Hotrodder that answer you gave is not clear....
Sinn Fein (the Political Party)won the election immediately preceding the period of the film by a veritable landslide.
That Political Party refused to sit in the British Parliament and set up its own Irish Parliament instead based in Dublin. It then formed the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to defend the Irish Parliament. (1919).
The IRA prosecuted the War of Independence against the British. 1919 - 1921.
(a bit like the U.S. War of Independence situation pre Yorktown).
The British declared a truce to reach a political settlement. Sinn Fein negotiated with the British Government. 1922.
The Treaty was forced through under threat by the British Government of total war. This was exactly as was done to Germany at the Treaty of Versailles 2 years earlier, and we all know where that got us.
Sinn Fein split apart almost 50-50 on this issue. One group forming a provisional government (pro-treaty) and the other REMAINING on as Sinn Fein. The Treaty meant abandonment of the Catholic Population of nowadays Northern Ireland and created the N.I. Statelet.
The IRA split more or less in line with the Sinn Fein split, and comrades became foes. No greater hatred etc. The political effects of this still linger on in Irish politics.
The British Government armed the pro-Treaty forces so the dispute was always going to have only one outcome.
Completly separately and almotst as if in another dimension on the same island the Unionists/Loyalists set about creating the Protestant statelet of N.I. They had no involvement in the Civil War now raging south of the border.
The pro-Treaty side concluded the Civil war and took power in the Republic. (1923) The anti Treaty forces downed arms and became political (Sinn Fein). These Sinn Fein politicans refused to recognise the new state and abstained from attending the new Irish Parliament. (1924-26).
In 1926 the leader of Sinn Fein (DeValera) left that party and formed a new party that eschewed violence as a means to political ends. Sinn Fein was decimated and almost disintegrated and was left with the last of the die-hards.
There was then a relatively long period of peace (with a few minor interruptions) until 1969 when things erupted in Northern Ireland this time.
The British got sucked back into the situation to prop up N.I. and the events of 1970-73 are well documented. Especially after 1971 (Bloody Sunday currently in the news again)... the IRA which had all but dissappeared was resurrected and Sinn Fein which had all but withered on the vine was also back in business, with thousands of willing recruits from a whole new generation.
Bloody Sunday and Internment without trial put huge fuel back into the tanks of Sinn Fein and into the IRA.... there was one other split in 1972 when the more radical of the Sinn Fein leadership broke with the then left wing leadership Sinn Fein and established "Provisional" Sinn Fein. "Official" Sinn Fein eventually melted away. The Provisional IRA became a largely Northern Irish entity. The Unionists were now confronting a pretty substantial force on what was hiterto their own turf.... They were forced to accept in the British Army to prop them up and they proceeded to abuse that too when they had control of its actions in the beginning. The police of N.I. are no longer capable of preventing an armed uprising in N.I. and the British patience for it all has been sapped. Now there is a peace process, and Sinn Fein is reconstitued and vibrant in N.I. The Provisional IRA is stood down and the dust is settling again.
In your opening post I think you were asuming that entities such as IRA and Unionists were unchanged from 1920 into modern times which is actually far from the case.
The Pooka
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