How did the laws of war shape the Irish Civil War?

Analysis: appeals to the laws of war drew international attention to Ireland and resulted in Red Cross humanitarian intervention in the conflict

By Lia Brazil, University of Oxford and Shane Darcy, University of Galway

A century ago, international law had little to say about civil war. The laws of war as laid down in various Hague and Geneva conventions applied only to wars taking place between states. The predominantly European powers that had devised these laws were keen to retain a free hand in colonial and civil wars. Notwithstanding such limits, the parties to the Irish Civil War often invoked the laws of war, particularly around the question of prisoner of war status for anti-treaty IRA fighters, the so-called "Irregulars".

The efforts of Republican women regarding the treatment of prisoners precipitated one of the first ever visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross in April 1923 to a country experiencing civil war. A resolution adopted at the Tenth International Conference of the Red Cross in 1921 helped pave the way for this intervention, having called for "political prisoners" in times of civil war to be treated in accordance with the principles applying to regular prisoners of war.

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences

From RTÉ Radio 1's History Show, historian Liz Gillis on the new RTÉ TV series The Silent Civil War which looks at memories and previously unheard testimony of the Civil War

Chief of Staff of the IRA Liam Lynch asserted during the Civil War that "we on our side have at all times adhered to the recognised rules of warfare". Captured National Army soldiers were accorded "the rights of prisoners-of-war", he claimed, whereas members of the IRA were "tortured, wounded and murdered".

The Provisional Government of the Irish Free State drew on the laws of war, primarily to condemn the IRA for "war crimes", such as using dum dum bullets or the misuse of the Red Cross symbol. With thousands of IRA volunteers being held in the early months of the Civil War, consideration was given to granting the them prisoner of war status, but no formal proclamation was made.

During the Dáil debate on the Army Special Powers Resolution in September 1922, which lead to trials by military courts and executions, General Richard Mulcahy, the Commander-in-Chief of the National Army and Minister of Defence, took a firm line. He stated that he was not prepared to give "the grand high cloak of a prisoner of war" to those in the prisons of Ireland at that time. George Gavan Duffy's pleas that such status could mitigate the violence fell on deaf ears.

From RTÉ News, 2022 report on the centenary of the execution of Erskine Childers

Lawyers for Erksine Childers, who was facing execution for possession of a revolver, likewise got nowhere when claiming prisoner of war status on his behalf. His execution – what he described as "a soldier’s death" in his farewell letter to his wife Molly – and other killings by the National Army galvanised efforts to have the Red Cross in Geneva intervene.

Members of the Women's Prisoners Defence League, founded by Maud Gonne and Charlotte Despard, hoped they could secure the release of imprisoned republicans and prevent further executions with the help of the Red Cross. In December 1922, Kathleen Lynn and Kathleen O'Brennan travelled to Geneva, armed with allegations of torture and ill-treatment in Free State jails. These conditions, they argued, were "revolting to all civilized society". Members of the International Committee of the Red Cross were sceptical of these claims. They viewed the Irish women as "advanced socialists" and "faint hearted women", exaggerating the situation in Ireland.

But further appeals arrived in Geneva, some orchestrated by Éamon de Valera. These claimed that the Free State had acknowledged the situation in Ireland as a war, and were deliberately breaking the laws of war in their methods of warfare and their treatment of republican prisoners.

From RTÉ Radio 1's Arena, the task of telling the Irish Civil War story to children is being undertaken by Branar Theatre company in Galway in the form of a play called The Table by Christian O'Reilly and an accompanying graphic novel called The Irish Civil War drawn and written by Maeve Clancy

Unable to ignore these appeals, a delegation from the Red Cross arrived to inspect prisons in April 1923. They were met by Desmond Fitzgerald in Dublin, who insisted to the delegate’s surprise the situation in Ireland was not a war but a "police operation" – involving over 10,000 prisoners.

One of the Red Cross delegates, Rodolphe A. Haccius, visited the internment camps at Tintown (the Curragh), Gormanstown and Newbridge, as well as Mountjoy Prison. However he was not permitted to visit the women’s prison at Kilmainham or speak to any of the prisoners. His report concluded that the prisoners were being held in conformity with international legal principles, though without claiming they were prisoners of war.

The publication of the Red Cross delegates’ report in the Revue Internationale de Croix-Rouge was seen as a propaganda victory for the Irish Free State. The Women’s Prisoners’ Defence League, the IRA leadership and politicians like Gavan Duffy all challenged the report’s accuracy. For republicans, the Red Cross visit to Free State "show camps" meant the report was "worthless".

From RTÉ Brainstorm, how the Civil War split an Irish republican family in two

Appeals to the laws of war drew international attention to the Irish civil war, and resulted in Red Cross humanitarian intervention in the conflict. Yet even the Red Cross delegate would not claim republican prisoners were prisoners of war. Republicans even alleged that the Red Cross visit had made camps conditions worse, providing allegations of torture and indefinite detention.

The laws of war did not prevent violence in the civil war, though they did frame how both sides saw this violence and its limits. International law has since evolved to extend the protections of the laws of war to internal conflicts, yet the hostility on the part of states to outside intervention in domestic affairs remains evident.

Dr Lia Brazil is a Research Fellow in the Faculty of History at the University of Oxford. Prof Shane Darcy is the Deputy Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights in the School of Law at University of Galway. He is a former Irish Research Council awardee.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

More stories on