The National Army was constituted from the revolutionary
Irish Republican Army (IRA), which emerged from the successful
Irish War of Independence, fought as a
guerrilla campaign against the
British Army and
Royal Irish Constabulary. On 31 January 1922, the first unit of the new National Army, a former IRA unit of the
Dublin Guard, took possession of
Beggars Bush Barracks, the first British barracks to be handed to the new state.
Michael Collins envisaged the new army being built around the pre-existing IRA, but over half of this organisation rejected the compromises made in the
Anglo-Irish Treaty, and favoured upholding the revolutionary
Irish Republic that had existed from 1919 until 1921. In February 1922, the pro-treaty National Army began to recruit volunteers. Until 1924, the National Army had no legal relationship with the Provisional Government and the Army Councils operated in co-operation with the government while remaining a separate and independent entity. Many who supported the treaty in the civil war and joined the pro-treaty forces believed they were fighting for the republic which Collins had promised. Army appointments were made inside the army and not by the Provisional Government or later Free State Governments. Martial Law was initiated by the army on 11 July 1922, did not derive from any act of parliament. A force of 4,000 troops was envisaged, but with the impending
Civil War, on 5 July 1922, the Provisional Government authorised raising an establishment of 35,000 men. Many of the new army's recruits were veterans of the British Army in
World War I, where they had served in
disbanded Irish regiments of the
British Army; by May 1923 this had grown to 58,000 troops. The National Army lacked the expertise necessary to train a force of that size, so approximately 20 per cent of its officers and 50 per cent of its soldiers were Irish ex-servicemen of the British Army and men like
Martin Doyle,
Emmet Dalton,
W. R. E. Murphy, and
Henry Kelly brought considerable combat experience.
The Civil War In March 1922, there was a major stand-off between up to 700 National Army and anti-treaty
IRA in
Limerick over who would occupy the military barracks being vacated by departing British troops. The situation was temporarily resolved in April when the two sides agreed to occupy two barracks each. In April 1922 Brigadier-General
George Adamson – one of the founders of the National Army – was shot dead by the IRA in
Athlone. In early May 1922 there was an even more serious clash in
Kilkenny, when the IRA occupied the centre of the town and 200 National Army troops were sent from Dublin to disperse them. 18 people were killed in the fighting in Kilkenny. In a bid to avoid an all-out civil war, both sides agreed to a truce on 3 May 1922. On 14 April 1922, 200 Anti-Treaty IRA soldiers led by
Rory O'Connor occupied the
Four Courts and several other buildings in central Dublin. At this time Collins was supplying the anti-treaty IRA with British arms for use in Northern Ireland. On 27 June 1922, the Four Courts IRA garrison kidnapped
JJ "Ginger" O'Connell, a general in the National Army following the arrest of IRA volunteer Leo Henderson who was commandeering cars for use in Northern Ireland. After giving the Four Courts garrison a final ultimatum to leave the building, the pro-treaty army decided to end the stand-off by shelling the Four Courts garrison into surrender: at 4.29am on 28 June 1922,
18-pounder guns borrowed from the British army opened fire on the Four Courts. It is sometimes assumed the
Provisional Government appointed
Michael Collins as
Commander-in-Chief of the National Army, but there is no evidence to support this contention. This was the point of no return and is regarded as the beginning of the
Irish Civil War. The IRA contingent in the Four Courts, who had only small arms, surrendered after two days of shelling and the buildings were stormed by National Army troops.
Fighting continued in Dublin until 5 July 1922, as IRA units from the Dublin Brigade led by
Oscar Traynor occupied
O'Connell Street, provoking a week's more street fighting. This fighting cost both sides, with 65 killed and 280 wounded in all. The British supplied artillery, aircraft, armoured cars, machine guns, small arms and ammunition to the National Army. Michael Collins,
Richard Mulcahy and
Eoin O'Duffy planned a nationwide offensive, sending
columns overland to take Limerick and
Waterford and seaborne forces to Counties
Cork,
Kerry and
Mayo. The only true
conventional battle during the offensive was the
Battle of Killmallock. Collins was killed in an ambush by IRA forces at
Béal na Bláth in County Cork on 22 August 1922; General Richard Mulcahy then took command. Some of the National Army's most effective troops were the
Dublin Guard, who were to the forefront of the Free state offensive in the summer of 1922. The Guard was formed in June 1921 by an amalgamation of the
IRA Squad and Dublin IRA Active Service Unit – both pro-Treaty in sympathy due to their links with Michael Collins. Its officers "formed the cadre of the Dublin Guard". After the onset of civil war, the Guard was rapidly expanded by the recruitment of many more men, including Irish veterans of the British Army. The Guard acted, particularly in County Kerry, which they occupied after a successful assault on Tralee in August 1922, with fearsome brutality,
beginning the summary execution of captured IRA soldiers. The most notorious example of this occurred at Ballyseedy where nine IRA prisoners were tied to a landmine; the detonation killed eight and only left one,
Stephen Fuller, who was blown clear by the blast to escape.
Frank Aiken,
IRA Chief of Staff ordered IRA volunteers to dump arms on 24 May 1923, ending the fighting.
Establishment of Defence Forces With the end of the Civil War, the National Army had grown too big for a peacetime role and was too expensive for the new Irish state to maintain. In addition, many of the civil war recruits were badly trained and undisciplined, making them unsuitable material for a full-time professional army. In the autumn of 1923, the government started to reduce the size of the National Army. This entailed a reduction of 30,000 personnel (including 2,200 officers) by March 1924. On 3 August 1923, the Irish Free State passed the Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Act, raising "an armed force to be called
Óglaigh na hÉireann (hereinafter referred to as the Forces) consisting of such number of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men as may from time to time be provided by the Oireachtas." The act stated that "The Forces shall be established as from a date to be fixed by Proclamation of the Executive Council in the
Iris Oifigiúil". The establishment of the Defence Forces was on 1 October 1924. This date marks the ending of the initial phase of the National Army and the legal establishment of the
Defence Forces as the
Irish Free State's military force. However, it was not a new force: the legislation was explicit that the Defence Forces would have the same legality, organisation, personnel, orders and regulations as the 1922–24 force. The Special Infantry Corps was established during the final stages of the Civil War, to reverse illegal land seizures and
break the
strikes of agricultural labourers in Munster and south Leinster, as well as reversing factory seizures by striking workers. In 1924, a small group of officers, led mainly by former members of
The Squad, attempted to resist the efforts to demobilise. This situation evolved into what became called the "
Army Mutiny", which, after an ultimatum, was resolved relatively peaceably with recognition of the authority of the Irish Free State's
Government. == Organisation ==