The Irish Civil War was fought from 28 June 1922 to 24 May 1923 when forces opposed to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, namely the Irish Republican Army, rose in rebellion against the new Irish Free State government. The ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty by a scale of 64-57 upset nationalist leader Eamon de Valera and his faction of deputies, who claimed that the treaty had betrayed Irish interests and had allowed for the British to win the war (Irish politicians had to swear an oath of allegiance to the British monarch); the supporters of the treaty, led by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, argued that it was a step closer to independence. De Valera and his deputies left the Dail Eireann in protest, and they decided to form their own militias and rebel against the government of the Irish Free State. The Irish provisional government's troops were dispatched to crush the IRA's uprising, including the IRA's takeover of the Four Courts of Dublin; this led to the bloody Battle of Dublin. The Irish military used British-supplied artillery to fight the rebels, and 15,000 IRA insurgents fought against the 55,000-strong Irish National Army for almost one year. In 1923, the IRA agreed to surrender, ending the bloody war; between 1,000 and 4,000 civilians and combatants had been killed during the civil war. The war resulted in the confirmation of the Irish Free State and the division of Sinn Fein into the pro-Valera Fianna Fail and pro-Collins Fine Gael parties, setting the stage for a new era of Irish politics. While the Irish Civil War put an end to the Old IRA's insurgency, the Irish Republican Army would remain active in British-occupied Northern Ireland and would wage insurgency campaigns during the 1940s, 1950s, and during "The Troubles" from 1968 to 1998.
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