Editing Irish War of Independence (section)

===Violence spreads===
[[File:Active service Unite of the Dublin Brigade.jpg|thumb|right|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.{{sfn|Hopkinson|2002|p=26}} 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 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.<ref>M.E. Collins, Ireland 1868–1966, p. 254.</ref>

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 Wilson Lynd|Robert Lynd]] wrote in ''[[The Daily News (UK)|The Daily News]]'' in July 1920 that:

{{Blockquote|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.{{sfn|Hopkinson|2002|p=42}}}}