On 14 April 1922, members of the anti-Treaty IRA Executive directed their forces to seize the Four Courts complex and other buildings across Dublin city centre in a direct challenge to the authority of the Provisional Government. Rory O’Connor, the IRA’s onetime Director-of-Engineering, would emerge as their nominal spokesperson and a symbol of Irish republican defiance to the imposition of the Treaty settlement.

Gerard Shannon is a historian from Skerries in north county Dublin. In 2019, he received an MA in History from the DCU School of History and Geography. He is currently working on a new biography of the IRA Chief-of-Staff Liam Lynch to be released by Merrion Press in late 2022.