IRELAND BEFORE THE TREATY

Ireland played a significant part in the development of European civilisation and Christianity between the death of St Patrick in the fifth century and the arrival of the Vikings in the ninth century. The country was a patchwork of some 150 tuatha (groups of families) headed by chieftains, without a clearly defined central authority, although an individual chieftain occasionally achieved dominance over large parts of the country and claimed the title ‘árd rí’ (high king). The Irish shared a common language, Irish; a common religion, Christianity; and a common legal system, the Brehon laws. The Vikings devastated parts of the country before being assimilated into Irish society. The Normans invaded in 1169, assisted by disaffected Irish groups, and captured large areas due to their superior military technology. They brought in settlers and extended cultivation. Unlike in England, where the Normans took over the existing society and created a centralised feudal system, their arrival in Ireland initially increased the fragmentation of society.

The Vikings had founded towns and partially modernised Irish society by beginning the process of shifting it from rural to urban. The early English kings achieved a tenuous hold over the Hiberno-Normans, who established their central administration at Dublin Castle from 1204 onwards. This remained the seat of English government and administration until 1922. In the centuries after the Norman Conquest the Irish recovered some of the ground lost but were unable to dislodge the English, whose common law was extended to Ireland by the end of the thirteenth century. Poyning’s Law (1494) brought the English-dominated parts of Ireland under the administrative control of the kingdom of England. After the Reformation, the division between the Irish and English in Ireland, which had hitherto been based on the language spoken, changed to the religion practiced. Increasing pressure was exerted by the Protestant English on the native Irish and the Catholic descendants of the Vikings and Normans. The defeat of the Irish chieftains in 1603; the depredations of Cromwell, his soldiers and financiers; and William III’s military victories, ending with the treaty of Limerick (1691) completed the conquest of Ireland. The English planted settlers and put down rebellions but never achieved legitimacy by prescription (continuous occupation accepted by the majority of the population).

After 1691 Ireland was firmly under English control. From then until 1801 it was administered as a colony by the Protestant Anglo-Irish ascendancy backed by English military power. The Penal Laws impoverished Catholics and eliminated them as a political force. A period of prosperity after 1750 encouraged the Protestant ascendancy to seek more powers for their ‘Irish Parliament’ and they achieved parliamentary independence in 1782. However, the American and French Revolutions spread radical ideas which led to a rebellion in 1798 (despite the Catholic Relief Acts, which mitigated many of the Penal Laws in force since the 1690s). Rebel leader Theobald Wolfe Tone’s separatist and republican philosophy profoundly influenced later generations of Irish nationalists. He attempted to unite the Irish of all religious persuasions and break the link with England, but the consequence of the failed rising was the Act of Union (1800) which forced the political union of Britain and Ireland.

In 1641 60 per cent of the land was still owned by Catholics; by 1703 it had declined to 14 per cent and by 1778 to five per cent.¹ After the union, Daniel O’Connell mobilised the first mass movements in support of Catholic emancipation (basic civil rights) and repeal of the union. He merged liberalism, democracy and constitutionalism, offering a way forward other than through violent revolt. The country became polarised on religious lines as Catholics sought concessions which diminished the power of the established Anglican Church of Ireland. Dissenters, many of whom had supported the 1798 rebellion, competed with Catholics for land and jobs, and moved politically closer to their fellow Protestants, the greatest concentration of whom lived in northeast Ulster.

After the union, Ireland was governed not by direct rule from London but as a crown colony. Its administration was ramshackle, poorly co-ordinated and run in the interests of Britain rather than Ireland. Appointments of British and Anglo-Irish public servants were made by the lord lieutenant (monarch’s representative) and the chief secretary (political head), who governed Ireland in a semi-autonomous manner together with the under-secretary, who was in charge of the Irish civil service.

The economy was in a poor state. Ireland was a primary agricultural producer supplying Britain, which had a low-cost food policy. Much of Irish industry, apart from that in the northeast, found it increasingly difficult to compete with British manufacturers after the industrial revolution and particularly when tariffs were dismantled following the union. Between the Norman invasion and the seventeenth century the ancient Gaelic system of land tenure had been destroyed as most of the land was forcibly seized by the English and granted to colonists. Many Irish were driven into the poorer land on the western seaboard while subdivision of holdings led to overcrowding, leaving the poor vulnerable to famine if crops failed. By 1845 most of the land was held by landlords, many of whom were absentees who left its management to profit-motivated middlemen.

The tithe war of the 1830s began the process of undermining the Protestant ascendancy. The great famine of 1845–49 decimated Ireland and in time halved the population through deaths from hunger and disease, and subsequent emigration. The population fell from 8.2 million in the 1841 census to 4.4 million in 1911, while that of the rest of the United Kingdom increased from 18.5 to 41 million in the same period.

The Young Ireland and Fenian rebellions of 1848 and 1867 were military failures. However, the Fenians reorganised in 1873 under the title of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), keeping alive the spirit of the 1798, 1848 and 1867 rebellions. The Municipal Reform Act 1840 ended Protestant conservative monopoly of local government. The disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869 and the Ballot Act 1872, which introduced secret ballots, further weakened Protestant and landlord control. Charles Stewart Parnell’s campaign for home rule, in parallel with Michael Davitt’s land league agitation for land reform, based on the passive resistance tactics adopted in the tithe war, resulted in the nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party winning the majority of Irish seats at Westminster by 1885. This paved the way for a series of land acts allowing tenants to purchase the farms they occupied and discharge the debt by annuities; local government reforms; and other concessions including grants for public works and access to civil service jobs for Catholics through competitive examinations. These concessions and later Liberal and Conservative government actions were designed to ‘kill home rule with kindness’. Conciliation of the Catholic majority was accompanied by coercion to demonstrate that the British government would not tolerate rebellion or agrarian violence.

The Irish Party under Parnell became a major political force at Westminster while it kept Liberal governments in power. The price of its support was home rule or devolved government with limited powers within the United Kingdom, culturally and economically linked with the English-speaking world. Despite the support of Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, home rule was defeated in 1886 and 1893. Parnell influenced many future nationalists, notably Arthur Griffith, but his failure to achieve home rule by constitutional means opened the door to the advocates of physical force. The supporters of home rule were not all convinced that it was the ideal solution. Some wanted complete separation from Britain; most wanted self-government, while others, less committed, were reassured that it was worth having because the unionist ascendancy vigorously opposed it.

At the same time a cultural revival was taking place. This was a reaction to the growing Anglicisation and modernisation of Ireland. In Desmond FitzGerald’s words, ‘Our national identity was obliterated not only politically but also in our own minds. The Irish people had recognised themselves as part of England.’² There had been an awareness that Gaelic culture was being destroyed in the eighteenth century and efforts were made to preserve what remained. After 1800 interest in it grew, encouraged by some of the Anglo-Irish and by the nationalist Young Ireland movement, which sought to save the literary heritage and secure a place for Ireland in the European tradition. This was part of a wider cultural movement then in progress throughout Europe. The more separatist-minded wanted to use Gaelic culture to differentiate the Irish from the English. The interest in Irish matters widened to include the Irish language, sport, music and dancing. The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) was founded in 1884 and the Gaelic League in 1893. While the latter was all-inclusive and welcomed Protestants, the GAA was divisive, being influenced by the tactics of the land league. It organised a boycott to exclude policemen, soldiers and participants in ‘foreign games’ (soccer, rugby, hockey and cricket). By doing so it shut out most Protestants, together with many of the Catholic middle and urban working classes. The driving forces behind the Gaelic revival were cultural and political, and the organisations formed provided a training ground for the politicians and administrators of the future.

When the Irish Party failed to deliver home rule it was gradually superseded by a combination of Gaelic enthusiasts and physical force separatists: the IRB (Fenians), a militant secret society with strong links to the Irish in America. The Irish Party split following Parnell’s much-publicised divorce case, and the bitter infighting which followed undermined its credibility. Many people joined the multiplicity of literary societies that engaged the population, which was better educated and had more leisure time in the Victorian era of mass participation in sports and cultural and scientific societies.³ Separatism and cultural nationalism merged and in D. George Boyce’s view ‘Anglicization, far from destroying nationalist Ireland, made possible its creation.’⁴ The cultural revivalists were a combination of Irish-Irelanders advocating an Irish-speaking Ireland, Celtic literature devotees such as William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory, and believers in the ideal of Thomas Davis for an Irish literature ‘racy of the soil’ written in English to cater for nationalists until the majority could read Irish.

After 1881 successive land acts enabled tenants to purchase their farms. This led to radical changes in Irish society and politics as increasing numbers of farmers became owner-occupiers. They reinforced the existing conservative nationalist forces: the Catholic Church, professionals, merchants and public servants. The Gaelic League and the GAA drew in many of the nation’s youth, facilitating recruitment by the IRB, which infiltrated these movements. Growing numbers of educated people with few opportunities for advancement along with a hard core of IRB activists provided the membership of the independence movement. Its aim was to take over the government and administration of Ireland, rather than to destroy it, as had been the objective of earlier rebellions. Initially, home rule by constitutional means offered the best prospect of freedom from British rule, particularly while the Liberals were in power at Westminster.

The Local Government Act 1898 had far-reaching consequences as it gave the Irish their first real taste of democracy. Anglo-Irish Protestant landlords, who had been the backbone of the British administration in Ireland, surrendered power as they sold off their land and lost control of local authorities. They were replaced by nationalist politicians who were supported by the Catholic Church, which gave strong leadership, particularly in times of religious persecution. The Church was well organised and administered and had considerable political influence but, while generally obeyed on moral matters, it was not always followed where politics were concerned as, in Daniel O’Connell’s words, ‘we take our religion from Rome and our politics from home’. The Irish Councils Bill 1907, an ill-considered effort at devolution, was rejected by the Irish Party as step-by-step administrative reform was perceived to be no substitute for home rule. The Catholic university established in Dublin during the 1850s by John Henry Newman was formally recognised by the Irish Universities Act 1908. Old age pensions were introduced the same year and national insurance followed in 1911. The increased levels of social welfare benefits worried Tom Kettle of the Irish Party, who, along with some separatists, feared the Irish people were becoming more dependent on the British Exchequer and, if that trend continued, popular support for home rule and independence could diminish. This was one of the factors which inspired the leaders of the 1916 Easter rising, many of whom were convinced that Britain’s difficulty in World War I was Ireland’s last opportunity to gain freedom.

Meanwhile, the unionists had become increasingly apprehensive about home rule, which would mean Catholic majority rule. They feared home rule would result in civil war, clerical interference in politics and state bankruptcy. Unionists were determined that Catholics would not gain equality or superiority, never considered sharing power and actively organised against home rule, which was equated with ‘Rome rule’. They wished to preserve the union and differentiated themselves from nationalists by emphasising their loyalty to the British crown. The Ulster unionists, who were in a majority in the northeast, were more militant than the minority southern unionists. They defined ‘Ulstermen’ as Protestants, leaving Catholics as second-class citizens. The Ulster unionists were ably led by Edward Carson, a Dublin lawyer, and James Craig, a Belfast stockbroker and brilliant organiser. They mounted opposition to Home Rule in 1886 and 1893. From 1905 onwards, and particularly after the House of Lords veto was ended by the Parliament Act 1911, they realised that home rule or dominion status was inevitable and would ultimately lead to a republic. British Conservative leader Andrew Bonar Law advised them that dominions ‘take control of their own destinies’.⁵ The unionists received vital support from the Tories, who had been out of office for seven years in 1912 and were desperate for a way back to government. They saw Ulster as the means of regaining power in Britain.

Irish Party leader John Redmond rejected unionist claims for self-determination and was personally tolerant, but insisted Ulster was an integral part of Ireland. He foresaw a peaceful constitutional process, believing that once the 1912 Home Rule Bill was passed by the House of Commons neither the House of Lords nor the unionists could stop it. But the unionists rejected home rule regardless of the assurances offered. They believed that if the Liberals could be kept out of power long enough, the majority of the Irish people could be bought off by subsidies and benefits. If not, the unionists aided by the Tories and the House of Lords would prevent home rule. The Ulster unionists were not afraid of the British, were prepared to resort to physical force and accepted arms from the Germans, who wished to stir up trouble in Ireland.

The sale of land to tenant farmers did not end agitation because the re-united Irish Party and groups like Arthur Griffith and his Sinn Féin party worked to keep nationalism alive. Griffith believed that independence should be achieved peacefully, advocated economic self-sufficiency and tariffs to support fledgling industries, but stopped short of separatism as he wished to keep the unionists in a future Ireland. He proposed the dual monarchy concept adopted by the Hungarians, suggesting that the king of England could also be king of Ireland but in a separate capacity to that of ruler of the British Empire, being answerable to an Irish parliament. He recommended that Irish MPs absent themselves from Westminster and set up an alternative parliament in Dublin. Others had different ideas. Patrick Pearse, an idealist, sought a Gaelic state, IRB leaders Thomas Clarke and Sean MacDermott focused on breaking the link with England, while James Connolly, a socialist, called for a workers’ republic. For each of them home rule was at best a half-way house.

A number of significant events brought matters to a head. In 1912 a great body of northern Protestants signed the Ulster Covenant and the Ulster unionists armed themselves to oppose home rule. In response the nationalists formed the Irish Volunteers and purchased German arms. This led to a sudden rise of militarism in Ireland as both sides acquired armies which could be used to pressurise the British or to fight each other. Poor communications between the British war minister and the army in Ireland led to a virtual mutiny when officers at the Curragh army base were forced to choose whether or not to accept orders, which no one had actually authorised, to take action against militant unionists in Ulster. Faced with the threat of civil war within the United Kingdom at the outbreak of World War I, the British government placed home rule on the statute book on 18 September 1914, with a proviso that it would not be implemented until after the war, together with amending legislation to deal with Ulster.

The Irish Volunteers divided over participation in the war. The renamed Irish National Volunteers, numbering around 170,000, followed Redmond, who sought to have them converted into an officially recognised home defence force, trained and armed by the British war office, whose role would be to defend Ireland against foreign invasion. He hoped that those who enlisted would become a distinctly Irish brigade within the British army and be the nucleus of an Irish army after home rule. Redmond had a dual policy of National Volunteers at home and Irish brigades at the front. While some National Volunteers joined the British army, the majority did not and ceased to play an active role as the British refused to employ them for home defence. Around 11,000 Irish Volunteers remained loyal to founder member Eoin MacNeill, including the militant IRB faction. The war reduced tensions in Ireland as 24,000 National and 26,000 Ulster Volunteers went to the battlefront.

The First World War had a major impact on Ireland. Over 200,000 Irish men and women served in the British forces during the war and suffered high casualties, particularly in Belgium, France and Gallipoli, resulting in over 35,000 deaths. Taking advantage of Britain’s preoccupation with the war, the IRB inspired a revolt on Easter Monday 1916. The rising, which was confined almost exclusively to Dublin, lasted less than a week. The summary executions of its leaders changed the attitude of an initially hostile population to the rebels. In July the 36th (Ulster) division was decimated at Thiepval during the battle of the Somme. The war had brought nationalists and unionists together in France and briefly offered some hope of reconciliation, but the 1916 rising and Thiepval ended that prospect. The executions shocked many Irish who perceived themselves as citizens of the British Empire into the realisation that they remained a colonised people, subject to severe retribution if they failed to behave as their masters in London expected.

The final event was conscription, which the British tried to introduce in Ireland during 1918 as they were running out of troops to defend against the last major German offensive. The Irish Party, Sinn Féin and the Labour movement combined to prevent it, supported by the Catholic Church.

The Irish Party lost ground to Sinn Féin, which was reorganised from 1917 onwards, becoming a coalition of interest groups seeking popular support for independence and a standalone Gaelic republic. Sinn Féin made little effort to understand the unionists, believing them to be puppets of the British who could be cajoled or overcome by force if necessary.⁶ The independence movement does not seem to have appreciated the extent to which the country was already divided politically, economically, educationally and socially. The confrontation over land ownership between Catholics and Protestants, and the association of nationalism and unionism with religion, prevented the development of political forces which could appeal across religious boundaries.

The executions following the Easter rising, along with the ‘German plot’ (the allegation of collusion with the Germans concocted by the British to justify the arrest of Sinn Féin activists), turned the tide in favour of Sinn Féin, which won 73 out of the 105 Irish seats in the 1918 British general election, in which the number of electors had risen from 701,000 to 1,940,000.⁷ The votes were counted on the first-past-the-post basis rather than proportional representation, which was used in subsequent elections. The Irish Party did not contest all the seats, campaigned for dominion status and, while it held its previous vote, it failed to gain support from the huge number of young people voting for the first time. The Sinn Féin MPs refused to sit at Westminster and 27 of them constituted themselves as the first Dáil Éireann (Irish parliament) in Dublin on 21 January 1919. The other party MPs took their seats in London. The first Dáil was in Brian Farrell’s words a ‘polity within a polity, barely the embryo of a government order’.⁸ It claimed the right to govern Ireland but had neither the power nor the means to do so. Sinn Féin, like the Irish Party before it, became a one-big-issue party, merging politics, sport, culture and physical force in the pursuit of a single ideal: independence from Britain.⁹ Everything else could wait until independence was achieved. This meant that planning for a post-independence Ireland was neglected and economic, health, education and women’s issues were left in abeyance.

After World War I, separatism was promoted throughout Europe as self-determination for small nations. The first Dáil made a declaration of independence, drew up a constitution and proclaimed a democratic programme drafted by the Labour Party, which had not participated in the 1918 general election. The Dáil unsuccessfully sought international recognition for Ireland’s national status and her right to its vindication at the Paris peace conference. It was vague on how a future Ireland would be governed, indicating that the people could choose the form of government by referendum. Sinn Féin failed to think through the ramifications of independence and to understand the mindset of the British, who saw it as breaking up the United Kingdom and undermining the British Empire, and of the Ulster unionists, who were implacably opposed to home rule.

The Act of Union of 1800 united Britain and Ireland politically but not administratively. The Irish administration, based mainly at Dublin Castle, was a mixture of Irish government departments, branches of British ministries and boards—some 47 in all—which did not answer to a single authority. It was poorly co-ordinated and out of touch with the people it served. The British civil service was reformed after World War I. In 1920 its newly appointed head, Sir Warren Fisher, conducted a review of Dublin Castle and concluded it needed urgent improvement. Higher calibre civil servants were despatched from London to rapidly reorganise the administration in advance of home rule.¹⁰

The Government of Ireland Act 1920 met little opposition as most Irish MPs no longer sat at Westminster. It legislated for home rule but provided for elections to two parliaments which were held in May 1921. The ‘Partition Act’ gave the unionists the opportunity to create their own state in the six northeastern Ulster counties where they had a secure majority. It also allowed Sinn Féin to take political control over the rest of the country. The northern parliament was opened by George V on 22 June and immediately began to set up its administration. Sinn Féin won 124 seats in the southern election. Only the four Trinity College MPs attended the opening of the southern parliament and, after taking the oath, they adjourned sine die.¹¹ The first Dáil resolved that the May elections should be treated as an election to a new Dáil and in August 1921 the newly elected Sinn Féin MPs (north and south) constituted themselves as the second Dáil.

The Irish Volunteers, renamed the Irish Republican Army (IRA), asserted the claim for independence by force of arms. Little political control was exercised by the Dáil, which met infrequently in private as it was soon proscribed by the British. It considered a military dictatorship on 11 March 1921 as it had difficulty functioning.¹² The war of independence or Anglo-Irish war was mainly confined to parts of Munster and Dublin and can be divided into three stages. The first, between January 1919 and the summer of 1920, consisted largely of the killing of Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) policemen by the IRA. In reprisal, industrial, commercial and private property was destroyed by British forces, and IRA members, Sinn Féin activists and civilians were killed. The second phase occurred between mid-1920 and early 1921 after the Black and Tans and Auxiliaries (ex-British soldiers and officers) reinforced the ineffective RIC and embarked on a reign of terror. This violence increased popular resistance to the forces of the crown in Ireland and undermined support for the government’s coercion policy in Britain. The last phase culminated in the July 1921 truce. By then martial law had been declared in Dublin and Munster. This was the most violent period, during which both sides suffering rising casualties.

The British response was again a mixture of coercion and conciliation. As the level of violence increased, the new civil servants sent by Sir Warren Fisher established contacts with Sinn Féin leaders. Britain held Ireland primarily for strategic reasons: to prevent an enemy occupying the country as a base from which to invade England or to interfere with sea trade. By 1921 holding Ireland by force had become a burden, as subsequently summed up by Ulsterman Bernard Law Montgomery (later field-marshal):¹³

The British government, faced with a war-weary population at home and shortage of soldiers due to over-commitments abroad, decided to renounce political control over twenty-six of the thirty-two Irish counties. It sought to keep the Irish Free State within the British Commonwealth and retain some naval bases, hoping that in a future war the Irish would co-operate. A truce was agreed on 11 July 1921, ending the war of independence. The extended truce was a major contributory factor to the violence which followed. It gave the separatists an illusion of victory, hastened the breakdown of law and order as the police and British army no longer exercised restraint, and allowed the new Northern Ireland government time to become established. Significantly, it brought the secret IRA into the open, making it almost impossible for it to renew hostilities and thereby increasing the likelihood of a negotiated settlement.

THE TREATY

After the truce Dáil President Eamon de Valera responded to British proposals to talk. He wasted time on fruitless negotiations and discovered there was no prospect for a united Irish republic. Lloyd George’s final proposal for a settlement was dominion status: political independence within the British Commonwealth; naval control of the seas around Ireland together with access to Irish harbours; a limit on the numbers of Irish soldiers; facilities for communications and defence of the two islands; arrangements for trade, transport and commerce; and Irish responsibility for a share of the British war debt and pensions. The British expressed a hope that Ireland would, in due course and of her own free will, contribute in proportion to her wealth to the naval, military and air forces of the empire.¹⁴

Lloyd George calculated that the Irish nationalists would lose international support if his offer was rejected and threatened a more intensive war which the IRA, short of men and arms, would have been unlikely to win. De Valera refused to return to the negotiations. Instead on 7 October the Dáil appointed plenipotentiaries, led by Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, to negotiate and conclude a treaty. Articles for agreement on a treaty were signed by the British and Irish negotiators on 6 December 1921. The British government made two key decisions under duress. It concluded a treaty with the separatists and allowed the Ulster unionists to opt out of a united Ireland.¹⁵ The majority Tories reluctantly accepted self-government in the south provided that the ‘loyalist’ Ulster unionists were allowed remain within the United Kingdom.

The treaty terms offered were sufficient as most Irish people were anxious for peace. It allowed the British to exit the part of Ireland they could no longer control while retaining their hold over the northeast. But it was a quick fix and a lose/lose solution. The British handed over control of twenty-six counties to the Irish Free State and attempted to give the impression at home that it remained within the British Empire. But the treaty led to a civil war in the Irish Free State, and long-term misgovernment in Northern Ireland which ultimately forced the British to resume direct rule 50 years afterwards.

The treaty delivered much more than the Government of Ireland Act offered, particularly with regard to political independence, finance, defence and foreign relations. Most importantly it kept the king out of Irish Free State internal politics, a fact which does not seem to have been understood by its opponents. The king had no role in appointing ministers, could not refuse to sign into law legislation passed by the Oireachtas (Legislature), and could neither dissolve parliament nor refuse the executive if it decided to do so. The treaty gave the Irish Free State the same constitutional status as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. It defined the relationship with the imperial parliament and the dominions, and the role of the crown and the crown’s representative. It specified the oath of allegiance to the constitution of the Irish Free State and fidelity to the king in his capacity as head of the British Commonwealth to be sworn by members of parliament. It included Irish Free State liability for a share of UK war debts and pensions, defence of coasts and ports, free trade, and pension provisions. It dealt with Northern Ireland and its boundaries and made provision for a boundary commission. The treaty provided for freedom of religion and no support for a particular religion. It made arrangements for the transfer of power, a provisional government and ratification of the treaty by members entitled to sit in the house of commons of Southern Ireland elected under the Government of Ireland Act 1920.

The treaty was Lloyd George’s second attempt to solve the ‘Irish question’ as the Government of Ireland Act 1920 had been rejected by the nationalists. It was a compromise between what Lloyd George could offer and what Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins and the Irish plenipotentiaries would accept. Lloyd George was in a very difficult position, being a minority Liberal prime minister in a Conservative-dominated coalition government. His main objective in 1921 was to create a centre party out of the Conservative/Liberal coalition, thereby securing his own position as prime minister. To do so he needed to remove the divisive issue of Ireland from British politics. Collins, faced with the threat of renewed hostilities and aware of the IRA’s shortage of reliable men and arms, sought to extract the maximum possible concessions. He achieved political and financial independence and calculated that the remaining links with the crown could be eliminated over time. Articles 11–15 of the treaty were designed to bring about ‘the eventual establishment of a Parliament for the whole of Ireland’. These clauses related to other parts of the treaty which gave the Irish Free State fiscal independence but bound Northern Ireland to the restrictive financial provisions of the Government of Ireland Act 1920. ‘The reason of course was obvious’, a British official later explained, ‘to offer as much inducement as possible for the North to come in’.¹⁶

The Dáil debate on the treaty was long and acrimonious. Much of the focus was on the oath of allegiance with less emphasis on the more substantive issue of partition, while a minority believed the fight should continue for a united Irish republic. Under the terms of the treaty, the Irish Free State unwillingly joined the British Commonwealth. The king’s functions and those of his representative, the governor-general, which were largely symbolic, were repugnant to Irish republicans, including those who accepted the treaty. Partition was reinforced as the treaty gave Northern Ireland the right to opt out of a united Ireland. The oath of allegiance together with the retention of three naval bases and the insistence that the Irish pay part of the British war debt resulted in significant opposition to the treaty.

The treaty was approved by the Westminster parliament on 16 December 1921; and with 64 votes to 57, by the second Dáil on 7 January 1922. One week later, members of the southern parliament elected under the Government of Ireland Act 1920 (the Sinn Féin MPs who accepted the treaty and the four university MPs) met and formally ratified the treaty. The Irish Free State (Agreement) Act was passed by the second Dáil on 31 March 1922 to give the treaty legal force.¹⁷

The Irish Free State and Northern Ireland each fell far short of their peoples’ aspirations. Nationalists and unionists had not reconciled their differences, allowing the British to dictate terms. The nationalists achieved independence for twenty-six counties but received dominion status rather than a republic. The Ulster unionists retained devolved government with limited powers (home rule) instead of their preferred option, direct rule from Britain. Northern Catholics were left to the mercy of a unionist government which had scant regard for their political or civil rights, while southern Protestants had to fend for themselves in the Irish Free State. After the Treaty, the island of Ireland was divided and politically unstable. The Irish Free State was split between those who accepted the treaty, those who rejected it and a Protestant minority. In Northern Ireland there was a wide gulf between the dominant Ulster unionist Protestants and the nationalist Catholics. Lloyd George’s second attempt to resolve the ‘Irish question’ failed and he lost office in October 1922 and never regained it.

PRE-INDEPENDENCE THINKING ON PUBLIC POLICY

The Irish fought for political independence; economic independence to create jobs, end emigration and raise the standard of living; fiscal and administrative independence to act without external interference; and cultural independence to revive Gaelic traditions and the Irish language.

While some writers and politicians articulated aims and objectives regarding future public policy, there was no national debate on the implications of independence. The recess committee, formed and funded by Unionist MP Sir Horace Plunkett, recommended the development of agriculture, marine resources and industries based on free trade in 1896. In response the British established the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction in 1900 but made no effort to develop industry. After the 1916 rising, contentious issues like partition, the form of government, public policy and the nature of the republic were not debated by the separatists as the aim was unity to maximise support for getting the British out.

Sinn Féin public policies before 1916 had been largely developed by the party’The Leader¹⁸