units and their weapons
sent to the North.[127] However, the offensive, launched with a series of IRA
attacks in the North on 17–19 May, ultimately proved a failure. An IRA Belfast
Brigade report in late May concluded that continuing the offensive was "futile and
foolish...the only result of the attack was to place the Catholic population at the
mercy of the Specials".[128]

On 22 May, after the assassination of West Belfast Unionist MP William Twaddell,

350 IRA men were arrested in Belfast, crippling its organisation there.[129] The
largest single clash came in June, when British troops used artillery to dislodge
an IRA unit from the village of Pettigo, killing seven, wounding six and taking
four prisoners. This was the last major confrontation between the IRA and British
forces in the period 1919–1922.[130] The cycle of sectarian atrocities against
civilians however continued into June 1922. May saw 75 people killed in Belfast and
another 30 died there in June. Several thousand Catholics fled the violence and
sought refuge in Glasgow and Dublin.[131] On 17 June, in revenge for the killing of
two Catholics by the B-Specials, Frank Aiken's IRA unit shot ten Protestant
civilians, killing six in and around Altnaveigh, south Armagh. Three Special
Constables were also killed in the shootings.[132]

Michael Collins held the British Field Marshal Sir Henry Wilson (by then MP for
North Down) responsible for the attacks on Catholics in the north and may have been
behind his assassination in June 1922, though who ordered the shooting is unproven.
[133] The event helped to trigger the Irish Civil War. Winston Churchill insisted
after the killing that Collins take action against the Anti-Treaty IRA, whom he
assumed to be responsible.[134] The outbreak of the civil war in the South ended
the violence in the North, as the war demoralised the IRA in the north east and
distracted the attention of the rest of the organisation from the question of
partition. After Collins' death in August 1922, the new Irish Free State quietly
ended Collins' policy of covert armed action in Northern Ireland.

The violence in the north fizzled out by late 1922, the last reported killing of
the conflict in what was now Northern Ireland took place on 5 October.[135]

Detention
During the 1920s, the vessel HMS Argenta was used as a military base and prison
ship for the holding of Irish Republicans by the British government as part of
their internment strategy after Bloody Sunday. Cloistered below decks in cages
which held 50 internees, the prisoners were forced to use broken toilets which
overflowed frequently into their communal area. Deprived of tables, the already
weakened men ate off the floor, frequently succumbing to disease and illness as a
result. There were several hunger strikes, including a major strike involving
upwards of 150 men in the winter of 1923.[136]

By February 1923, under the 1922 Special Powers Act the British were detaining 263
men on Argenta, which was moored in Belfast Lough. This was supplemented with
internment at other land based sites such as Larne workhouse, Belfast Prison and
Derry Gaol. Together, both the ship and the workhouse alone held 542 men without
trial at the highest internment population level during June 1923.[136]

Propaganda war

The symbol of the Republic:

The Irish tricolour which dated back to the Young Ireland rebellion of 1848.

A symbol of British rule:

The standard of the Lord Lieutenant, using the union flag created under the Act of
Union 1800.
Another feature of the war was the use of propaganda by both sides.[137]

The British government also collected material on the liaison between Sinn Féin and
Soviet Russia, in an unsuccessful attempt to portray Sinn Féin as a crypto-
communist movement.[138]

The Catholic Church hierarchy was critical of the violence of both sides, but
especially that of the IRA, continuing a long tradition of condemning militant
republicanism. The Bishop of Kilmore, Dr. Finnegan, said: "Any war... to be just
and lawful must be backed by a well grounded hope of success. What hope of success
have you against the mighty forces of the British Empire? None... none whatever and
if it unlawful as it is, every life taken in pursuance of it is murder."[139]
Thomas Gilmartin, the Archbishop of Tuam, issued a letter saying that IRA men who
took part in ambushes "have broken the truce of God, they have incurred the guilt
of murder."[140] However, in May 1921, Pope Benedict XV dismayed the British
government when he issued a letter that exhorted the "English as well as Irish to
calmly consider . . . some means of mutual agreement", as they had been pushing for
a condemnation of the rebellion.[141] They declared that his comments "put HMG (His
Majesty's Government) and the Irish murder gang on a footing of equality".[141]

Desmond FitzGerald and Erskine Childers were active in producing the Irish
Bulletin, which detailed government atrocities which Irish and British newspapers
were unwilling or unable to cover. It was printed secretly and distributed
throughout Ireland, and to international press agencies and US, European and
sympathetic British politicians.

While the military war made most of Ireland ungovernable from early 1920, it did
not actually remove British forces from any part. But the success of Sinn Féin's
propaganda campaign reduced the option of the British government to deepen the
conflict; it worried in particular about the effect on British relations with the
US, where groups like the American Committee for Relief in Ireland had so many
eminent members. The British cabinet had not sought the war that had developed
since 1919. By 1921 one of its members, Winston Churchill, reflected:

What was the alternative? It was to plunge one small corner of the empire into an
iron repression, which could not be carried out without an admixture of murder and
counter-murder.... Only national self-preservation could have excused such a
policy, and no reasonable man could allege that self-preservation was involved.
[142]

Casualties

Monument to IRA fighters in Phibsborough, Dublin

The total number killed in the guerrilla war of 1919–21 between republicans and
British forces in what became the Irish Free State came to over 1,400. Of these,
363 were police personnel, 261 were from the regular British Army, about 550 were
IRA volunteers (including 24 official executions), and about 200 were civilians.[1]
[94] Some other sources give higher figures.[143]

On 21 November 1921 the British army held a memorial service for its dead, of all
ranks, of which it counted 162 up to the 1921 Truce and 18 killed afterwards.[144]
A number of these are buried in the Grangegorman Military Cemetery.[145]

557 people died in political violence in what would become Northern Ireland between
July 1920 and July 1922. This death toll is usually counted separately[by whom?]
from the southern casualties, as many of these deaths took place after the 11 July
truce that ended fighting in the rest of Ireland. Of these deaths, between 303 and
340 were Catholic civilians, 35 were IRA men, between 172 and 196 were Protestant
civilians and 82 were British forces personnel (38 were RIC and 44 were Ulster
Special Constables). The majority of the violence took place in Belfast: 452 people
were killed there – 267 Catholics and 185 Protestants.[146]

Irish nationalists have argued that this northern violence represented a pogrom
against their community as 58% of the victims were Catholics, even though Catholics
were only around 35% of the population. Historian of the period Alan Parkinson has
suggested that the term 'pogrom' is 'unhelpful and misleading in explaining the
events of the period' as the violence was not state directed or one sided.[147]

Similarly in recent decades, attention has been drawn to the IRA's shooting of
civilian informers in the south. Several historians, notably Peter Hart have
alleged that those killed in this manner were often simply considered "enemies"
rather than being proven informers. Especially vulnerable, it is argued, were
Protestants, ex-soldiers and tramps. "It was not merely (or even mainly) a matter
of espionage, spies and spy hunters, it was a civil war between and within
communities".[148] Particularly controversial in this regard has been the Dunmanway
killings of April 1922, when ten Protestants were killed and three "disappeared"
over two nights. Hart's contentions have been challenged by a number of historians,
notably Niall Meehan[149] and Meda Ryan.[150]

Post-war evacuation of British forces

Soldiers of a British cavalry regiment leaving Dublin in 1922

By October 1921 the British Army in Ireland numbered 57,000 men, along with 14,200
RIC police and some 2,600 auxiliaries and Black and Tans. The long-planned
evacuation from dozens of barracks in what the army called "Southern Ireland"
started on 12 January 1922, following the ratification of the Treaty and took
nearly a year, organised by General Nevil Macready. It was a huge logistical
operation, but within the month Dublin Castle and Beggars Bush Barracks were
transferred to the Provisional Government. The RIC last paraded on 4 April and was
formally disbanded on 31 August. By the end of May the remaining forces were
concentrated in Dublin, Cork and Kildare. Tensions that led to the Irish Civil War
were evident by then and evacuation was suspended. By November about 6,600 soldiers
remained in Dublin at 17 locations. Finally on 17 December 1922 The Royal Barracks
(now housing collections of the National Museum of Ireland) was transferred to
General Richard Mulcahy and the garrison embarked at Dublin Port that evening.[151]

Compensation
In May 1922 the British Government with the agreement of the Irish Provisional
Government established a commission chaired by Lord Shaw of Dunfermline to examine
compensation claims for material damage caused between 21 January 1919 and 11 July
1921.[152] The Irish Free State's Damage To Property (Compensation) Act, 1923
provided that only the Shaw Commission, and not the Criminal Injury Acts, could be
used to claim compensation.[153] Originally, the British government paid claims
from unionists and the Irish government those from nationalists; claims from
"neutral" parties were shared.[154] After the 1925 collapse of the Irish Boundary
Commission, the UK, Free State and Northern Ireland governments negotiated
revisions to the 1921 treaty; the Free State stopped contributing to the servicing
of the UK national debt, but took over full responsibility for compensation for war
damage, with the fund increased by 10% in 1926.[155][156] The "Compensation
(Ireland) Commission" worked until March 1926, processing thousands of claims.[154]

Role of women in the war

Constance Markievicz was a member of the Irish Citizen Army and fought in the
Easter Rising. In 1919 she was appointed Minister for Labour in the Government of
the Irish Republic
Although largely overshadowed by the men that took part in the conflict, women
played a substantial role in the Irish War of Independence. Prior to the Easter
Rising of 1916, many Nationalist women were brought together through organisations
that fought for women's suffrage in Ireland, such as the Irish Women's Franchise
League founded by Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington and Margaret Cousins in 1908.[157] Many
Irish suffragettes, although in favor of Irish independence, were wary of joining
right-wing Nationalist groups out of fear that they would be used to obtain Irish
independence but not be accorded the right to vote. However, because the Irish
republican and socialist leader James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army promoted
equality between men and women, many Irish suffragettes, including Constance
Markiewicz, Madeleine ffrench-Mullen, and Kathleen Lynn, joined the movement and it
created unification among suffragettes, socialists, and Nationalists.[158] In 1914,
the primary female Nationalist group that would fight in the War of Independence,
Cumann na mBan, was launched as an affiliate of the Irish Volunteers. During the
Easter Rising of 1916, Cumann na mBan members participated in combat alongside the
men. The women acted as dispatch carriers, traveling between Irish Volunteer Posts
while being shot at by British forces.[159] After the defeat of the Irish rebel
forces and the execution of James Connolly and Patrick Pearse, Éamon de Valera
opposed the participation of women in combat and thus, women were downgraded to
subaltern roles. Nevertheless, many women refused to give up fighting and they
played an active role in the War of Independence.[160] During the conflict, women
hid Nationalist fighters being sought by the British, nursed injured fighters, and
gathered money to assist prisoners captured by the British. In addition,
Nationalist women engaged in undercover work to set back the British war effort.
Nationalist women smuggled guns, ammunition, and money to the IRA, such as Kathleen
Clarke who, in her autobiography, reported "smuggling £2,000 of gold from Limerick
city to Dublin for IRA leader Michael Collins."[161] Because they sheltered wanted
rebels, many women were subject to raids on their homes by British soldiers, with
acts of sexual violence sometimes being reported but not confirmed.[160] It is
estimated that there were between 3000 and 9000 members of Cumann na mBan during
the war, and in 1921, there were 800 branches located throughout the island. By the
end of the war, it is estimated that fewer than 50 women were imprisoned by the
British.[161]

Memorial
A memorial called the Garden of Remembrance was erected in Dublin in 1966, on the
fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising. The date of signing of the truce is
commemorated by the National Day of Commemoration, when all those Irish men and
women who fought in wars in specific armies (e.g., the Irish unit(s) fighting in
the British Army in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme) are commemorated.

The last survivor of the conflict, Dan Keating (of the IRA), died in October 2007
at the age of 105.[162]