William Byrne - Hacketstown

[Evandarcy]

Hello, my grandfather had an uncle called William Byrne born 1903 in Hacketstown, Carlow. He was part of the Irish Free State Army in 1922 when he was 19 years old. He was a private stationed in Roscrea. What would he have been doing during that time? It was during the Irish War of Independence.

[jim1]

The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 brought the war of independence to an end.
There were factions of the IRA who were opposed to a divided Ireland
& broke away to form a Republican movement & held several towns in
the South.
Mid 1922 Michael Collins launched an offensive against them & reclaimed
these places for the State.
This was commonly called the Irish Civil War.
As it was all but over by August it may be your man had no involvement
in this as he would have undergone a period of training before joining
a Battalion.
However following this offensive the breakaway movement engaged in
what we might refer to as the usual IRA activities of bombings & shootings.
So he would have been utilised in a peacekeeping role.