Provisional government establishes War Council under Michael Collins
Dublin, 14 July 1922 – The National Army announced yesterday that a War Council has been created to direct military operations throughout the country after the eruption of open hostilities with anti-treaty forces at the end of June.
The council will comprise three key individuals: Michael Collins, the Chairman of the Provisional Government who has assumed the duties of Commander-in-Chief; Richard Mulcahy, who will have the duties of Chief of Staff in addition to those of Minister of Defence; and General Eoin O’Duffy, who had assumed command of the South-Western Division.
Additional appointments include that of Fionán Lynch as Vice-Commandant of the South Western Division; of Kevin O’Higgins, as Assistant Adjutant-General; of Joseph McGrath, as Director of Intelligence on General Staff; and of Diarmuid O’Hegarty, who has been appointed as a Commandant General on the General Staff.
News of the creation of the War Council comes after Dáil Éireann was adjourned for 14 days to allow the members of the government focus on the task of restoring public order.
The government has stated that its first duty is to ‘assert the authority of the people and to re-establish in every county full security for the individual and the free working of the economic life of the nation.’
As a result, the government has said that it will be giving its ‘undivided attention’ and deploying ‘all its resources’ to facing down ‘armed groups’ which, it asserts, have taken upon themselves to make ‘an unnatural war upon the Irish people’ – a war which, if allowed to continue for any length of time, it says would lead the country to ‘economic ruin and famine’, as well as to the ‘return of the British army and the re-establishment of alien authority.’
National army troops are engaged in military activity against Irregulars in various parts of the country.
Pathé newsreel footage of Civil War scenes in Dublin 1922
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
