Editing Irish Civil War (section)

==Attacks on former Unionists==
{{See also|Destruction of country houses in the Irish revolutionary period|Irish Unionist Party#Southern Unionists}}
Although the cause of the Civil War was the Treaty, as the war developed the anti-treaty forces sought to identify their actions with the traditional Republican cause of the "men of no property" and the result was that large [[Anglo-Irish]] landowners and some less well-off [[Irish Unionist Alliance#Southern Unionists|Southern Unionists]] were attacked. A total of 192 "stately homes" of the old landed class and of Free State politicians were destroyed by anti-treaty forces during the war.{{sfn | Collins | 1993 | p=431}}

The stated reason for such attacks was that some landowners had become Free State senators. In October 1922, a deputation of Southern Unionists met W. T. Cosgrave to offer their support to the Free State and some of them had received positions in the State's [[Upper house]] or [[Seanad Éireann (Irish Free State)|Senate]].{{sfn | Hopkinson | 1988 | p=195}} Among the prominent senators whose homes were attacked were: Palmerstown House near [[Naas]], which belonged to the [[Earl of Mayo]], [[Moore Hall, County Mayo|Moore Hall]] in Mayo, [[Horace Plunkett]] (who had helped to establish the rural co-operative schemes), and Senator [[Henry Guinness]] (which was unsuccessful).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.IrelandOldNews.com/Dublin/1923/MAR.html |title=Ireland Newspaper Abstracts |work=irelandoldnews.com |access-date=25 September 2021 |archive-date=26 March 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090326071312/http://www.irelandoldnews.com/Dublin/1923/MAR.html |url-status=live}}</ref> Also burned was Marlfield House in [[Clonmel]],<ref>{{cite web | title=#OTD in 1923 – Anti-Treaty forces burn the home of Free State Senator John Philip Bagwell at Marlfield, Clonmel, Co Tipperary | website=Stair na hÉireann/History of Ireland | date=2018-01-09 | url=https://stairnaheireann.net/2018/01/09/otd-in-1923-anti-treaty-forces-burn-the-home-of-free-state-senator-john-philip-bagwell-at-marlfield-clonmel-co-tipperary-including-the-extensive-library-built-up-by-his-father-historian/ | access-date=2019-08-24 | archive-date=24 August 2019 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190824034531/https://stairnaheireann.net/2018/01/09/otd-in-1923-anti-treaty-forces-burn-the-home-of-free-state-senator-john-philip-bagwell-at-marlfield-clonmel-co-tipperary-including-the-extensive-library-built-up-by-his-father-historian/ | url-status=live}}</ref> the home of Senator [[John Philip Bagwell]], with its extensive library of historical documents. Bagwell was kidnapped and held in the [[Dublin Mountains]], but later released when reprisals were threatened.<ref>{{cite web | title=DCU chronology of Events | website=webpages.dcu.ie | date=January 1923 | url=http://webpages.dcu.ie/~foxs/irhist/january_1923.htm | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070827034941/http://webpages.dcu.ie/~foxs/irhist/january_1923.htm | archive-date=27 August 2007 | url-status=dead | access-date=2019-08-24}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Gregory|first=IAP|title=Lady Gregory's Journals: Book one to twenty-nine, 10 October 1916 – 24 February 1925|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HwlaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA661|year=1978|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-519886-7|access-date=23 August 2019|archive-date=28 December 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191228193421/https://books.google.com/books?id=HwlaAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA661|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=Dáil Éireann - Volume 2 - 31 January, 1923 - Adjournment of the Dail. – Proclamation re Kidnapping. | website=historical-debates.oireachtas.ie | date=2011-06-07 | url=http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0002/D.0002.192301310015.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607121637/http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0002/D.0002.192301310015.html | archive-date=7 June 2011 | url-status=dead | access-date=2019-08-24}}</ref>

However, in addition to their allegiance to the Free State, there were also other factors behind Republican animosity towards the old landed class. Many, but not all of these people, had supported the Crown forces during the War of Independence. This support was often largely moral, but sometimes it took the form of actively assisting the British in the conflict. Such attacks should have ended with the [[Truce of 11 July 1921]], but they continued after the truce and escalated during the Civil War. In July 1922, Con Moloney, the IRA Adjutant General, ordered that unionist property should be seized to accommodate their men.{{sfn | Hopkinson | 1988 | p=195}} The "worst spell" of attacks on former unionist property came in the early months of 1923, 37 "big houses" being burnt in January and February alone.{{sfn | Hopkinson | 1988 | p=195}}

Though the [[Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903]] allowed tenants to buy land from their landlords, some small farmers, particularly in Mayo and Galway, simply occupied land belonging to political opponents during this period when the RIC had ceased to function.<ref>{{cite book |title=Evidence on conditions in Ireland: comprising the complete testimony, affidavits and exhibits ... |editor=Albert Coyle |publisher=American Commission on Conditions in Ireland |location=Washington |year=1921 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZZhnAAAAMAAJ |access-date=17 August 2009 |archive-date=26 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191226052719/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZZhnAAAAMAAJ |url-status=live}}</ref> In 1919, senior Sinn Féin officials were sufficiently concerned at this unilateral action that they instituted [[Dáil Courts|Arbitration Courts]] to adjudicate disputes. Sometimes these attacks had sectarian overtones, although most IRA men made no distinction between Catholic and Protestant supporters of the Irish government.

The IRA burnt an [[orphanage]] housing Protestant boys near Clifden, County Galway in June 1922, on the ground that it was "pro-British". The 60 orphans were taken to [[Devonport, Plymouth|Devonport]] on board a Royal Navy destroyer.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://saoirse32.dreamwidth.org/5626120.html|title=SAOIRSE32 - Images of orphans burned out during Civil War uncovered|website=saoirse32.dreamwidth.org|access-date=28 April 2019|archive-date=28 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428134026/https://saoirse32.dreamwidth.org/5626120.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Controversy continues to this day about the extent of intimidation of Protestants at this time. Many left Ireland during and after the Civil War. Dr Andy Bielenberg of [[University College Cork|UCC]] considers that about 41,000 who were not linked to the former British administration left Southern Ireland (which became the Irish Free State) between 1919 and 1923.<ref>Irish Times, 16 October 2009, p. 15. The number of 41,000 emigrants lies within the fall of 106,000 southern Protestants between the 1911 and 1926 censuses, that include war dead, economic migrants and employees of the former administration.</ref> He has found that a "high-water mark" of this 41,000 left between 1921 and 1923. In all, from 1911 to 1926, the Protestant population of the 26 counties fell from some 10.4% of the total population to 7.4%.{{sfn | Hopkinson | 1988 | p=195}}