By July 1920 the IRA had intensified its campaign and sought new methods in engaging the military and police.

  While some had studied the practice of warfare in other countries, more practical advice was also supplied to volunteers through radical newspapers such as an t-Oglach. Military instruction was offered in the engineering notes of the newspaper on the use of paraffin oil for arson, which was deemed to be better than petrol. This would be put to great use by volunteers as they attacked country houses and finished off the remaining RIC barracks across the country. Lessons had been learned over the course of the previous year when heavily mounted attacks failed to inflict the intended damage on RIC barracks, tax offices and courts houses. Volunteers were also encouraged to study maps of their own district and see where the potential existed to use the landscape to their advantage when engaging with the military. It also published a programme for guerilla war encouraging volunteers to fight on and use all of their energy to win the fight. According to an t-Oglach the military had been driven from the countryside, but war must be pushed on with ‘determination and vigour’. Overall, the cry of the volunteer 100 years ago this month was ‘forward’.  

Source: An t-oglach, 1 July 1920, page 5

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