Anglo-Irish Treaty

On 6 December 1921, shortly after two o’clock in the morning, at the Prime Minister’s residence in Downing Street (PL), five Irish delegates and seven members of the British government signed the “Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland”, known as the Anglo-Irish Treaty (PL). It ended the War of Independence, in which, according to the latest research, more than 2,100 people had been killed, including some 900 civilians. Ireland gained wide self-government, but not the republic it had fought for, and the island remained divided.

The talks in London

The fighting stopped at noon on 11 July 1921, when a truce came into force. A few days later the leader of the republic, Éamon de Valera, met Prime Minister David Lloyd George several times in London, but the British would not hear of recognising the republic. In September they invited the Irish to negotiations on how the association of Ireland with “the community of nations known as the British Empire” could be reconciled with Irish national aspirations. De Valera decided not to go to London. The talks began on 11 October. The delegation, to which the Dáil had given the status of plenipotentiaries, was led by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Arthur Griffith. With him were the Minister for Finance, Michael Collins, the Minister for Economic Affairs, Robert Barton, and the lawyers George Gavan Duffy and Éamonn Duggan. On the British side, besides Lloyd George, sat among others Austen Chamberlain, Lord Birkenhead and Winston Churchill.

The negotiations went on for almost two months. On the evening of 5 December Lloyd George laid before the Irish two letters to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Craig. One announced an agreement, the other the breakdown of the talks. A train was waiting at Euston and a destroyer at Holyhead to take one of them to Belfast. Refusal to sign would mean “immediate and terrible war”, within three days according to some accounts. Historians still argue whether the Prime Minister was bluffing. Papers in the British National Archives show that plans were ready to send 85,000 additional soldiers to Ireland, with martial law in the 26 counties, press censorship and a blockade. The delegates signed without consulting the government in Dublin. Barton, who hesitated longest, explained that he himself would have liked to call the bluff, but on behalf of the nation he dared not take that responsibility. Gavan Duffy concluded: “We lost the Republic of Ireland in order to save the people of Ireland.”

The terms

The treaty had 18 articles and an annex. Ireland was to have the same constitutional status in the community of nations of the British Empire as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Union of South Africa, that is, the status of a dominion, and was to be called the Irish Free State (PL). The King was to be represented in Dublin by a Governor-General, appointed as in Canada. Members of parliament would swear “true faith and allegiance” to the constitution of the Free State and to be faithful to King George V and his successors “in virtue of the common citizenship” with Great Britain. Ireland took on a share of the public debt of the United Kingdom and of war pensions. Coastal defence remained with the British fleet, at least until a conference to be held in five years’ time, and the Royal Navy kept facilities in the ports of Berehaven, Queenstown, Belfast Lough and Lough Swilly. The army of the Free State could not be larger, in proportion to population, than the British army.

The articles on the North aroused the strongest feelings. Northern Ireland (PL), created by the Government of Ireland Act of 1920, could opt out of the Free State within a month of ratification. In that case the border was to be drawn by a three-man commission “in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions”. Until the new state was set up, power in the South was to pass to a provisional government, and the treaty had to be approved by the British Parliament and by a meeting of the members elected in Southern Ireland.

The split

Opponents of the treaty, led by de Valera, argued that the delegates had signed under duress and without the government’s consent, and that the oath to the King and dominion status made Ireland a creature of the Crown. Collins, weary of war, saw the compromise as a first step towards full independence and appreciated the enormous significance of the withdrawal of British troops from most of the island. The debate in the Dáil began on 14 December. On 7 January 1922 the treaty was approved by a margin of just seven votes. De Valera led its opponents out of the chamber, and six months later the Irish Civil War (PL) broke out. Northern Ireland, as expected, used its right to opt out of the Free State.