A historian says the Clashmealcon Caves Siege in North Kerry came at end of a prolonged period of fighting.
The siege is recognised as the last incident of extreme violence in the Civil War.
Dr Fionnuala Walsh is Assistant Professor of Modern Irish History in University College Dublin.
She’s speaking tomorrow morning at the Kerry Civil War Conference, with her talk entitled ‘A gallant fight’: Violence, Trauma and Loss at Clashmealcon Caves.
A total of eight lives were lost in the Clashmealcon Caves Siege in April 1923.
Six members of the IRA, who were hidden in caves along the cliff in Clashmealcon, Causeway, were attacked by Free State soldiers; two Free State soldiers were killed in a shoot-out.
Two IRA members swam out to sea to try to escape, but their remains were never recovered.
When the Republicans then surrendered, the Free State side lowered a rope down the cliff.
When Republican commandant, Timothy ‘Aeroplane’ Lyons, was climbing up the rope, the rope either broke or was cut, and he fell down, and was then shot.
Three surviving Republicans were later executed at Tralee Barracks.
Dr Fionnuala Walsh says this savagery may shock people, but this was a society that had become desensitised to violence.
She says people had lived through the First World War and the War of Independence, as well then becoming embroiled in the the Civil War.
