100th anniversary of signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty

Today is the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London. The Anglo-Irish Treaty is the most formative point in modern Irish history, signalling the end of British occupation and setting the stage for a Civil War that would dominate Irish politics for the next centenary.

The Treaty marked the formal ending of the War of Independence and the handing over of power to an independent Irish government. Signed in 10 Downing Street in the early hours of 6 December 1921, the treaty signatories were Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, Eamon Duggan, Robert Barton and George Gavan Duffy.

On the British side were Prime Minister David Lloyd-George, Winston Churchill, Austen Chamberlain and FE Smith, Lord Birkenhead.

The Irish negotiations were lead by Griffith, who was elected as an MP for East Cavan in a by-election in June 1918, and re-elected in the 1918 general election, when Sinn Féin won a huge electoral victory over the Irish Parliamentary Party. Sinn Féin refused to take their seats at Westminster, set up their own constituent assembly, Dáil Éireann.

The talks that led up to the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London on December 6th, 1921 were difficult for a team inexperienced in diplomacy. The Dáil debates that followed into January 1922 were bitter.

The Treaty gave Ireland independence as a member of the British Commonwealth, not as a Republic.

Griffith felt British Prime Minister, David Lloyd-George, was holding the threat of all out war against Ireland over the heads of the negotiators.

The Treaty is over 2000 words long, consists of 18 articles, and established a self-governing Irish state after centuries of British rule. The first four articles defined the status of the Irish Free State that was to be created by the Treaty as having the ‘same constitutional status' as the autonomous settler colonies of the British Empire (the so-called ‘white dominions’): Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa.

The Treaty established a 32-county Irish Free State, but Northern Ireland was given the right to opt out, in which case a ‘boundary commission’ would determine the final border between north and south.

The Treaty was put to the Dáil for ratification eight days later. A heated debate ensued, and the divisions in Irish politics that would last 100 years were manifest. On 7 January the Anglo-Irish Treaty was ratified by just a seven-vote margin in the Dáil.

Eanonn De Valera did not accept the result, and led opponents out of the Dáil in protest. This began the chain of events that led to the outbreak of the Civil War six months later.