In London, the Irish delegation assumed primary residence at Hans Place in Knightsbridge, a fashionable garden square in the heart of the SW1 postcode. Source: Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo ![]() Sinn Féin delegates in London from left: Arthur Griffith, Edmund Duggan, Michael Collins (at table), Robert Barton behind with folder, Erskine Childers, George Gavin Duffy, John Chartres. Significantly, Collins was a member of the General Headquarters of the Irish Republican Army, and thus as close to a representative as the militant campaign had at the table of negotiation. The Irish delegation included Arthur Griffith (Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs), Robert Barton (Secretary of State for Economic Affairs), George Gavan Duffy TD, Eamonn Dugan TD and Michael Collins (Secretary of State Finance). Crucially, the negotiators did not include de Valera, who was now adamant on the need for his presence in Dublin, believing that having to refer negotiations home “added strength to the position of the negotiators”. Into this uneasy sea sailed an Irish delegation (quite literally, towards Holyhead) in October. It was not the kind of language that encouraged trust. In Westminster, Lord Birkenhead – later a negotiator to the Treaty – declared that were the Irish to refuse compromise and agree a negotiated settlement, “hostilities on a scale never hitherto undertaken by this country against Ireland” would be seen. The failure of these initial talks led to a heightened atmosphere of tension in political discourse. Famously, Lloyd George would compare negotiating with De Valera to “trying to pick up mercury with a fork.” De Valera’s retort was to use a spoon. Subsequent talks between Prime Minister David Lloyd George and Éamonn de Valera, President of the Republic in the eyes of the Dáil, made little meaningful progress. The long nightmare period of terror was over, and in their reaction people were inclined to think that victory had already been won”.īonfires were lit in the hills of rural Ireland, and in the urban centres Volunteers began parading openly, something which panicked the republican leadership, more conscious of a potential return to war. There was jubilation at the opening of that dialogue, and a belief amongst large sections of the general population that, in the words of IRA leader Dan Breen, “recognition of the Republic was but a matter of time. The War of Independence formally ended with a Truce on 11 July 1921, ending military hostilities and opening new channels of dialogue between representatives of the revolutionary Dáil Éireann and the British government. To Sir Henry Wilson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff of the Crown Forces, it amounted to a “shameful and cowardly surrender to the pistol”.įrom the field of war to the table of politics ![]() ![]() In a week when British influence continues to shift, with the arrival of the world’s newest republic in Barbados, it is worth recalling the very different political atmosphere of a century ago, when the granting of concessions to nationalist Ireland was regarded as a humiliation to some. Noël Browne recalled entering the Dáil for the first time in 1948, and being amazed by the lingering bitterness around the Civil War which had followed the Treaty, as “the raised tiers of the Dáil chamber would become filled with shouting, gesticulating, clamouring, suddenly angry men”.īy then, both the Pro and Anti-Treaty traditions had held power, and these men were aging veterans of a revolution.Ī century ago, it was a very young Irish delegation who put their names to an agreement which would alter Ireland’s relationship with Britain and bring an Irish Free State into being. Its influence on Irish political life was to be far reaching, shaping politics and political identities into subsequent decades. THE ANGLO-IRISH Treaty may be regarded as the document that ended one war and began another.
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