Editing Irish War of Independence (section)

===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.<ref>Ryan (above) quotes [[Lionel Curtis]], political advisor to Lloyd George, writing in early 1921 ''"Protestants in the south do not complain of persecution on sectarian grounds. If Protestant farmers are murdered, it is not by reason of their religion, but rather because they are under suspicion as Loyalist. The distinction is fine, but a real one."'' Nevertheless, between 1911 and 1926, the territory of the Free State lost 34 percent of its (small) Protestant population to migration.</ref> 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.<ref>(M.E. Collins, ''Ireland'' p. 265).</ref> In the middle of this violence, de Valera (as [[President of Dáil Éireann]]) acknowledged the state of war with Britain in March 1921.<ref>{{Cite web |date=21 January 2016 |title=Today in Irish History – The First Dáil meets and the Soloheadbeg Ambush – 21 January 1919 |url=http://www.theirishstory.com/2016/01/21/today-in-irish-history-the-first-dail-meets-and-the-soloheadbeg-ambush-21-january-1919/#_edn13 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190426105942/http://www.theirishstory.com/2016/01/21/today-in-irish-history-the-first-dail-meets-and-the-soloheadbeg-ambush-21-january-1919/#_edn13 |archive-date=26 April 2019 |access-date=17 April 2019 |website=theirishstory.com |publisher=The Irish Story |quote=In fact the Dail did not formally take responsibility for the IRA campaign until March 1921 with a statement from Eamon de Valera to this effect}}</ref>

Between 1 November 1920 and 7 June 1921 twenty-four men were executed by the British.<ref name="ipp">''Irish Political Prisoners 1848– 1922'' by Seán McConville ({{ISBN|978-0415219914}}), p. 697.</ref> The first IRA volunteer to be executed was [[Kevin Barry]], one of [[The Forgotten Ten]] who were buried in unmarked graves in [[Consecration|unconsecrated ground]] inside [[Mountjoy Prison]] until 2001.<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D06EFDD113FF936A25753C1A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all Irish Rebury 10 Republicans Hanged by British in 1920s ] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210923124939/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/world/irish-rebury-10-republicans-hanged-by-british-in-1920-s.html |date=23 September 2021 }} 15 October 2001 ''New York Times'' : Accessed 1 November 2008.</ref> 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 [[Headford Ambush|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 Ambush|Scramogue]] in Roscommon, also in March 1921 and at [[Tourmakeady ambush|Tourmakeady]] and [[Carrowkennedy ambush|Carrowkennedy]] in Mayo in May and June. Equally common, however, were failed ambushes, the worst of which, for example at [[Mourne Abbey|Mourneabbey]],<ref>Eunan O'Halpin & Daithí Ó Corráin. p. 301</ref> [[Upton Train Ambush|Upton]] and [[Clonmult Ambush|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 ambush|Kilmeena]], while the Leitrim flying column was almost wiped out at [[Selton Hill ambush|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 [[Burning of the Custom House|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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Foy |first=Michael T. |title=Michael Collins's Intelligence War |date=2013 |publisher=The History Press |isbn=978-0-7509-4267-6 |pages=214–218}}</ref> 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.<ref>Foy (2013), p. 198</ref> 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".<ref>Dorothy McArdle, ''The Irish Republic'', p. 568.</ref>

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.<ref>According to historian Michael Hopkinson, the guerrilla warfare, "was often courageous and effective" (Hopkinson (2002) p.202). Another historian, David Fitzpatrick notes that, "The guerrilla fighters... were vastly outnumbered by the forces of the Crown... the success of the Irish Volunteers in surviving so long is therefore noteworthy" (Bartlett, Military History of Ireland, p. 406).</ref> 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 (1921–1922)|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 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".{{Citation needed|date=April 2021}} The IRA did take the campaign to the streets of Glasgow.<ref>{{Cite web |date=19 October 2007 |title=Battle Of Rottenrow |url=https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/battle-of-rottenrow-960788 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201107101752/https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/battle-of-rottenrow-960788 |archive-date=7 November 2020 |access-date=3 October 2020 |website=dailyrecord.co.uk}}</ref> 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.