The Irish Civil War: Politics by other means

Between the start of the war and the ‘dump arms order’, almost 1,500 fatalities were identified from the Civil War, writes Andy Bielenberg

The Irish Civil War Fatalities Project aimed to identify all conflict-related deaths from the beginning of the Civil War on June 28, 1922, (when the National Army opened the attack on anti-treaty forces occupying the Four Courts in Dublin) until the ‘dump arms order’ by the anti-treaty IRA on May 24, 1923.

The Irish Civil War Fatalities Project is the first systematic attempt to investigate the number of people killed during this seismic period of our history.

Killing and death are central elements in warfare providing an indicator of violence which is easier to measure relative to other forms of violence since it is usually recorded in compensation claims, death certs, commemorative sites, newspapers, gravestones, military pension files and research already undertaken by historians.