Most IRA officers on the ground interpreted the Truce merely as a temporary respite and continued recruiting and training volunteers . Nor did attacks on the RIC or British Army cease altogether . Between December 1921 and February of the next year , there were 80 recorded attacks by the IRA on the soon to be disbanded RIC , leaving 12 dead . On 18 February 1922 , Ernie O'Malley 's IRA unit raided the RIC barracks at Clonmel , taking 40 policemen prisoner and seizing over 600 weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition . In April 1922 , in the Dunmanway killings , an IRA party in Cork killed 10 local suspected Protestant informers in retaliation for the shooting of one of their men . Those killed were named in captured British files as informers before the Truce signed the previous July . Over 100 Protestant families fled the area after the killings
Dunmanway killings
Dunmanway killings
Irish War of Independence