Irish Civil War

The Irish Free State was the state established as a dominion under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish... representatives exactly twelve months beforehand. On the day the Irish Free State was established, it comprised the entire island of Ireland, but Northern Ireland almost immediately exercised its right under the treaty to remove itself from the new state. The Irish Free State effectively replaced both the self-proclaimed Irish Republic and the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland. W. T. Cosgrave, the first President of the Irish Free State had led both of these "governments" since August 1922. The Irish Free State came to an end in 1937, when the citizens voted by referendum to replace the 1922 constitution. It was succeeded by the sovereign, modern state of the Republic of Ireland. The Easter Rising of 1916, and in particular the decision of the British military authorities to execute many of its leaders after courts martial, generated sympathy for the republican cause in Ireland.
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The Irish Free State offensive of July–September 1922 was the decisive military stroke of the Irish Civil War. It was carried out by the... National Army of the newly created Irish Free State against anti-treaty strongholds in the south and southwest of Ireland. At the beginning of the Civil War in June 1922, the Irish Free State government, composed of the Irish republican leadership who had accepted the Anglo-Irish Treaty, held only the capital city of Dublin. The new National Army was composed of those units of the Irish Republican Army loyal to them, plus recent recruits. Much of the rest of the country was outside of its control and in the hands of the anti-Treaty elements of the Irish Republican Army, who did not accept the legitimacy of the new state and who asserted that the Irish Republic, created in 1919, was the continuing legitimate all-island state. This situation was rapidly brought to an end in July and August 1922, when the Commander in Chief of the Free State forces, Michael Collins, launched the offensive. The offensive re-took the major towns for the Free State Government and marked the end of the conventional phase of the conflict.
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The Battle of Kilmallock took place between 25 July and 5 August 1922 in County Limerick. It was one of the largest engagements of the Irish Civil... War. It consisted of ten days of fighting in the countryside round Kilmallock in County Limerick, in which the Irish Free State forces, advancing south from Limerick city, found their path blocked by anti-Treaty IRA troops, dug into a number of villages at Bruff, Bruree and Patrickswell. The fighting ended with the retreat of the anti-Treaty fighters and the occupation of Kilmallock by Free State forces. The prelude to the battle was the fall of Limerick city to Free State forces. The Republican forces in the city under Liam Deasy, withdrew from their positions after a week's fighting and concentrated in Kilmallock and the nearby towns of Bruff and Bruree. The Free State forces, advancing south from the city, found their path blocked by the Republicans dug in in the three hilltop towns. The National Army's attempt to break through this position produced the only 'line battle' of the war with the two sides facing each other along clear front-lines.
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