‘A Sort of Armed Argument’: Ireland's Civil War of Words

Abstract

This article sets out to contribute to the study of the languages of European civil wars through outlining and analysing the deployment of language as a weapon by the opposing sides of the Irish independence movement that split over the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The war of words (and images) preceded the shooting war that broke out in June 1922 and accompanied it to its end and far beyond. The propaganda produced and censorship applied by both the pro-treaty Free State side and its anti-treaty opponents is examined in the context of the evolving conflict and its aftermath. The increasingly rancorous discourse hardened attitudes on both sides and fuelled the intimate violence and destructiveness that characterized the second phase of the conflict. It also coloured the nature of political competition in the Irish Free State and the historiography of the conflict. The article argues in conclusion that the moral and political censorship that blighted Irish culture and democracy from the 1920s to the 1990s also had its roots in the civil war of words of 1922–3.