Wolfe Tones- Come Out Ye Black and Tans
In Dublin, Michael Collins assembled the "twelve apostles" to carry out executions of detectives or "G-Men" who were arresting Republican activists. Along with this limited guerilla warfare, passive forms of resistance took to the rise. Hunger strikes in prisons and railway worker strikes drove pressure on to the British to give the Irish their independence. |
Violence got worse in early 1920. The majority of Sinn Feinn's political leadership had been arrested. Eamon De Valera , who was the President of the Republic, had fled to America in order to raise funds for the war. Later, Collins ordered several volunteer units to raid Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) posts for arms. The RIC units relocated into the cities out of their rural posts. The IRA then systematically burned down these posts. |
The Conflict escalated to new heights in the summer of 1920. In certain locations, the Sinn Fein had replaced the RIC with the Irish Republican police. They also replaced the court system with the Dail courts. In an effort to put down the insurgency, The British Government deployed the Black and Tans, a group comprising mostly of Great war veterans, as a paramilitary policing force. The violence reached an apex on a day known as Bloody Sunday. |