War of Independence and Treaty
McCullough was therefore sidelined in the subsequent Irish War of Independence (1919–1921). He was however arrested and imprisoned by the British several times and held for long periods
In 1922, he supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty, despite its acceptance of the Partition of Ireland, as a way of keeping the republican movement united and focussed on the north, where Catholics were being attacked by loyalists. He later said of the split in the southern movement, "while they were making up their minds about the Treaty, their people in the north were being killed day by day. They could not stand up the terror in Ulster unless they had a united organisation behind them". McCullough was obviously not aware that Collins continued to covertly arm the IRA in Ulster until August 1922, partly to protect nationalists there and partly to try to bring down the Northern Irish state.
After the Treaty, in early 1922 he was sent by George Gavan Duffy (and possibly also by Michael Collins) to the United States to make contact with Irish republican organisations there. He subsequently settled in Dublin in the new Irish Free State.
Read more about this topic: Denis McCullough
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