April 1922
Michael Collins reinforces the IRA in the North
After a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) man was shot dead in Belfast, police broke into Catholic homes and beat a man to death with a sledgehammer, shot dead three men and injured three children. Michael Collins, the provisional prime minister of Southern Ireland, feared northern Catholics would be massacred. He began supplying weapons to the northern units of the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The IRA had split over support for the treaty, but the northern units had largely stayed loyal to pro-treaty Collins.
