Eighty years ago today the Civil War ended. Yet many of itsdivisive issues - where there is no right and no wrong - should be put into perspective, writes Eoin Neeson.

"I am the enemy you killed, my friend " - Wilfred Owen

Eighty years ago, on May 24th, 1923, the Civil War which had racked the new State for 11 months, sundering families, friendships, comrades-in-arms and the unity of purpose which brought independence, ended with a ceasefire.

Civil war is not about conquest or economics, but about how a nation will govern itself. There are no winners. All are losers, with strong and differing perspectives - the victors claiming the moral high ground and denigrating their opponents.

Predictably, the pro-treaty Provisional - later Irish Free State - Government promoted itself as sole upholder of the illusory "right".

But that was the, and it is surprising to see mendacious Free State propaganda still being peddled. The misrepresentation of the anti-treaty position must be clarified before we can appreciate why upright people, differing only on principle, resorted to civil war.

The prevalent tendency to force facts out of their time - judge the past by the standards of today - makes this additionally difficult.

Attitudes to today's IRA, resulting from terrorist actions over the past 30 years, are, with resulting distortion, commonly projected backwards to the republican movement during the War of Independence and the Civil War.

In the 1960s, considerable sympathy for the anti-treaty side had an opposite effect. The term IRA dates from the early 19th century. Such distortions strike deeper than history, affecting public perceptions about people and their ideals who helped establish the State.

They become more reprehensible and risible when emanating from those whose responsibility it is to know better. Unfortunately, younger generations tend to see such dissembling as fact.

To get hold of the facts two points must first be grasped.

Firstly, that no matter what "treaty" came from London, it would split Sinn Féin mono-party Dáil Éireann, comprising a spectrum of political opinion united only by the common platform of national self-determination.

The main contentious aspects of the treaty were:

1. Rejection by the British of Republic status;

2. The Oath of Allegiance to the British monarch by public representatives, meaning the Irish would remain British subjects, not free citizens;

3. Northern Ireland - taken off the agenda with British assurances that a statelet of four counties, economically non-viable and so compelled to unite with the rest of Ireland, would result from a Boundary Commission. (The outclassed Irish delegation - and the Dáil Cabinet - accepted these assurances at face value).

The British Government of Ireland Act, 1920, created two Irish parliaments, North and South, effectively "legally" enshrining partition. (British administration in Dublin apart, four governments co-existed in Ireland at one stage, with the electorally defeated, but enormously powerful, Irish - Home Rule - Party in the wings).

Very few believed that negotiations would lead to an independent republic. The majority anticipated a compromise to be expanded. The extent of compromise became the issue.

Secondly, no split implied civil war.

When it did come, it divided Cabinet, Dáil, Army (IRA) and the public; less publicly the Irish Republican Brotherhood, of which Michael Collins was chairman.

The Cabinet/Dáil split (64-57) resulted in the exclusively pro-treaty Provisional Government, also with Collins as chairman. Its only function was to implement the treaty terms. Anti-treaty TDs withdrew from the assembly, saying they could not tell if it was Dáil or Provisional Government.

The authority of the Provisional Government became a major pro-treaty constitutional difficulty. Its members were TDs, sometimes ministers. None had been elected to the Provisional Government and its platform and purpose had not been put to the people. (When asked, Ernest Blythe, the minister for trade and commerce in the Dáil and Provisional Government, replied: "In a crisis, those with the power have the authority.")

In 1919, the Army dissolved its independent executive and accepted the authority of the Dáil. Significantly, in view of what happened, it now re-established its independent executive and status. It was largely anti-treaty (initially outnumbering pro-treaty forces during the subsequent war).

The Provisional Government established an armed force known, from its HQ, as the "Beggars Bush Force". It included pro-treaty Army units, IRB members and - later overwhelmingly - former British soldiers, often from disbanded "Irish" regiments.

Maintaining his republicanism, Collins stated that he felt closer to anti-treatyites than to his Provisional Government colleagues.

Between February and April 1922, isolated unrest and disorder, resulting mainly from uncertainty about the unpublished Constitution of the proposed new State, troubled the country.

The reason for the delay was that the Provisional Government sought and drafted a Constitution favourable to Ireland, while the British sought the opposite.

For reasons probably related to poor intelligence, the British decided that the significant "republican base" was a small group which, in defiance of the Army executive, had occupied the Four Courts, which now became the pivot turning event towards civil war.

Maj Gen Boyd, GOC British forces, Dublin, was ordered to reoccupy the city if republicans "overthrew" the Provisional Government.

But in May, with tensions high, Collins approached Éamon de Valera, political leader of anti-treaty Sinn Féin and former president of Dáil Éireann, and achieved the Collins/de Valera Pact.

It proposed, following publication of the Constitution and a general election, that a coalition government and Cabinet (from both sides) be formed (a view criticised by Collins's colleagues, especially Arthur Griffith).

The British reaction was frenzied. There could not be a Cabinet with even minority republican representation.

Events then accelerated. Collins himself wrote that he'd like to "continue now and finish the fight" (against Britain).

June 16th; the "Pact" election, as expected, showed a pro-treaty majority.

June 22nd; Gen Sir Henry Wilson, "the anti-Irish Irishman" , was shot dead in London.

June 24th; Lieut Gen Sir Nevil Macready, GOC British forces in Ireland, was ordered to attack the Four Courts within 24 hours. The orders were later countermanded and an ultimatum sent to the Provisional Government to do so.

Collins's choices were clear and stark. The British ultimatum was attack or they would themselves.

The apparent facts suggest that Collins concluded he'd only to deal with the tiny recalcitrant Four Courts group, who'd probably surrender following token resistance. Then the agreed coalition could take office, complete with republican representation.

Accordingly, following a surrender demand, at 04.00 on June 28th, the day before the new assembly was due to meet, the Four Courts was attacked.

What Collins could not know was that the breach between the Army executive and the Four Courts was healed just hours before, with the result that if either were attacked civil war was certain.

It is inconceivable that had Collins anticipated full-scale civil war, he would have ordered the attack.

Accepting what he said (and had he known the altered position), it is legitimate to speculate that he might instead have decided to outface the British and "finish the fight".

Confusion and misrepresentation also surround events after the attack.

For instance, it is commonly believed that de Valera was the anti-treaty Civil War leader and the most irreconcilable republican of all. It is also widely held that Collins was "assassinated". Both untrue.

De Valera had no part in the conduct of the war. Within weeks of the Four Courts attack, he called for a ceasefire, which was resented by the anti-treaty leadership.

This was the Army executive which, without the benefit of necessary political guidance and experience, led and directed the anti-treaty war effort.

Particularly after Collins's death, this made finding terms extremely difficult for themselves, their political supporters and the other side.

For instance, in spite of de Valera's efforts, the prorogued coalition assembly was denied reconvention.

It is virtually certain that Collins would have successfully ended fighting before September when the Dáil was due to meet, but he was killed in action (August 22nd) by a freak shot, probably a ricochet, during an exchange of fire with anti-treaty troops.

In defiance of his Cabinet colleagues, he was attempting to end hostilities and was en route to a meeting in Cork to that end when he was killed.

After Collins's death, the war degenerated, with well-known and vengeful atrocities.

Once the Four Courts was attacked, the very hopes and ideals which had carried them through the War of Independence, afflicted now with changed aspects and allegiances, tragically and ironically engulfed the men and women who fought the bitter Civil War.

If I may end with a quote from one of my books dealing with the period: "The time is long overdue when the divisive issues of the treaty and the Civil War were put into perspective. Here is no right and wrong (though one must exclude some individual acts which occurred in the course of events).

"To believe otherwise is to believe that the honourable were dishonourable, that the dedicated were unpatriotic and that those who had fought as companions-in-arms for justice and liberty were no more than time-serving opportunists" - Birth of A Republic (p. 275).

Eoin Neeson is a writer and a former director of the Government Information Bureau.