The Forgotten Guerilla Campaign, 1922. In January 1922 Dáil Éireann ratified a treaty with the British government, finally giving Southern Ireland the independence it had fought for years to achieve. But the peace did not last, and within six months the Irish nationalist movement was torn apart by a bitter civil war. By August the fighting had reached West Cork and soon claimed the life of the most prominent Cork man in the nationalist movement, Michael Collins. That was only the beginning. West Cork at War tells the story of the forgotten guerrilla war that engulfed West Cork during the autumn and winter of 1922. Using contemporary sources and first-hand accounts, many only recently made available, it reveals the great tragedy of a time when former comrades in arms, old friends and families fought each other for the ideal of the Irish Republic.