Irish Civil War: ‘Rather gruesome to talk of’ — Why the conflict in Kerry was so bitter and divisive 

A wall of silence has long surrounded the scale and brutality of the violence in Kerry, not least the deaths of 173 people

Anti-Treaty IRA prisoner being escorted by National Army troops patrolling the Kerry-Limerick border area in 1922. Picture: National Library of Ireland

It is widely accepted that the Civil War in Kerry was more bitter, visceral, divisive, and protracted than in most other parts of the country. There was, as local IRA commander Dan Mulvihill observed, “no middle path”; you were either on one side or the other.

The first engagement of the Civil War in Kerry came two days after the assault on the Four Courts began. The fighting in Listowel between a newly-established Free State army garrison and republicans claimed the life of the war’s first victim in the county, Private Edward Sheehy, a native of the town.