""the beginning of time""
You, in your usal inaccurate manner, introduced the phrase into this discussion by suggesting that they first started fighting each other
"The very first thing they embarked on having won their "independence" was a civil war."
The didn't win their "independence" they won a partitioned Ireland imposed on them at gunpoint, that was what the Civil War was about - a direct result of the Empire clinging onto its former holdings - plenty of other examples of that happening - the partitioning of India lad to one million dead and fifteen million displaced.
You are usually the first to object when people use terms like "the beginning of time" yet here, you here you go excusing yourself for doing similar
Jim Carroll