100 years ago on 14 April 1922 the anti-Treaty IRA occupied the Four Courts in the centre of Dublin. The pro-Treaty Free State Army, then being built up, had already occupied evacuated British Army.
This day marks the anniversary of the start of the S-Plan. The S-Plan or the Sabotage Campaign (also known among some as the England campaign), conceived and developed by IRA members Seamus O'Donovan, Sean Russell and Joseph McGarrity was a bombing and sabotage campaign from 1939 to 1940. It targeted the civil, military and economic
The National Museum of Ireland holds a collection of over 15,000 objects relating to the revolutionary years of 1914 to 1923, telling the story of the foundation of the Irish state and the men and women who fought to achieve it.
However, there are fewer objects associated with the War of Independence, and also a difference in the type of object collected from these two different phases of the revolution.
Objects collected from the Rising tended to be mementoes of the participants, particularly personal objects of the leaders (now kept as a form of relic), contemporary commemorative ware, the material culture of the military organisations involved, and souvenirs of the destruction of Dublin.