Irish Civil War: Cork and Kerry's darkest days claimed 400 lives 

The bitter conflict dragged on for months into 1923 with killings and reprisals including a number of notorious atrocities 

As the sole survivor, Stephen Fuller, right, was able to tell what really happened at Ballyseedy, Co Kerry when National Army troops massacred eight anti-Treaty prisoners. Fuller is pictured  campaigning in the 1938 general election, and served as a TD from 1937 to 1943. Picture: NLI/Military Archives/Owen O'Shea

It would have been difficult to convince members of the Irish Republican Army in July 1921, the time of the truce with the British, that just a year later they would be divided into hostile factions and seeking to kill each other.

Yet, the Civil War broke out at the Four Courts in Dublin in June 1922 and rapidly spread around the country, as the Provisional Government forces attempted to wrest the territory of the prospective Free State from the anti-Treaty IRA, or as it called them, the Irregulars.