Like other components of the Defence Forces, the Irish Army has struggled to maintain strength and as of April [update] has only 6, active personnel, and 1, reserve personnel. As well as maintaining its primary roles of defending the State and internal security within the State, since the Army has had a continuous presence in peacekeeping missions around the world.
The Army also participates in the European Union Battlegroups. The National Army's first Commander-in-Chief, Michael Collins , envisaged the new Army being built around the pre-existing IRA, but over half of this organisation rejected the compromises required [ citation needed ] by the Anglo-Irish Treaty which established the Irish Free State, and favoured upholding the revolutionary Irish Republic which had been established in As such, from January until late June and the outbreak of the Irish Civil War , there existed two antagonistic armed forces: the National Army, built from a nucleus of pro-Treaty IRA units, and armed and paid by the Provisional Government; and the anti-Treaty IRA who refused to accept the legitimacy of the new state.
The National Army lacked the expertise necessary to train a force of that size, such that approximately one-fifth of its officers and half of its soldiers were Irish ex-servicemen of the British Army , who brought considerable experience to it. The Irish Civil War broke out on 28 June The British were applying increasing pressure on the government to assert its control over the anti-Treaty units of the IRA who had occupied the Four Courts in Dublin ; this garrison had kidnapped JJ O'Connell , a lieutenant-general in the National Army.
Its size was estimated at 7, men, in contrast to about 15, anti-Treaty IRA men. However, the Free State soon recruited far more troops, with the army's size mushrooming to 55, men and 3, officers by the end of the Civil War in May Murphy , a second-in-command of the National Army in the civil war from January until May , had been a lieutenant colonel in the British Army, as had Emmet Dalton.
Indeed, the Free State recruited experienced soldiers from wherever it could; two more of its senior generals, John T. The British government had supplied the National Army with small arms and ammunition as they departed from Ireland as well as a few armoured cars. They later supplied artillery which enabled it to bring the Civil War to a relatively speedy conclusion.
