The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty (Irish: An Conradh Angla-Éireannach), commonly known in Ireland as The Treaty and officially the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was an agreement between the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the government of the Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of Independence. It provided for the establishment of the Irish Free State within a year as a self-governing dominion within the "community of nations known as the British Empire", a status "the same as that of the Dominion of Canada". It also provided Northern Ireland, which had been created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, an option to opt out of the Irish Free State (Article 12), which was exercised by the Parliament of Northern Ireland.
The agreement was signed in London on 6 December 1921, by representatives of the British government (which included Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who was head of the British delegates, and Winston Churchill, who was Secretary of State for the Colonies) and by representatives of the government of the Irish Republic (which included Michael Collins, who was Secretary of State for Finance, and Arthur Griffith, who was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs). The Irish representatives had plenipotentiary status (negotiators empowered to sign a treaty without reference back to their superiors) acting on behalf of the Irish Republic, though the British government declined to recognise that status. As required by its terms, the agreement was approved by "a meeting" of the members elected to sit in the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and [separately] by the British Parliament. In reality, Dáil Éireann (the legislative assembly for the de facto Irish Republic) first debated then approved the treaty; members then went ahead with the "meeting". Though the treaty was narrowly approved, the split led to the Irish Civil War, which was won by the pro-treaty side.
The Irish Free State as contemplated by the treaty came into existence when its constitution became law on 6 December 1922 by a royal proclamation.
Content
Among the treaty's main clauses were that:
- Crown forces would withdraw from most of Ireland.
- Ireland was to become a self-governing dominion of the British Empire, a status shared by Australia, Canada, Newfoundland, New Zealand, and the Union of South Africa.
- As with the other dominions, the King would be the Head of State of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann) and would be represented by a Governor General (see Representative of the Crown).
- Members of the new free state's parliament would be required to take an Oath of Allegiance to the Irish Free State. A secondary part of the oath was to "be faithful to His Majesty King George V, His heirs and successors by law, in virtue of the common citizenship".
- Northern Ireland (which had been created earlier by the Government of Ireland Act) would have the option of withdrawing from the Irish Free State within one month of the Treaty coming into effect.
- If Northern Ireland chose to withdraw, a Boundary Commission would be constituted to draw the boundary between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. The Northern government did not name a representative to the Commission as it did not consider itself bound by a Treaty which it had never assented to.
- Britain, for its own security, would continue to control a limited number of ports, known as the Treaty Ports, for the Royal Navy.
- The Irish Free State would assume responsibility for a proportionate part of the United Kingdom's debt, as it stood on the date of signature.
- The treaty would have superior status in Irish law, i.e., in the event of a conflict between it and the new 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State, the treaty would take precedence.
Negotiators
The negotiators included:
Providing secretarial assistance were:
- For the British:
- For the Irish:
Notably, the President of the Irish Republic Éamon de Valera did not attend.
Winston Churchill held two different roles in the British cabinet during the process of Irish independence: until February 1921 he had been Secretary of State for War (minister for the Army) hoping to end the Irish War of Independence; from then on, as Secretary of State for the Colonies (which included dominion affairs), he was charged with implementing the treaty and conducting relations with the new state.
Erskine Childers, the author of The Riddle of the Sands and former Clerk of the British House of Commons, served as one of the secretaries of the Irish delegation. Thomas Jones was one of Lloyd George's principal assistants, and described the negotiations in his book Whitehall Diary.
De Valera and the Status of the Irish plenipotentiaries
In his book Thomas Jones states that in late July 1921 De Valera met alone with the British Prime Minister on four occasions. Concerning De Valera, Jones states: "What he chiefly seemed to want was Irish unity - that we should not impose partition, that there should be an All-Ireland Parliament...while leaving to Ulster the autonomy she now enjoys so long as she wishes to retain it."
De Valera sent the Irish plenipotentiaries to the 1921 negotiations in London with several draft treaties and secret instructions from his cabinet. Pointedly the British side never asked to see their formal accreditation with the full status of plenipotentiaries, but considered that it had invited them as elected MPs "to ascertain how the association of Ireland with the community of nations known as the British Empire can best be reconciled with Irish national aspirations". This invitation in August 1921 had been delayed for over a month by a correspondence in which de Valera argued that Britain was now negotiating with a sovereign state, a position Lloyd George continually denied.
In the meantime, de Valera had been elevated to President of the Republic on 26 August, primarily to be able to accredit plenipotentiaries for the negotiations, as is usual between sovereign states. On 14 September all the Dáil speakers unanimously commented that the plenipotentiaries were being sent to represent the sovereign Irish Republic, and accepted de Valera's nominations without dissent, although some argued that de Valera himself should attend the conference.
On 18 September Lloyd George recalled that:
From the very outset of our conversations [in June 1921] I told you that we looked to Ireland to own allegiance to the Throne, and to make her future as a member of the British Commonwealth. That was the basis of our proposals, and we cannot alter it. The status which you now claim in advance for your delegates is, in effect, a repudiation of that basis. I am prepared to meet your delegates as I met you in July, in the capacity of 'chosen spokesmen' for your people, to discuss the association of Ireland with the British Commonwealth.
On 29 September Lloyd George reiterated to de Valera that recognition of the Irish republic was "a recognition which no British Government can accord", and he repeated his invitation for talks on "ascertaining how the association of Ireland with the community of nations known as the British Empire may best be reconciled with Irish national aspirations", to start in London on 11 October, which was tacitly accepted by the Irish side. On 7 October de Valera signed a letter of accreditation as "President" on behalf of the "Government of the Republic of Ireland", but the letter was never requested by the British side. Both the Irish and British sides knew that, in the event of failure, the truce agreed in July 1921 would end and the war would inevitably resume, a war that neither side wanted. Three months had passed by with nothing agreed.
The ambiguous status of the plenipotentiaries was to have unforeseeable consequences within the Nationalist movement when it divided over the treaty's contents in 1921–22. Plenipotentiaries usually have full powers to handle negotiations as they see fit, but de Valera had given them explicit instructions to refer back to his cabinet with "the full text of the draft treaty about to be signed", and to await a reply before taking any further action. Prior to the signing of the treaty no messages or telegraphs were sent by the Irish delegation to Dublin. Thomas Jones was present at the signing of the Treaty and found it odd that Dublin was not consulted: "Strangely, no one, not even Childers, invoked the Cabinet mandate they had had the day before and no one thought to use the telephone to Dublin."
Subsequently, the anti-treaty side felt that the plenipotentiaries from the existing sovereign republic had somehow been persuaded to agree to accept much less. The pro-treaty side was to argue that after 11 October the negotiations had been conducted on the understanding that, even though the British were not negotiating with a sovereign state, the agreement was a significant first step towards Irish sovereignty.
Negotiations
Days after the truce that ended the Anglo-Irish War, de Valera met Lloyd George in London four times in the week starting 14 July. Lloyd George sent his initial proposals on 20 July that were very roughly in line with the treaty that was eventually signed. This was followed by months of delay until October, when the Irish delegates set up headquarters in 22 Hans Place, Knightsbridge.
The first two weeks of the negotiations were spent in formal sessions. Upon the request of Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins, the two delegations began informal negotiations, in which only two members of each negotiating team were allowed to attend. On the Irish side, these members were always Collins and Griffith however Griffith had an ongoing illness which meant at times he had to turn over Irish leadership to Collins. Collins admitted that he did not have the temperament and experience for that type of diplomacy and that he lacked patience. On the British side, Austen Chamberlain always attended, though the second British negotiator would vary from day to day. In late November, the Irish delegation returned to Dublin to consult the cabinet according to their instructions, and again on 3 December. Many points still had to be resolved, mainly surrounding the form of an oath to the monarch, but it was clear to all the politicians involved by this stage that a unitary 32-county Irish Republic was not on offer.
When they returned, Collins and Griffith hammered out the final details of the treaty, which included British concessions on the wording of the oath and the defence and trade clauses, along with the addition of a boundary commission to the treaty and a clause upholding Irish unity. Collins and Griffith in turn convinced the other plenipotentiaries to sign the treaty. The final decisions to sign the treaty was made in private discussions at 22 Hans Place at 11:15am on 5 December 1921. The Treaty was signed soon after 2 in the morning on 6 December, in the Cabinet Room at 10 Downing St.
British threat of war
Michael Collins later said that at the last minute Lloyd George threatened the Irish delegates with a renewal of "terrible and immediate war" if the Treaty was not signed at once. Barton noted that:
At one time he (Lloyd George) particularly addressed himself to me and said very solemnly that those who were not for peace must take full responsibility for the war that would immediately follow refusal by any Delegate to sign the Articles of Agreement.
George Gavan Duffy (a member of the Irish delegation) described the pressure placed on them to sign the treaty:
...the alternative to our signing that particular Treaty was immediate war...we had to make the choice within three hours and to make it without reference to our Cabinet, to our Parliament or to our people...We lost the Republic in order to save the people of Ireland.
Several months after the signing of the treaty (16 February 1922) Winston Churchill spoke in the British Parliament on the consequences the Irish delegation refusing to sign the treaty:
...if we had had to break off the Conference, destroy the negotiations, and embark upon what was literally the re-conquest of Ireland, at enormous expense in money and in men, to embark upon bloodshed, upon a far larger scale than anything that had ever occurred....
Irish leadership divided
Éamon de Valera called a cabinet meeting to discuss the treaty on 8 December, where he came out against the treaty as signed. That same day de Valera wrote a letter to the press which has been described as a letter to the Irish people:
"My friends Irishmen, you have seen in the public Press the text of the proposed Treaty with Great Britain. The terms of the agreement are in violent conflict with the wishes of the majority of the Nation as expressed freely in successive elections during the last three years. I feel it my duty to inform you immediately that I cannot recommend the acceptance of the Treaty either to the Dail Eireann or the country. In this attitude I am supported by the Ministers of Home Affairs and Defense."
The cabinet decided by four votes to three to recommend the treaty to the Dáil on 14 December.
The contents of the treaty divided the Irish Republic's leadership, with de Valera leading the anti-treaty minority. The main dispute was centred on the status as a dominion (as represented by the Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity) rather than as an independent republic, but the Partition of Ireland was a significant matter for dissent. Ulstermen like Seán MacEntee spoke strongly against the partition clause. The Dáil voted to approve the treaty but the objectors refused to accept it, leading eventually to the Irish Civil War. MacEntee was among their leaders.
Approval and ratification
Under the terms of the treaty, it required approval by: