Editing Irish War of Independence (section)

===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 more than 1,000 people were arrested. There were raids for arms by the Volunteers,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Townshend |first=Charles |title=Easter 1916, The Irish Rebellion |date=2006 |isbn=9781566637046 |page=338|publisher=Ivan R. Dee }}</ref> and two Kerry Volunteers (John Brown and Robert Laide) were shot and killed on 16 April 1918 during a raid on the police barracks at Gortalea. Those men were the first Volunteers to be killed during a raid for arms.<ref>{{cite book |last=Macardle |first=Dorothy |author-link= |date=1965 |title=The Irish Republic |url= |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |page=243 |isbn=}}</ref> At this time there was at least one shooting of a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) policeman, and an RIC barracks in Kerry was burnt.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dwyer |first=T. Ryle |title=Tans Terror and Troubles, Kerry's Real Fighting Story 1916–1923 |date=2001 |publisher=Mercier Press |isbn=9781856353533}}</ref> The attacks brought a British military presence from the summer of 1918, which only briefly quelled the violence, and an increase in police raids.<ref name="hart">{{Cite book |last=Hart |first=Peter |title=The I.R.A. and Its Enemies, Violence and Community in Cork, 1916–1923 |date=2016 |isbn=9780198208068 |pages=62–63 |publisher=OUP Oxford |orig-date=1998}}</ref> However, there was as yet no co-ordinated armed campaign against British forces or RIC. In [[County Cork]], four rifles were seized from the [[Eyeries]] barracks in March 1918, and men from the barracks were beaten that August.<ref name=hart/> 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.<ref name=hart/><ref>{{Cite book |first=Mícheál |last=Ó Súilleabháin |title=The Mouth of the Glen |work=Where Mountainy Men Have Sown. |pages=39–45 |date=1965}}; {{Cite web |title=Taoiseach Jack Lynch meets Old IRA War of Independence veterans at the unveiling of a memorial plaque at Beal na Ghleanna, Co. Cork. |url=https://photos.irishexaminer.com/?Action=VF&id=540495810&pcp=601&ppwd=kr%7C28982wfk%7C85623mgp |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110824104332/http://photos.examiner.ie/?Action=VF&id=540495810&pcp=601&ppwd=85623mgp |archive-date=24 August 2011 |access-date=20 June 2011 |website=Pictures from the Examiner Archive |publisher=Irish Examiner}}</ref> Patrols in [[Bantry]] and Ballyvourney were badly beaten in September and October. In November 1918, [[Armistice Day]] was marked by severe rioting in Dublin that left over 100 British soldiers injured.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Yeates |first1=Padraig |title=Michael Collins, an Illustrated Life |last2=Wren |first2=Jimmy |date=1989 |isbn=1-871793-05-X |page=27 |publisher=Tomar |oclc=26658954}}</ref>