Peadar O'Donnell - Irish Civil War

Irish Civil War

After the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1922, O'Donnell and his IRA comrades were split over whether to accept this compromise, which ended their hopes of an Irish Republic but which granted a self governing Irish Free State. O'Donnell opposed this compromise and in March 1922, was elected, along with Joe McKelvey as a representative for Ulster on the anti-Treaty IRA's army executive. In April he was among the anti-Treaty IRA men who took over the Four Courts building in Dublin and helped to spark the outbreak of civil war with the new Free State government. The Irish Civil War would rage for another nine months. O'Donnell escaped from the Four Courts building after its bombardment and surrender, but was subsequently captured by the Free State Army, and imprisoned in Mountjoy Gaol. At the end of the Civil War, he participated in the mass Republican hunger strike that was launched in protest at the continued imprisonment of anti-Treaty IRA men, resisting in this manner for 41 days.