 It was during this year that in Central Dublin, it's sometimes called the Battle of Dublin or the Battle of the Four Courts really, when about 200 IRA members were held up in Central Dublin. And this was a battle of IRA members against the IRA members, you know, or former IRA members, perhaps. And once again, Central, the city, the center of Dublin was heavily shelled by, well, by the National Army of Ireland and largely kind of, well, destroyed and lots of buildings damaged and so on. But these members of the IRA, they'd set up an armed occupation in the Four Courts, which is the main judicial building in Ireland. It was kind of the center of the High Courts and all the main crimes were tried there. It was obviously a significant building as part of the British colonial apparatus in Ireland and also the funding of this new state, Irish state. And they took over this. They were saying, you know, to say they were taking a stand for Irish freedom. Like Cal said, much like in April 1916, when members of the Irish Republic and Brotherhood, the Irish volunteers who had become the IRA, took over the general post office in Central Dublin, again, another kind of significant public building. And like in 1916, they were opposed by a much superior military force. And their actions in taking control of the Four Courts was largely met by ambivalence from the local population, really. So they had no fighting chance, to be honest, in launching this occupation. Although, mainly, they were trying to, I think, apply moral pressure to their former comrades. Because unlike 1916, this battle in Central Dublin, the forces that opposed these IRA members, this occupation, was not the British Army or any kind of, you know, outside foreign imperialist army or force. Instead, it was their former comrades in arms and former members of the IRA who were led in this battle. In fact, by, you know, it was certainly the most famous and most popular IRA commander of the day, Michael Collins. Now, Collins, people will probably know from some of the films, perhaps starring Liam Neeson. It was famous for his role in the Civil War, or in the War of Independence, rather, in building up the kind of the IRA's intelligence apparatus and how he set up the Dublin active service unit infiltrated Dublin Castle, which was the kind of headquarters of the British administration, and, you know, plotted assassinations and intimidation of police officers, army officers, this kind of thing. Central, really, to the IRA's campaign in the War of Independence. And this fighting, you know, comrade against comrade, this fratricidal conflict that it only lasted a couple of weeks, really, was the result of a really bitter split in the IRA executive in its leadership, but also in its ranks, and in the wider Republican movement in Ireland as well. And this split was over, essentially, was called the Anglo-Irish Treaty. And this split, as I think I'll kind of mainly talk about in my lead-off, and I guess what was the point to get to this split in the Irish Republican movement, really represented the kind of internal counter-revolution of Irish bourgeois nationalism and the beginning of a counter-revolutionary process in Ireland that would bring Ireland's revolutionary period to an end. This treaty, anyway, this Anglo-Irish Treaty, had brought an end to the three-year, roughly three-year, War of Independence in Ireland that started not long after the East arising in 1916. When, you know, it is said, of course, in this war that the British Empire was, was after hundreds of years, finally brought to its knees by the resistance of the Irish people and by their campaign in support for the IRA and other methods of resistance. And this, you know, this period of the War of Independence from kind of, you know, 1917-18 onwards, really, is not just a period of guerrilla struggles of the IRA's flying columns and so on, the famous parts that you maybe see, again, in the films and kind of passed into Irish legend, really. This period, you know, prior to the Four Courts and prior to the beginning of the Civil War, was also a period of class struggles, of workers' struggles, of the struggles of poor tenant farmers against their landlords. You know, it was a period that saw many, many strikes, occupations, land seizures even, and famous episodes of class struggle and even of workers' power in Ireland, like the famous Limerick Soviet in 1919, when workers took over the city and ran it for a couple of weeks through a general kind of committee. This period, you know, this was the Irish Revolution, I think you could say, in full colour, you know, when it was not just green but red. And this whole revolutionary period, as you would imagine, was extremely stormy and stressful for British imperialism. They really were losing control of the situation. The administration that was largely headquartered in Dublin Castle was practically cut off from large swathes of the country by, well, by the kind of IRA's campaigns and by all kinds of uprisings. Taxes and duties were not paid or collected. People, instead of going to the traditional kind of British-sponsored courts, when they had problems they went instead to the Dall courts, these Republican alternatives that had been set up in order to seek redress or whatever it might be. The police, the Royal Irish Constabulary, the kind of semi-militarized colonial police force, as well as the army itself, were largely restricted and kind of confined to a few areas and had to sort of stay in their barracks because of the fear of the constant ambushes that they faced from the IRA and the raids on rural police stations that meant they had to withdraw to mainly only the big towns and so on. It was pretty clear they were losing control of the situation and Ireland could no longer be held or governed by the sword, as had been done for hundreds of years. And, of course, in this period, everyone would be familiar, I think, with the desperate means to which the British turned to try and subjugate the population, the use of the blackened towns to terrorize the population, famous episodes like the burning of cork, the crook park massacre and so on. But this only made the situation worse, really, for British imperialism. It further alienated the population, the broad masses of the population, but also, even including the middle and upper classes, began to see British rule in Ireland as untenable, as covered in blood from head to foot, as it was. And even the Catholic Church, in this period, changed sides from its historic opposition and kind of hostility to revolutionary Irish republicanism, to instead embracing it as a moral and just cause and condemning the sins of British imperialism, such was the effect of this kind of period of struggle. And I think it could be said, this is a kind of historic point, that perhaps if Britain had really concentrated its full forces on Ireland against the IRA and against the strikes and occupations and so on, then perhaps they could have reconquered, they could have held control, really. But this was out of the question. They didn't have the ability to do this in this period. Colonial rebellions were unfolding, not just in Ireland, but also in Egypt, in India, and in other kind of parts of the British Empire. And these kind of places, in Africa and in Asia, much wealthier conquests for Britain than Ireland was. So they were willing to, so it was much more a focus for the British imperialists of the day. And yeah, they simply couldn't afford to continue to hold Ireland by the sword, as I said. Now despite this, in this period, the IRA struggle, I think, was no doubt a heroic one and a broadly popular one as well, was supported in small towns all over the kind of country, and particularly in the south and the west of Ireland famously as well. And when Britain finally, seemingly, caved to the pressure, offered negotiations to the IRA leadership, there was jubilation. Thousands of people flooded into the ranks of the IRA, people who had maybe been a bit passive before. Then I saw that victory was within grasp, and they wanted to play their part. You can imagine how full of hope people were that they'd finally fought and won freedom from their historic oppressor in a country scarred for centuries by poverty and exploitation and all the kind of miseries of imperialism and of capitalism. You can imagine what freedom would finally mean to these people and what precious thing it would be and the kind of debates that would rage over the question of what it really means for Ireland to be free. Because the treaty that was introduced or offered by Britain in fact didn't mention anywhere this Irish Republic that all the members of the IRA and their supporters thought that they were fighting and struggling for, that they said had been declared already and existed de facto from 1916 and that the Dull courts and the Republican Assembly, the Dull was also elected, an elected government of this republic. Instead of a republic, the treaty instead said that Ireland would be a free state, kind of a novel term. It would remain within the British Empire in which the people's representatives elected in Ireland would have to swear an oath of loyalty to the King of England continually. And this King of course would be represented in Ireland by his, by head of state, an imperial viceroy who would have the final kind of an assay over legislation or whatever else. And the treaty itself would take precedence over any constitution that the Irish government would pass. So it was essentially a treaty of continued colonial subjugation really. And to what I mounted to really a majority of the IRA ranks, many of its veteran members, those who'd fought in the war, this treaty that was offered was just an insult really. Additional onerous conditions that the Irish had to agree to included the maintenance of British Navy ports around Ireland and their garrisons. And as well as all kinds of annuities and reparations that Irish people would have to pay for generations to Britain to supposedly, I don't know, payback England for all the civilising work that it had done in Ireland. And most relevant perhaps to today and to contemporary political crises of the British state, Ireland was partitioned into two states by this treaty as well. In the north and the south, 26 counties of Ireland, they would be a part of this Irish free state in the south. And six would be, you know, given the choice, but it was kind of a done deal for a complete six counties, they would remain a part of the United Kingdom as they do to this day. So I don't know if you can imagine maybe being an IRA veteran and like hearing this proposal. And then maybe imagine that when you hear this, it's not just a draft treaty, it's not a first runover, you know, it's not the maximum that Britain wants to get. Instead, this is what the IRA leadership have actually agreed to, that if they've said that they're going to submit this verification. And more than that, it's not just a treaty, a draft treaty. But the man who signs on the dotted line to agree to this proposal, this draft, was none other than the Michael Collins, you know, one of the most heroic figure, probably the reason many people joined the IRA basically. But I think many must have reacted in the same way that Lenin probably reacted when he heard of the German SPD's betrayal in 1914. He probably thought this is, surely this is British forgery. This can't be true that they've actually said they're going to accept this deal. But many were shocked and I think assumed that it would be rejected out of hand, that Collins had failed and screwed up, maybe he'd been tricked, perhaps. And when the draft treaty gets submitted towards to the dollar and then, you know, it wouldn't be ratified, it would be rejected. And maybe the war would continue or whatever. People weren't quite sure exactly what happened after this. But instead, it narrowly passed in the dollar. It was a very, very tense vote and it tensed a bit. I'm sure lifelong friendships were destroyed in the days of debates. All kinds of abuse was kind of slung around. And I decided to accuse each other of treachery, of endangering the country, of giving up what little freedom they'd already achieved in order to achieve, you know, the perfect freedom and so on. We can imagine what kind of debates people would have had on these kind of sides, the more gradualist approach versus the people who took a more principled approach to independence. Michael Collins, he argued that this point of view, that the treaty would be a stepping stone to a republic. And his famous phrase was, this gives us the freedom to achieve freedom. He firmly believed that the IRA didn't have the ability to struggle any longer. That in fact, he thought that if they continued for six months of war, Britain would increase its number of troops and perhaps crush them. And he also, and others on his side also, we argued that, you know, even by granting negotiation, Britain had already kind of conceded Irish sovereignty. So this was not really a substantial kind of matter. They had already granted a little bit of independence to Ireland by agreeing to negotiate with an Irish republican government. But the anti-treaty faction was led by Eamon de Valera. So he was the official actual president of this provisional republican government. He was a president of Dalaran. He argued that it was, the treaty was an unacceptable infringement on Irish sovereignty, that it was a betrayal of this Irish republic that had been declared in 1916, that all of the IRA's attack campaign had been dedicated towards establishing, in fact, and that the program of the doll itself was essentially being betrayed and scrapped by the acceptance of this treaty. But like I said, the anti-treaty side, they narrowly lost this kind of vote. After losing de Valera, he walked out, he and his supporters walked out, they denounced the vote as illegitimate. They said, you know, this doll cannot vote to dissolve the Irish republic. And in the months, the ensuing months basically, this split deepened and became ever more bitter within the IRA and the broad republican movement. And all of this really culminated in the attack on the four courts and marked the beginning, essentially, of the Irish civil war. Now, the four courts is, I think in most Irish histories, it's a bit kind of glanced over because it was unsuccessful. It was not very popular. But I think it's a very important episode because the attack on the four courts, the whole drama surrounding it, really reveals, you know, the true nature of this this Anglo-Irish treaty, you know, what it really represented for Britain and for Ireland, that it was really just a trap for Irish nationalism. Because the negotiations for this treaty had been opened by the liberal prime minister, David Lloyd George, which many will probably know, you know, Lenin regarded Lloyd George as one of the more far-sighted and intelligent bourgeois statesmen who could, you know, flexibly, I guess, apply the policies of imperialism and update them as needed. From Lloyd George's perspective, Ireland could not be held any longer by a foreign ruling class. And instead, perhaps a semi-independent native ruling class could be used to keep order in Ireland and, you know, keep the profits rolling, keep the money rolling in. Now, Collins, who, my Collins, he led the kind of the dull, the Republican side in these negotiations, he spoke quite openly of how Lloyd George tried to corrupt him when he went to these meetings. He would take them and show them, you know, one of these gigantic maps they used to have in every school of the British Empire, you know, from east to west and said, you know, told them, look, give up this demand for Irish independence and Irish Republic. And look, you could be, you could be a partner in all of this. Ireland, Britain, you know, we go way back. And we could finally, we can finally stand as equals, you know, we'll give you a little bit of respect and you'll get your, you'll get your share of the loot, you know, of British imperialism. And this, I think this kind of washed over Collins. He was, he wrote in his diary about how he could see right through it. But this was really not so much directed, I think, at Collins himself, but over his head really. It's an attempt to make an appeal, a class appeal from Lloyd George, to the class sensibilities of the bourgeois nationalists, people more like W.T. Gosgrave, Arthur Griffith, and others who were leaders of the original Republican government. Collins, yeah, he resisted, you know, this illusion. But nonetheless, he agreed to the terms of the treaty. He brought it back and said this was the best that they could really, they could achieve. And of course, after this, this would eventually lead in June 1922, to him in his spiffing new Irish National Army uniform with his, you know, tailored leather gloves and everything like this. Would turn British made guns, guns they've been left behind or gifted by the British Army to the new Irish National Army. Turned these on his former comrades who were holed up in the barricaded in the four courts building. Shelling it, you know, one round of minutes, the same kind of tactics that were used by the British in April 1916. And he did this at the insistence of Lloyd George, and of Winston Churchill as well. He was also a cabinet minister at this time. And in fact, it was Churchill who told Collins directly that either the Irish provisional government, the free state government, they deal with these rebels led by Rory O'Connor, was the kind of leader of the four courts of occupation, that they had to be put down by the Irish government, or else they would consider the treaty violated and the 70 odd thousand troops that could be sent to Britain, they would be sent straight away. And there would be no treaty, there would be no free state and continuation really. Now, Michael Collins, I think he may have resisted Lloyd George's attempts to charm him, but he clearly heeded the threats that were issued by Lloyd George. He was told that a great and terrible war would be unleashed on Ireland if they did not accept the treaty. And then even afterwards, the pressure kept going. He said, like I said, you know, that there would be threats of intervention if they did not crack down on this anti treaty movement, which represented really the majority of the armed ranks of the IRA. Collins himself wanted to conciliate, you know, he tried to, and even those on the anti treaty side, like Liam Lynch, Cathal Brewer, they wanted to conciliate, they didn't want to turn to violence and fight each other. But nonetheless, the ultimatum was issued by Britain and Collins carried through on it. And the background to this, you know, there was increasing kind of pressure, basically, because of things like the assassination in 1922 of Sir Henry Wilson, who was a kind of British general. And there was a lot of kind of confusion over this, because Michael Collins had officially ordered this assassination to take place and had set up the, you know, the mission and everything for it. But that had all been arranged prior to the beginning of the treaty negotiations. And I guess the guys who, you know, did it, they thought, well, it's still on, we've not got the, you know, the call off. So the assassinated this British general. As well as IRA activity in Northern Ireland, these were things that led Britain to demands that the free state cracked down on the anti treaty movement. Now, this anti treaty movements, you know, what became known as the Irregulars in the Civil War, they had taken the four courts in Dublin, but their main strongholds basically were the former kind of IRA strongholds in the south and west of Ireland from the time of the War of Independence. And they, like I said, they were also still very much active in the north of Ireland, despite the partitioning of the country. And in fact, this partition immediately, as was predicted by James Connolly, and in fact, many other Irish Republicans throughout history, resulted in a wave of sectarian attacks and violence in the north as kind of Protestant and, you know, Unionist groups tried to drive Catholic families out of their homes. There was, as is always the case with these sectarian fights, there's kind of tit for tat violence. But Catholics were primarily the victims, Irish Catholics were primarily the victims of this violence. And in fact, thousands were forced to flee south to leave northern Ireland and resettle elsewhere. And, you know, the northern IRA and nationalists in the north, they certainly felt left behind by all of this, by the, even by the Civil War. Partition was really not a huge concern to many of the nationalists in the south. Even Aiman de Valera was actually willing to accept it and tolerate it as a condition for kind of self-government to Ireland. Yeah, de Valera and Collins were both kind of agreed on this and neither side saw it as a permanent fixture either, unlike the Irish within class today, they probably really couldn't care less about reunifying the country. But in the southwest of Ireland, it was the anti-treaty IRA chief Liam Lynch. He was considering establishing this Munster Republic down there to rebel against the Irish Free State, essentially deprive it the opportunity to consolidate itself. And this republic was just talked about, it would never really come to be established in any way. But it was in August 1922 that the situation really turned and became much more bitter between the two sides. Because it was in August that Michael Collins was assassinated. He was making a tour of many areas around Ireland and against the advice of many of his close advisors, he visited his native Cork county and it was there that he was caught in an ambush and killed, basically. He was the only person killed in this ambush in fact. And it was a shock really to I think all of Ireland, like I said, he was a figure with enormous moral and political authority on both sides. Even those in the anti-treaty side were stunned by this happening. Half a million people turned out to his funeral just to show the levels of popularity. And this assassination after, I guess, a brief period of mourning, really all it resulted in was a massive increase in the repression targeted against the anti-treaty forces. Some say that maybe Collins, he was again trying to conciliate, was holding back the worst elements of the state, perhaps that's true. But after his death anyway, the repression escalated dramatically. Thousands of anti-treaty Republicans were rounded up and interned in camps, often without trial or any kind of a chance of appeal, and often without really much evidence apart from one witness saying, oh yeah, he's an anti-treaty, he's an irregular. Many including the leaders of the Four Courts occupation, they were interned and they were executed by firing squad. A policy of shoot on sight for irregular was introduced. And anyone, a new law was passed that anyone could be arrested and executed for an unauthorized possession of a gun or a firearm. One of the first victims of this law actually was Erskine Childers. He was an English man who had sympathized with the Irish struggle. He had smuggled weapons for the IRA during the War of Independence and he'd even served as a secretary to Michael Collins during negotiations and during his leadership of the active service unit. But nonetheless, Childers, he was arrested and executed for possessing a pistol that Michael Collins had personally gifted to him. And many others of course were died in similar circumstances. And by the end of the next year, by the end of 1923, 12,000 people had been interned in these kind of camps around Ireland. As well as these police states kind of repressions, the National Army of the Free State expanded exponentially. By early 1923, there were in fact more troops as members of the Irish National Army deployed around Ireland than Britain had ever deployed to Ireland to keep control of it. The majority of these were recruited out of elements who had kind of sat by during the War of Independence and done nothing, maybe joined the IRA just at the end. Quite a kind of inert, basically, layers, rather than IRA veterans really. And, you know, they kind of rushed to join, I guess, when it looked like victory was possible. Plus, a dedicated corps of Collins' loyalists, the Dublin Brigade of the IRA, formed the corps of this new army. And it was in fact incredibly powerful in Ireland because of its size and social weight. And this army, of course, was armed to the teeth by British imperialism, you know. You can tell they probably offered them a big discount on weapons. And they were used to encircle, isolate and eventually completely destroy the anti-treaty forces of the IRA. The fighting was incredibly one-sided, you know. The anti-treaty IRA had insufficient weapons or ammunition and insufficient numbers even to fight versus the National Army who had armored cars, machine guns and even limited air support. And how bloody this war was in the roughly 10 months of fighting, more people lost their lives than in the three years of the War of Independence. It's safe to say that the anti-treaty IRA was completely smashed, basically. As well as this, there were brutal feuds and recriminations all around the country. Families were quite literally divided by this anti-treaty versus anti-treaty thing. And, yeah, social anti-treaty Republicans became socially ostracized, you know. There were even priests who refused to bury irregulars who had been shot, sometimes even just shot, like I said, on site, kind of out of hand. They refused to bury them. And this established really a powerful apparatus of repression as part of the Irish priesthood against Republicans that very much lasts to this day even in Ireland. There are still special courts, special divisions of the police that investigate dissident Republicans, obviously everyone's filming over the sprees now rather than irregular Republicans. And much of it is targeted at families, you know. And in many ways, being a dissident Republican is kind of a family business in Ireland. But people who, you know, maybe their grandfather was like a dissident IRA person or whatever, they still are surveilled or ever by the Irish dip. But before all this fighting, really, it's important to note, I think, that the anti-treaty cause had dealt a very heavy blow in the 1922 dual elections. I won't dwell on this, but the pro-treaty parties, essentially, the pro-treaty side of Sinn Féin, as well as the Irish Labour Party, and most of the other parties, even the ones that were, you know, neutral in the treaty question, de facto, they support the treaty. They easily won well over 50% of the votes in this election just before the fighting really began. Now, you could argue, I think, that the election was maybe not representative. It certainly wasn't like a straight referendum on the treaty as some like to portray it. But it points to one of the anti-treaty forces problems, which was a lack of popular support for their campaign. We can explain this, that many workers and poor farmers in Ireland were really exhausted by war and conflict. We had not just the war of independence breaking out, but the First World War and everything as well. And all the economic disruption and dislocation that caused, people wanted it to end really and they wanted to return to kind of a period of peace. As well as the widespread belief, I think that the anti-treaty view could be included within the structure of the new Irish Free State. There was no need, essentially, people thought, for violence between Irish people, once the British had left, then what need was there to start a civil war and fight and kill each other. But the anti-treaty movement itself was quite divided, worth mentioning. You had militarists like Chief of Staff Liam Lynch, who essentially just wanted to maintain the IRA as a guerrilla force in the kind of rural parts of Ireland to prevent the consolidation of the Irish Free State. You had people like Rory O'Connor that led the Four Quartz Occupation. They wanted instead to try and spark new fighting with the British by launching these kind of occupations and insurrections and things like this. And then you had others like Amon de Valera, who saw a more political path. They believed that the armed struggle was doomed. It was over. They really had no chance. And in fact, de Valera would ultimately mandate the disarming of the anti-treaty IRA in May 1923, which really marked, I guess, the end proper of the Irish Civil War after, like I said, around 10 months. But interestingly as well, for us to learn, there were signs of a left wing developing in the IRA in this period. Liam Mellows, who is kind of commemorated today as an Irish Republican, is a bit more well remembered. He was one of the IRA leaders in the Four Quartz Occupation, for which he would be jailed and executed in November. Now, Mellows was inspired by that famous Irish Marxist, James Connolly. He had an interest in socialism and Bolshevism. And in fact, he thought that the IRA would have to develop itself politically and develop links to the common turn and to the Soviet Union. And he advocated that the anti-treaty movements adopt a socialist program to win popular support against the openly counter-revolutionary Irish free state. And this idea was even passed around in Liam Lynch's kind of Munster Republic. This is his idea. If we're going to establish a kind of breakaway of a breakaway, then we need to have a program to win people over. Now Mellows and James Connolly, they drew very, very similar conclusions about the need for the struggle for Irish national liberation to be led by the working class on a program of establishing a workers republic in Ireland. They came from very different backgrounds, despite drawing these conclusions. Connolly of trade unions and industrial struggle, whereas Mellows, all his life, was an IRA member, an IRA guerrilla. So throughout this, well, I guess, just prior to this kind of period anyway, throughout the revolutionary period, the development of a mass revolutionary republican socialism certainly existed in potential all throughout Ireland. There were many episodes of it kind of cracking through the surface, really. But there was never any kind of political center around which it could really crystallize. It formed or began to form kind of a bit too late. James Connolly was executed too early to play this kind of role. And Mellows drew these conclusions too late and was obviously also executed. Just at the same time as the kind of revolution was really gaining strength in Ireland behind the betrayal of these bourgeois nationals to agree to the treaty. But it did begin to form in some sectors of the anti-treaty movement. And after it would go underground, there would be something of a kind of lineage after that. But really, the left wing never really played like that big of a role. Ultimately, de Valera, he maintained his hegemonic leadership over the republican movement. My de Valera is far from a revolutionary figure. He, in fact, is a pure bourgeois opportunist politician, really, and very, very conservative in all of his views, basically, economically, socially, and so on. His opposition to the treaty was in reality quite skin deep. I mean, some have theorized that it was all to do with just his maybe jealousy of Michael Collins. But I don't think so. I think he had a much kind of bigger ideas in mind. But he advocated essentially after disarming the anti-treaty IRA reformist path to creating a republic. And in fact, even years later, he would become president of the Irish Free State, and he would gradually convert it into an Irish republic just by changing the name, basically. And while president, he would actually even support the continued repression of anti-treaty IRA and anti-treaty republicans. So he betrayed them as well, really. It was a WT Cosgrave, though, one of the, in fact, the most conservative of the Sinn Féin politicians. He would come to lead the new Irish Free State government. And he led it on a programme of absolute reaction. Besides the repression of the anti-treaty IRA, there are also attacks on the working class, cuts to paying conditions, attacks on unionisation. They tried to establish ties, close ties to the capitalist class, the big bourgeois in Ireland, who are obviously very closely connected to Britain, as well as established trade deals and so on, like around the Commonwealth. Essentially, they wanted to get back to business as usual for Irish capitalism. None of that they had planted themselves as the kind of new committee for managing this whole thing. And it was a period of austerity and social instability the early years of the Free State that really crowned the victory of the counter-revolution in Ireland. And it was thoroughly reactionary that for the first couple years of his existence, the Irish Free State really teetered on the edge of a military coup d'etat. Members of the Irish National Army, they were unhappy with how things are going on, and they multiple times kind of threatened to take charge and get rid of all the politicians. But the governing party that Cosgrave led, and many of Collins's former supporters kind of joined, the Cumming Nogale was ultra-nationalistic, very Catholic, conservative, anti-communist, and would eventually in the 1930s boys go on to sympathise with fascism. They would send their members to go and fight for Franco in Spain. And in fact, even during the First World War, some of their members advocated making a deal with Hitler to help him invade a Britain basically. This Cumming Nogale is now the Finnageal, which is one of the largest parties in Ireland. But this kind of revolution came from within Irish republicanism, I think is the important point to stress, from the nationalist bourgeois and petty bourgeois. Rather than, they would rather compromise with British imperialism and form a kind of semi-colonial state as they did, and win sort of concessions for themselves and therefore implement a kind of return to order for the lower classes. All these upheavals had to come to an end. And indeed, many of them, these bourgeois nationals, they had openly opposed many of much of the class struggle. As it happened, it went on during the War of Independence, the mass mobilisations, they offered no support to things like the Limerick Soviet or whatever. And in fact, they wanted it entirely subordinated to the military guerrilla campaign. But this betrayal of the bourgeois nationalists, it aligned completely with the interests of British imperialism at the time to use the nationalists to return order to Ireland and to govern Ireland to protect the essential interests of British capital and of British trade, even if they had to loosen their political control over Ireland as they did. And this same semi-colonial kind of revolutionary state is what exists in Ireland today, across 26 of its counties. It's evolved in form into a republic in Neymunle, of course, but it's still very much dominated by foreign capital, by landlords and by rentiers. It's not the republic that was decreed in 1916 and certainly not the one that many in the area I think fought for and were fighting for. And I think we can see from this whole episode that, from the likes of people like de Valera, Cosgrave and others, that a conservative bourgeois nationalists, even if they act in a revolutionary way, they're still what they are at the end of the day, they're still a conservative bourgeois nationalist. And in fact, many of them even joked about this. It was Cosgrave who said, we are the most conservative people ever to have made a revolution, because they had extremely conservative aims, of course. And this is the lesson I think we have to learn from most of the republican leaders and from the counter-revolution that the civil war, the leaders like de Valera, Griffith, Cosgrave and even Collins, I think, himself. There's still many legends that surround them. There are many on the dissident republican left or right even today who they still hold up Collins, obviously, as a heroic figure. And there are a lot of legends around who he didn't, he did that because he didn't mean to and so on. But I think we have to be honest with you that Collins was just a man and was subject to this to momentum historical pressures. And what ability did he have to resist it? He didn't have a revolutionary program necessarily to stand on. Instead all he had was this kind of practical approach to struggling for Irish freedom. But to summarize or conclude, I guess, I have already one sentence. But as James Connolly wrote really, and I think is the lesson of Ireland's revolution, it's lost revolution perhaps. Not really lost, its revolution is yet to happen and be completed. But the main lesson is that it's only the working class who are the incorruptible inheritors of the struggle for Irish freedom. And we'll continue that today.