Key dates
January 7th: Dáil approves Anglo-Irish Treaty
Following a month-long debate, the Dáil narrowly approves the Anglo-Irish Treaty to establish a 26-county State, by a margin of 64 votes to 57. After the vote de Valera resigns as president of the Republic and leads a large minority of anti-treaty Sinn Féin TDs out of the Dáil, setting up a division that would eventually erupt in civil war.
February 22nd: Formation of An Garda Síochána
The provisional Irish government establishes a new civic police force to replace the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police. The decision to keep the force unarmed in a country awash with guns and against the expressed wishes of the former administration was a brave act by the new government.
June 16th: New State’s first general election
A pre-election pact between pro- and anti-Treaty factions within Sinn Féin breaks down on the eve of the vote, permanently fracturing the nationalist movement. In the end, the fledgling State’s first official election sees pro-Treaty Sinn Féin candidates take 58 seats, with anti-Treaty Sinn Féin candidates winning 36 and Labour taking 16.
June 28th: Outbreak of civil war
Michael Collins reluctantly gives the order to fire on anti-Treaty republicans holed up in Dublin’s Four Courts, sparking a new armed confrontation.
As civil wars go, it was probably one of the least bloody, with the total fatalities now thought to be about 900. However, the final stages degenerate into a series of atrocities which leave a lasting bitterness on both sides.
August 22nd: Assassination of Collins
The Béal na mBláth ambush remains one of the most controversial moments in Irish history. Collins (31), commander and chief of the nascent Free State Army, orders his convoy to stop and return fire instead of taking the presumably safer option of driving on through. He is the only fatality. Neil Jordan’s 1996 movie on Collins did little to dampen conspiracy theories surrounding his death by linking de Valera to the ambush.
November 24th: Execution of Erskine Childers
Childers, a prominent anti-Treaty figure, had been convicted and sentenced to death by a military court for possessing a pistol in contravention of the recently instituted Emergency Powers Resolution.
The gun had been a gift from Collins when both men were on the same side. Childers is executed by firing squad at the Beggar’s Bush barracks in Dublin while an appeal against his sentence was still pending.
December 6th: Establishment of the Free State
The Irish Free State – a self-governing dominion of the British Commonwealth – comes into being by royal proclamation. It replaces the self-proclaimed Irish Republic, established during the War of Independence, and the provisional administration set up after the Anglo-Irish Treaty.