– 11 July 1921) the British Army handed over Curragh Camp to the Irish Free State Army. The handover took place at 10 o'clock on Tuesday 16 May 1922, when the camp was handed over to a party of Irish troops commanded by Lieutenant General O'Connell. On Monday evening the Union Flag was lowered for the last time. At noon, O'Connell climbed the water tower and hoisted the first Irish tricolour to fly over the Curragh Camp. By tradition the British Army had cut down the flagpole requiring the Irish officers to physically hold the flagpole while the tricolour was raised. Both the Union Flag and the tricolour, which measures are now preserved in the DFTC. Internment and escapes at the Curragh In 1921 there were several camps within the Curragh that were used to house internees. The official internment camp was the Rath camp which held 1,300 internees in 60 wooden army huts on a ten acre area. The compound was surrounded by ten foot high fences with machine gun towers at each corner. Multiple escape attempts were made using tunnels and other means to get men out of the Curragh. In April 1921 a tunnel was discovered resulting in the loss of internee privileges. On 11 July 1921 the Irish War of Independence was ended with a truce and all tunneling at the Curragh was suspended. Thirty seven internees who were elected to the new Irish Parliament Dáil Éireann were released from the Curragh to consider the terms of the British peace terms. Because there was no general release of internees escape efforts continued. On 9 September 1921, between 50 to 70 men escaped from the Hare Park internment camp at the Curragh Camp through a tunnel which took over a month to construct using only knives and spoons. When the tunnel was completed the internees waited for a foggy night and used the noise from an ongoing concert to make their escape. None of the escapees were ever recaptured. Civil War Executions, Deaths and Hunger Strikes In December 1922 seven men were executed in the Curragh Military Prison. The Leinster Leader of 23 December 1922 reported that a column of ten men had operated against railways, goods trains and shops in the vicinity of Kildare for some time. Five of them had apparently taken part in an attempt to disrupt communications by derailing engines on 11 December.