Anglo-Irish Treaty

The treaty was signed in London by representatives of the British government and envoys plenipotentiary of the Irish Republic (i.e., negotiators empowered to sign a treaty without reference back to their superiors) on December 6, 1921. Three-fold ratification of the treaty by Dáil Éireann, the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and the British Parliament was required. The Irish side were split on the Treaty, and it was only narrowly ratified in the Dáil. Though duly enacted, the split produced the Irish Civil War which was ultimately won by the pro-treaty side.

Detail and background

The contents of the Treaty divided the Irish Republic's leadership, with the President of the Republic, Eamon de Valera, leading the anti-Treaty minority. The main dispute was centred on the status as a Dominion (as represented by the Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity) rather than as an independent Republic. Partition, though certainly a factor, was not the most important; both sides believed that the Boundary Commission would transfer many large nationalist areas to the Free State, reducing Northern Ireland's size so as to make it too small to be a viable political entity, leading to Irish unity. (In fact, the commission made no changes, despite the wishes of hundreds of thousands who found themselves left under British jurisdiction.)

Related Topics:
President of the Republic - Eamon de Valera - Republic - Partition - Boundary Commission - Nationalist - Irish unity

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The Second Dáil formally ratified the Treaty in December 1921. (The House of Commons of Southern Ireland, which was made up largely of the same membership as the Dáil, but which was in British constitutional theory the parliament legally empowered to ratify the Treaty, did so in January 1922.) De Valera resigned as President and was replaced by Arthur Griffith. Michael Collins formed a Provisional Government of Ireland theoretically answerable to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, as the Treaty laid down. In December 1922 a new Irish constitution was enacted by the Third Dáil, sitting as a Constituent Assembly.

Related Topics:
Second Dáil - House of Commons of Southern Ireland - 1922 - Arthur Griffith - Michael Collins - Provisional Government of Ireland - Third Dáil - Constituent Assembly

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Opponents of the Treaty, primarily Éamon de Valera, mounted a military campaign of opposition which produced the Irish Civil War (1922–23). In 1922 its two main Irish signatories, President Griffith and Michael Collins, both died. Griffith died partially from exhaustion; Collins, at the signing of the Treaty, had said that in signing it, he may have signed his "actual death warrant", and he was correct: he was assassinated by anti-Treaty republicans in Béal na mBláth in August 1922, barely a week after Griffith's death. Both men were replaced in their posts by William T. Cosgrave.

Related Topics:
Irish Civil War - 23 - Béal na mBláth - William T. Cosgrave

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The Treaty's provisions relating to the monarch, governor-general and the treaty's own superiority in law were all deleted from the Constitution of the Irish Free State in 1932, following the enactment of the Statute of Westminster by the British Parliament. The Statute provided that all dominions extant or newly created thereafter were fully independent of the United Kingdom and thus not subject to any acts of the British Parliament. (The sole exception to this was Canada, at her own request, who remained nominally subject to the British Parliament until 1982, because the federal and provincial governments could not agree on an amending formula for the Canadian Constitution.) Thus,the Government of the Irish Free State was free to change any laws previously passed by the British Parliament on their behalf.

Related Topics:
1932 - Statute of Westminster - United Kingdom - Canada

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Nearly thirty years earlier, Michael Collins had argued that the Treaty would give "the freedom to achieve freedom". De Valera himself acknowledged the accuracy of this claim both in his actions in the 1930s but also in words he used to describe his opponents and their securing of independence during the 1920s. "They were magnificent", he told his son in 1932, just after he had entered government and read the files left by Cosgrave's Cumann na nGaedheal Executive Council.

Related Topics:
Michael Collins - 1930s - 1920s - Cumann na nGaedheal

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Most people in Ireland today, including members of de Valera's own party, Fianna Fáil, agree that it was a mistake to oppose the Treaty and that it was the best deal possible under the circumstances. Although the British government of the day had, since 1914, desired home rule for the whole of Ireland, the British Parliament believed that it could not possibly grant complete independence to all of Ireland in 1921 without provoking a massacre of Ulster Catholics at the hands of their heavily-armed Protestant Unionist neighbours. At the time, although there were Unionists throughout the country, they were concentrated in the northeast. An uprising by them against home rule would have been an insurrection against the "mother county" as well as a civil war in Ireland. (See Ulster Volunteer Force). Dominion status for 26 counties, with partition for the six counties that the Unionists felt they could comfortably control, seemed the best compromise possible at the time.

Related Topics:
Fianna Fáil - Home rule - Ulster - Catholic - Protestant - Unionist - Ulster Volunteer Force

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In fact, what Ireland received in dominion status, on par with that enjoyed by Canada, New Zealand and Australia, was far more than the Home Rule Act 1914 (negotiated and won, albeit through democratic parliamentary procedure by the Irish Parliamentary Party leaders John Redmond and John Dillon), and certainly a considerable advance on the Home Rule once offered to Charles Stewart Parnell in the nineteenth century.

Related Topics:
Canada - New Zealand - Australia - Home Rule Act 1914 - Irish Parliamentary Party - John Redmond - John Dillon - Home Rule - Charles Stewart Parnell

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Further, though it was not generally realised at the time, the Irish Republican Army was in trouble. It had little ammunition or weaponry left. When Collins first heard that the British had called a Truce in mid-1921, following King George V's appeal for reconciliation at the opening of the Parliament of Northern Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, he commented: "We thought they were mad". The British, though they may never have realised it, were weeks, perhaps even days away from inflicting severe losses on an exhausted IRA; though, even if they had, it is unlikely that some form of autonomy in excess of home rule would not have been achieved, given the extent to which the Irish population had turned its back on continuing British rule. It is also doubtful that British public opinion would have tolerated the larger and more frequent atrocities this would have entailed.

Related Topics:
Irish Republican Army - Parliament of Northern Ireland

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De Valera was once asked in a private conversation what had been his biggest mistake. His answer was blunt: "Not accepting the Treaty". Current Taoiseach (prime minister and leader of Fianna Fáil) Bertie Ahern has conceded that the date that marks the real achievement of independence is 1922, when the Irish Free State created by the Anglo-Irish Treaty came into being, as this brought about British and international recognition of Irish independence.

Related Topics:
Taoiseach - Bertie Ahern

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