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ITS YELLOWING PAPER is still marked ‘Secret’ but the Anglo-Irish Treaty signed between an Irish contingent and the British government on this day 90 years ago is now available to view – in full – by the public.
The signing of the Treaty by a delegation including Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s delegation led in part to the Civil War in Ireland but was also a step on the road to full independence for the Republic of Ireland.
On the day in which Ireland labours under a new Budget of austerity and a loss of financial sovereignty, the National Archives of Ireland has published in full and for the first time online, the full 1921 Treaty document. While it set up the “Irish Free State”, it also asked members of the Irish parliament to swear to be “faithful to H.M. King George V”.
And most controversially of all, it outlined in articles 11, 12 and 14 how Northern Ireland would remain geographically and politically separate from the South.
See the whole document here on the National Archives website here.
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Great work by national archives putting these online, great resource in class to bring it alive for the students today as well.
A disaster forced upon us under the threat of immediate and terrible war.
It’s wasn’t worth it. We would have achieved independence from the UK just as Canada, New Zealand or Australia did.
And if we didn’t, big deal. Are the welsh or Scottish any less than the Irish in nationality?
Last time i checked Australia new Zealand and Canada are all still under the monarchy. Please do some research before making stupid comments.
Independent nations.
The monarch of the commonwealth is still the head of state.
They are still independent nations.
My comment wasn’t stupid.
But if Collins didn’t take it, the cost on the Irish side in the impending war would have been absolutely catastrophic.What the Brits gave up was what they were willing to give up to stop the conflict then and there. They wouldn’t have given up any more and would’ve bombed us into oblivion. RE: Canada, NZ etc ,you can say that now with the benefit of hindsight but any kind of independence was not achievable at the time without this agreement or a massive sacrifice of Irish lives. If it was me in that chair, i don’t think i could have allowed the certain death of a significant proportion of the people i was representing. Could you?
Even back then our politicians didn’t even have the courage to face down a bully. They don’t have it now either. Different bully, same bend the knee!
Reada, that is perhaps the most idiotic comment I’ve seen on the journal.
Rob. Im sorry. Truth always hurts but it doesn’t like to hide.
Maybe had he not been killed by another Irishman, for being a “traitor”, who in turn turned on other Irishmen, things may have been different. But we’ll never know that now.
A terrible war resulted anyway. More terrible in fact with families torn asunder. And we’re still dealing with the disaster now. Some among us still can’t see past FF or FG. And the mere mention of considering voting for SF guarantees a good thumb-smacking.
Can’t see his successor Enda standing up to the bullies either. Different state, same bending of knees! Some among us are sick of it…
For the record I have never voted FF FG or SF. Nor do I wish to send any person “back” no matter when they settled here! I’m a pacifist and have no interest in people’s religious persuasions.
“Some have come from a land beyond the wave” as the English version of our National Anthem goes. All welcome as far as I’m concerned.
And Rob, it’s sad that you thumb-smacked me when what I wrote was factually accurate. Very sad. Goodnight.
It was a foot in the door to freedom, and considering we were on our knees at that point we done well to get the foot in, but alas we couldn’t even last one hundred years on our own.
Réada, it’s your assertion that “our politicians didn’t even have the courage to face down a bully” which I take issue with. While I agree with it in regard to De Valera, Collins orchestrated a war against the British administration if you remember correctly, which as it happens led to Lloyd George and the boys eventually agreeing to talks. Remember that? Anyway, Collins was then forced to go to London and then forced to sign a treaty under threat of war ‘immediate and terrible’ by a man with who just came from the negotiating table at the Treaty of Versailles (Collins being a 31 year old with no diplomatic exp.). Also, people seem to talk about Collins as if he effectively partitioned the country himself, forgetting the fact that Northern parliament was already sitting. And on an aside, Dev hadn’t the faintest notion of how to deal with the Unionists anyway, seeming to believe that in the long-run they’d turn on the crown and we’d all live in some sort of utopian frugal Irish wonderland. So in short, it’s the assertion that Collins didn’t have courage which I find idiotic, regardless of the terrible civil war that followed.
Rob. I really am sorry for shouting my mouth off. I’m excellent on the Irish history. A+ in fact. I was a bit harsh on Collins indeed as he certainly should not have been the man sent there. That was why I had the word “traitor” in inverted commas. Dev was the coward IMO.
In hindsight just wish maybe they had held out seeing as what ensued was much worse. Irish against Irish. I’m a pacifist but still a nationalist. An inclusive nationalist as many of my heroes came from both sides of the religious divide in Ireland. Nor does my nationalism make me feel superior to other nations nor inferior. It’s my identity, like my name.
But a lot among us do have an inferiority complex and like to bend the knee to the master. Just look at the amount of red thumbs a commentator gets if they challenge a moderator. It always makes me laugh.
Anyway sorry Rob for being a bit of a cow but it was a tough day.
And the men who signed this will tonight be turning in their graves.
Why? Cause a bunch of scroungers are getting less for spurting out a few sproggs?
ye jumpthecat while enda kenny and the rest of the fat smug bastards line there pockets with the ‘savings’
Their.
Stay in school.
Observation. I always find it pathetic reading people correcting other’s grammatical or spelling errors.
But somehow can’t help myself correcting the corrector. “Cause” does not have the same meaning as “because”. “Back to school” yourself jumpthecat!!!
Let us all take this moment to turn in our graves
The image caption says it was published on line 90 days after it was signed, I’m pretty sure the Internet wasn’t around in 1921 :-)
Ahem. Years.
90 days after it was signed was 1922 :-/
Arthur Griffith was tweeting the inside track the whole time.
I think it is all so interesting . He said that when he signed it , he had just signed his own death warrant …I do not think Collins would be so happy tonight some how but He was a man who did what he had to do. So who knows maybe Enda and Co. really do know what they are doing. He was not very popular til after his death . Even DeV knew that history would see it as it was…:) 32 years old !
well said leslie if the heroes of 1916 would have known what they where giving there lives up for,all of the current so called public represenatives,are a joke compared to the decent men of past
so..has the independance project been a success…austerity thru 20s 30s..exacerbated by ww2..then austerity in the 50s…some inspired leadership thru 60s..then austerity followed by foolish givesway in 70s…more austerity in.80s..then bada bing..thru 90s we were on.a roll..got carriedcawsy into noghties and now..oh yes more austetity. oh and massive emigration. not to mention theocratic rule thru puppets which condemned thousands of children to horrendous abuses. would it have been much worse in the empire!
It was signed under duress and was legally void as a result. Nothing to see here.
Roger Casement exposed to the world the brutality of the Belgian occupation of the Congo in the Casement Report of 1904. Large scale famines occurred in India at that time. The British had just concluded a bitter and dirty war against the Boers to maintain a grip on South Africa. Many people had a very different view of European Imperialism than a paternalistic benign fellowship of peoples. I’d like to think if I had been reading the news at the time, I would have been joining Sinn Féin.
Ah! ‘The Treaty’. And now there’s a new one on the horizon. From Free State to Member State in less than 100 years. We Irish are a class act alright. Give yourselves another clap on the back boys.
@jumpthecat so when your parents recieved CB…they were scroungers,and if you retort that they didn’t take it then you have no buissness commenting.
When the Treaty had to be ratified by the Irish Parliment in 1921, members had revolvers in there pockets. Today, no TD had to do the same when we lost our Sovereign State. Ironically, for Northern Ireland, what the Irish Free State was founded on, set the template for today’s Northern Ireland Assembly the very thing 90 yrs ago loyalists rejected
The Treaty was an event in a vast series of events that stretch back beyond the farce of the 1798 rebellion. It should never be looked upon in isolation. However, through the Treaty, the government of the time managed, through diplomacy, to put in place the means by which Irish Independence was, prematurely in my humble opinion, assured.
have your say