self-governing Irish Free State. O'Donnell opposed this compromise and in March 1922, was elected, along with Joe McKelvey, as a representative for Ulster on the anti-Treaty IRA's Army Executive. In April he was among the anti-Treaty IRA men who took over the Four Courts building in Dublin, which became the first focus of the outbreak of civil war with the new Free State government. The Civil War would rage for another nine months. O'Donnell escaped from the Four Courts building after its bombardment and surrender, but was subsequently captured by the Free State Army. O'Donnell was imprisoned in Mountjoy Gaol and the Curragh. Following the end of the Civil War, he participated in the mass republican hunger strike (1923 Irish Hunger Strikes) that was launched in protest at the continued imprisonment of anti-Treaty IRA men, remaining on hunger strike for 41 days. O'Donnell's prison experience and eventual escape in March 1924, are described in his 1932 memoir The Gates Flew Open. Reflecting on the Civil War in a late interview, O'Donnell was to say:"I did realise that a great many of the people who said No to the Treaty had different views from me. And this is a factor that has never sufficiently been stressed in dealing with the resistance to the Treaty. I think there were many men like Michael Kilroy, Billy Pilkinton, Tom Maguire and others too, who, having taken an oath of loyalty to the Republic and having killed in defense of it, and pals of theirs having died in defense of it, I think that their vow to the Republic was a vow that they couldn't shed themselves of. They were the kind of people that were bound to say no, and would have to be fired on to come down from the high ground of the Republic to the low level of the Treaty. They were the kind of men who make martyrs, but I don't think they make revolutions." In March 1924 O'Donnell walked out of the Curragh camp dressed in Free State uniform. He hid out for several days before approaching a cottage where he said to the owner "Im Peadar O'Donnell, IRA Executive. I want to get in touch with the organization here." The owner was able to assist O'Donnell. Socialism Like certain other Irish republicans of this era, O'Donnell did not see the republican cause solely in Irish nationalist terms. O'Donnell