At what happened in the South when this lot came home. The treaty was passed by 4 votes to 3 and the country erupted in Civil War.

This Civil War lasted from 28-06-1922 until 24-05-1923, it involved some 58,500 men on the Government side (i.e. for the Treaty) against 15,000 for the IRA. The number of civilian casualties are not known although the number for Dublin alone was 250. 808 men died on the Government side against around 3,000 on the IRA side.

This compares to what went before, the Irish War of Independence as follows:

The War of Independence lasted from 21-01-1919 to 11-07-1921 in the South although fighting continued in the North until June 1922. Combatants involved numbered 15,000 on the Republic side and 20,000 British Army + 9,700 Royal Irish Constabulary + 7,000 Black & Tans + 1,400 Auxiliaries + 4,000 Ulster Special Constables (42,100 men in total). In the fighting 550 IRA were killed and on the Government side 261 British Army dead; 413 RIC killed and 43 Ulster Specials killed (714 men killed in total)

So both of those were pretty small conflicts in the general scheme of things. Now what would Dev and the boys have faced had they tried to ramrod a united Ireland through in 1922, what would the MarkII Irish Civil War have looked like?

Lets lump the IRA in alongside the Irish Government Forces which would have given them some 73,500 men. Now what about the opposition, we will totally disregard the "Forces of the Crown" and take a look solely at the Ulstermen. Now the best indication as to the feelings about unification comes from the petition raised against it which consisted of somewhere between 450,000 and 500,000 signatures written in the signatories own blood. The prospective conflict does not bear thinking about, it would have been absolutely horrendous, you are talking here about something in prospect as great and as destructive as the Spanish Civil War and possibly a damn sight more protracted. God knows what this would have sucked into it. This was the reality that was obvious to all, and this was why an accommodation had to agreed and thankfully it was.