Page 15 note 1. Later published as a Command Paper, cmd. 1560 of 1921. The document is generally referred to as ‘the treaty’. It established the Irish Free State as a Dominion, with the position of the Dominion of Canada. Northern Ireland was included in the Irish Free State, but with the proviso that the Free State's powers over her should not be exercised, until the parliament of Northern Ireland should have decided to accept the jurisdiction of the Free State.

Page 15 note 2. SeeHarkness, D. W.,The Restless Dominion (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Carroll, Joseph T.,Ireland in the War Tears, 1939–45 (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Nowlan, K. B. and Williams, T. Desmond (eds.), Ireland in the War Tears and After (Dublin, 1969)Google Scholar; and the important article by Harkness, , ‘Mr. de Valera's Dominion: Irish Relations with Britain and the Commonwealth, 1932–38’ in Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies, viii (1970), pp. 206–228CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

Page 16 note 1. The Sinn Féin movement was founded by Arthur Griffith, who in 1905 formulated a policy of national self-reliance, based on the tactics of the Hungarian nationalists of 1867. Sinn Fein is variously translated, but the most generally accepted meaning is ‘we ourselves’ - a phrase which expressed the sense of economic, political and social self-sufficiency that Griffith sought to achieve.

Page 16 note 2. For an interesting example of a Sinn Fein court in action, see O‘Connor, Ulick, A Terrible Beauty is Born: the Irish Troubles, 1912–22 (London, 1975), pp. 141–142Google Scholar. Some parts of the Sinn Fein administrative machine were weak and ineffective, but Gwynn, Denis comments (The Irish Free State (London, 1928), p. 388)Google Scholar that “it was as Minister for Local Government in the illegal administration created by Sinn Fein before the truce that Mr. Gosgrave (first President of the Executive Council of the Free State) gained his first important experience of office.”

Page 16 note 3. Kevin O‘Higgins's phrase. O'Higgins was first Minister of Justice in the Irish Free State, and was murdered by unknown gunmen in 1927. In an address to the Irish Society of Oxford in October, 1924, he described the Provisional Government of the Irish Free State as “simply eight young men in the City Hall, standing amidst the ruin of one administration, with the foundations of another not yet laid, and with wild men screaming through the keyhole” (quoted in Hsancock, W. K.Survey of British Commonwealth affairs, vol. I, Problems of Nationality, igi8-ig36 (London, 1937), p. 15Google Scholar, fn. 1).

Page 16 note 4. For Ulster Unionist resistance to home rule, and their plans of a coup in the event of home rule passing, see Stewart, A. T. Q., The Ulster Crisis (London, 1967)Google Scholar and Buckland, P. J., Irish Unionism II: Ulster Unionism and the Origins of Northern Ireland (Dublin, 1973)Google Scholar, Ch. 3.

Page 16 note 5. 10 and 11 Geo.V., ch. 67. The act created two parliaments in Ireland, one for the area now comprising Northern Ireland, and one for the remainder of the country. The southern parliament opened and then immediately closed down again in June 1921; the Northern Ireland parliament opened in the same month, and lasted until March 1972.

Page 17 note 1. Thus: Southern Ireland (1920 Government of Ireland Act); Irish Free State (1922–37); éire/Ireland (1937 constitution); and the most confusing of all, in 1949, when the name of the state is given as ‘éire’, but where the state is ‘described’ as the ‘Republic of Ireland’. There is also the mystifying, humorous, but not inappropriate, description by Dr. G. C. O'Brien of the 1949 position: “Ieotsnec Ptrotnt”, or “Ireland, exclusive of the six north eastern counties, pending the re-integration of the national territory”. See O'Brien, C. C., States of Ireland (London, 1972), p. 103Google Scholar. For British bewilderment at the 1937 metamorphosis see Irish Situation Committee, 35th meeting, 14 Dec. 1937, P.R.O., Gab 27/524.

Page 17 note 2. N. Mansergh, ‘Ireland and the British Commonwealth of Nations; the Dominion Settlement’ inWilliams, T. Desmond (ed.), The Irish Struggle, 1916–26 (London, 1966), p. 138Google Scholar.

Page 17 note 3. Dail Eireann Official Report: debate on the treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, p. 32 (19 Dec. 1921).

Page 17 note 4. See my Englishmen and Irish Troubles (London, 1972), pp. 157–159Google Scholar.

Page 18 note 1. For some interesting remarks on Irish public opinion in the inter-war years -and after see Keatinge, P., The Formulation of Irish Foreign Policy (Dublin, 1973)Google Scholar, passim.

Page 18 note 2. Fianna F¡il, or ‘Warriors of Destiny’. A party founded by de Valera and including the more moderate anti-treaty Sinn Fein adherents.

Page 18 note 3. Gumann na nGaedhal, ‘party’ or ‘clan’ of the Gaels. A party based on those Sinn Fein members who supported the 1921 treaty. It underwent various metamorphoses in the early 1930s and emerged as the Fine Gael party after 1934.

Page 18 note 4. William Thomas Cosgrave (1880–1965), President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, 1922–1932.

Page 19 note 1. Sister of Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, who died on hunger strike in 1920. A staunch Republican who once described Lloyd George as the “most unprincipled scroundrel in history”.

Page 19 note 2. Desmond Fitzgerald, Minister for Foreign Affairs, in the Dail, May 1925. Quoted in C. G. O'Brien, ‘Ireland in International Affairs’ in Edwards, Owen Dudley (ed.), C, C O'Brien introduces Ireland (London, 1969), p. 107Google Scholar.

Page 19 note 3. Though Mowat, G. L. ventures some interesting remarks in Britain between the Wars(London, 1959), pp. 106–107Google Scholar, 428–431, 601–603.

Page 19 note 4. The rest of this paragraph is based on Meenen, James, The Irish Economy since 1922 (Liverpool University Press, 1970)Google Scholar,passim, but esp. pp. 34–38, 100, 269–270, 274–275, 316. The quotations are from Meenen, p. 100, fn. 26, and p. 269.

Page 20 note 1. For example, Thomas Davis maintained that 35 million people could be supported if Ireland were properly developed; Patrick Pearse also believed that a “free Ireland” could support a much larger population (Meenen, op. cit. p. 332).

Page 20 note 2. Ibid. pp. 273–275.

Page 20 note 3. For these conferences see D. W. Harkness, ‘England's Irish question’ in Gook, C. and Peele, G. (eds.), The Politics of Reappraisal, 1918–1939 (London, 1975), pp. 39–63Google Scholar, esp. pp 43–46, and his Restless Dominion, passim. See also Dawson, R. M.The Development of Dominion Status (London, 1965), pp. 414Google Scholar ff, 437 ff.

Page 21 note 1. New Statesman, 20 and 27 August, 1921.

Page 21 note 2. Dawson, op. cit. pp. 315–316.

Page 21 note 3. Harkness, ‘England's Irish question’ op. cit., p. 43.

Page 22 note 1. P. McGilligan's speech, D¡il éireann, 16 July 1931, quoted in Dawson, op. cit. p. 420.

Page 22 note 2. McCracken, J. L., Representative Government in Ireland: a study of Dail Eireann, 1919–1948 (London, 1958), pp. 193–194Google Scholar

Page 22 note 3. The Earl of Longford and O'Neill, T. P., Eamon de Valera (London, 1970), pp. 266–276Google Scholar.

Page 22 note 4. Ibid. pp. 276–277.

Page 23 note 1. Ibid. pp. 277—282. For the economic war see Meenen,op. cit. pp. 78—103, 247, 291 and W. K. Hancock,op. cit. pp. 347–368.

Page 23 note 2. James MacNeill (1869–1938), an Ulster Catholic who served in the Indian Civil Service, 1890—1915 and was Governor-General of the Irish Free State, 1928—1932.

Page 23 note 3. Harkness, ‘Mr. de Valera's Dominion’, op. cit. pp. 209–210. Longford and O'Neill, op. cit. p. 285.

Page 23 note 4. Longford and O'Neill, op. cit. pp. 287–289.

Page 23 note 5. Speech of Desmond Fitzgerald, in D¡il éireann, 13 May 1925, quoted in O. Dudley Edwards, C. C. O'Brien introduces Ireland, op. cit. p. 107.

Page 24 note 1. In compiling this section of the paper I have relied heavily on D. W. Harkness's article ‘Mr. de Valera's Dominion’ op. cit., supplemented by my own researches in the Cabinet papers in the Public Record Office. The most useful classes of documents are Cab. 24/262, 271 and Cab. 27/522, 523, 524.

Page 24 note 2. Meenen, op. cit. p. 320.

Page 25 note 1. Irish Situation Committee, 31st meeting, 20 Jan. 1937, Cab, 27/524; partially quoted in Harkness, ‘Mr. de Valera's Dominion’, op. cit. p. 222.

Page 25 note 2. See also J. H. Thomas's remark on 10 July 1935. In reply to Sir Stafford Cripps's allegation that Thomas had said “we will do everything we can to compel Ireland to remain within the Commonwealth” Thomas replied, “No, I said that I would be no party to doing anything that would drive her out”. Cripps then went on: “There is certainly nothing we can do to compel an unwilling Ireland to remain within the Commonwealth. If she wants to go out and decides to go out, nobody… would suggest that we should send troops to Ireland to keep her within the British Commonwealth” (H.C.Deb., 5s., vol. 304 cols 449–450). See also the Royal Institute of International Affairs, The British Empire, (London, 1937) pp. 96–97Google Scholar: “There can be no doubt that British public opinion would never again sanction the use of force against the Free State, except to protect the North”.

Page 25 note 3. R. M. Dawson, op. cit. p. 449.

Page 25 note 4. Ibid. pp. 449–452.

Page 25 note 5. Ibid. p. 452. Harkness, ‘Mr. de Valera's Dominion’, op. cit. pp. 210–211.

Page 26 note 1. C. P. 287 (33), 1 Dec. 1933, Cab. 27/522.

Page 26 note 2. Harkness, op. cit. p. 212.

Page 26 note 3. Irish Situation Committee, 23rd meeting, 12 May 1936, Cab. 27/523.

Page 26 note 4. Harkness, op. cit. pp. 213–215.

Page 27 note 1. Gab. 32/130. See also the Cabinet meeting of 22 Dec. 1937, Cab. 23/90.

Page 27 note 2. Harkness, op. cit p. 224.

Page 27 note 3. Boyce, op. cit. pp. 167–169.

Page 28 note 1. Harkness, op. cit. pp. 220–221; see also W. K. Hancock, op. cit. pp. 387–390.

Page 28 note 2. See Cab. 23/92 and 93 for Cabinet discussions relating to the Anglo-Irish negotiations of 1938. On 13 April 1938 MacDonald admitted that “in practice, we should obtain a good deal of co-operation. On paper, however, this part of the agreement was adverse to us” (Cab. 23/93). On 25 April, 1938 Neville Chamberlain defended the agreement on the grounds that by abandoning “our paper right” we had received “a reasonable prospect of obtaining the advantages of the co-operation of the Government and People of Eire in the defence of the ports”. The Cabinet approved the terms (Cab. 23/93). The agreement was embodied in a Command Paper ‘Agreements between the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of Eire’,Cmd 5728 of 1938.

Page 28 note 3. Harkness, op. cit. p. 226. For the 1938 negotiations see Longford and O'Neill, Eamon de Valera, op. cit., Ch. 26. The relevant British Cabinet papers are Cab. 27/642.

Page 28 note 4. Quoted in Constance Howard ‘Eire’, in A. and Toynbee, V. M. (eds.),The War and the Neutrals (London, 1956), p. 38Google Scholar.

Page 28 note 5. Harkness, op. cit. p. 226.

Page 29 note 1. Carroll, Joseph T., Ireland in the War Years (London, 1975), p. 12Google Scholar.

Page 29 note 2. See my comment in Englishmen and Irish Troubles, p. 168. fn. In any case, the term of reference of the Boundary Commission were ambiguous. The Commission, under Article 12 of the treaty, was to consist of three persons, one each appointed by the governments of the Irish Free State, Northern Ireland, and Great Britain. It was to delimit the boundaries, not only in “accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants” but also “so far as may be compatible with economic and geographical conditions”. Either or both, of these principles could work against the hopes entertained by Griffith and Collins.

Page 30 note 1. The Northern Ireland ‘representative’ was J. R. Fisher, an Ulster Unionist who had for many years been editor of the Northern Whig. The other persons appointed were: for the Irish Free State, Eoin MacNeill, Minister for Education in the Dublin Government; and Mr. Justice Richard Feetham, a judge of the Supreme Court of the Union of South Africa.

Page 30 note 2. The best account of the episode of the boundary commission is Geoffrey J. Hand's chapter on ‘MacNeill and the Boundary Commission’ in Martin, F. X. (ed.), The Scholar Revolutionary: Eoin MacNeill, 1867–1945, and the Making of the New Ireland (Irish University Press, 1973)Google Scholar. The report of the commission has been published (LU.P., 1969), with a very useful short introduction by Hand. For the ‘leak’ to the Morning Post see Andrews, J. H., ‘The Morning Post line’ in Irish Geography, iv (1959-1963), pp. 99–106Google Scholar. The question of who leaked the report will probably never be cleared up. Hand, in ‘Eoin MacNeill’ suggests that Fisher was the culprit (pp. 251–252). The papers of H. A. Gwynne, then editor of the Morning Post, throw no light on the subject. Material on the deliberations of the Commission may be found in Middlemas, Keith (ed.), Tom Jones; Whitehall Diary, II (London, 1971), pp. 229–246Google Scholar.

Page 31 note 1. The first meeting of representatives took place on 17 Jan, 1938 (Gab. 27/642) when de Valera spoke ominously of the need to settle the partition question, otherwise a situation might arise like that in 1914 “when Mr. Redmond found himself faced with difficulties which proved beyond his control”.

Page 31 note 2. The best MacDonald could offer on partition was a declaration “setting forth 2 points, namely, first that we could agree to no change without the consent of the Government of Northern Ireland, and second, that if a change took place, which resulted in a desire on the part of the Government of Northern Ireland for closer relations, we should not oppose it, but on the contrary do anything that we could to help” (Cabinet meeting of 16 March 1938, Gab. 23/93). For Chamberlain's views see Longford and O'Neill, De Valera, op. cit. p. 320.

Page 32 note 1. For an example of English Liberal distaste of the Northern Ireland government see Report of a commission of inquiry appointed to examine the purpose and effects of the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Acts (Northern Ireland) 1922 and 1933 (National Council for Civil Liberties, 1936)Google Scholar.

Page 32 note 2. The official account is Blake, J. W., Northern Ireland in the Second World War (HMSO, Belfast, 1956)Google Scholar. See also the short essay by Kennedy, David, ‘Ulster during the war and after”, in Nowlan, K. B. and Williams, T. Desmond (eds.),Ireland in the War Tears and After (Dublin, 1969); PP- 52–66Google Scholar.

Page 32 note 3. T. Carroll, Ireland in the War Tears, op. cit. p. 49.

Page 32 note 4. Costello 's coalition government was composed of representatives of the Fine Gael, Labour and Clan na Poblachta parties, and was formed following the 1948 election, which returned 68 Fianna Fail, 31 Fine Gael, 19 Labour, 14 Independents, 5 Farmers and 10 Clan na Poblachta deputies. For the circumstances surrounding Costello's decision to leave the Commonwealth see F. S. L. Lyons, ‘The Years of Re-adjustment, 1945–51’, in Ireland in the War Tears and After, op. cit. pp. 67–79, and Mansergh, N., Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs: Problems of Wartime Co-operation and Post-War Change, 1939–52 (London, 1958), pp. 265–284Google Scholar.

Page 33 note 1. 12 and 13 Geo. VI, C. 41. Text in Mansergh, N., Documents and Speeches on British Commonwealth Affairs, II (London, 1953), pp. 821–825Google Scholar.

Page 33 note 2. The second reading of the Ireland Bill took place on 11 May 1949 (H.C.Deb., 5s., vol. 464, cols. 1854–1964), and the committee stage was on 16 May 1949 (vol. 465, cols. 33–220). The third reading took place on 17 May (Ibid. cols. 348–392). The bill did not pass without incident; four parliamentary private secretaries were dismissed, and one resigned, for their failure to support the government, and on 19 May a “stern warning” was given to the 66 Labour MPs who had, at some time or other, voted against part or the whole of the bill (Annual Register (1949), p. 31).

Page 33 note 3. H.C.Deb., 5s., vol. 464, col. 1858.

Page 33 note 4. This anti-partition campaign has been touched on by various writers, but has never been fully explored. For comments on it see Annual Register (1949), pp. 113–114, and Mansergh,Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, op. cit. pp. 278–279, 286–287, 289. For some hostile contemporary remarks see The Round Table, Nos. 153–155 (Dec, 1948, March 1949, June 1949). However, the chief significance of this campaign has been ignored by most writers, who, like Mansergh, recognize that it was a “barrier in the way ofunity” (Mansergh, op. cit. pp. 286—287), but fail to acknowledge that its most important consequence was not to bar the way to unity (which was in any event highly unlikely), but to worsen community relations in the north. The southern Irish politicians made the mistake of under-estimating not only Ulster Unionist objections to the ending of partition but also the tense and explosive state of Protestant-Catholic relations in Northern Ireland - in short, they, and later commentators, failed to appreciate the delicate and precarious position of the Northern Ireland Catholic.

Page 33 note 5. C. C. O'Brien, ‘Ireland in International Affairs’ op. cit. pp. 123–126. Yet it should be noted that in 1937 de Valera spoke of Irish membership of the Commonwealth as conditional on the partition question. According to MacDonald's memorandum, de Valera warned that “if partition continued indefinitely, and there seemed no prospects of a united Ireland being achieved under the present constitutional arrangement, people might say that there was no further point in remaining associated with the Commonwealth, and then they might declare a republic” (MacDonald, ‘Relations with the Irish Free State’, C.P. 228 (37), Cab. 24//271).

Page 34 note 1. Bromage, Mary G., Churchill and Ireland (University of Notre Dame Press, 1964), p. 180Google Scholar. See also the comments of Se¡n MacBride, Minister of External Affairs, in 1949, Mansergh, ‘Ireland: the Republic outside the Commonwealth' International Affairs, xxviii (1952), p. 288Google Scholar.

Page 34 note 2. H.CDeb., 5s., vol. 464, col. 1870.

Page 34 note 3. Ibid. col. 1864.

Page 34 note 4. Hancock, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs: Problems of Nationality, op. cit., p. 91. Lloyd George was addressing a conference of Prime Ministers and representatives of the United Kingdom, the Dominions, and India, held in June-August, 1921.

Page 35 note 1. For examples of how the Commonwealth connexion occasionally protected Ireland from the wrath of British statesmen see Mansergh, Problems of Wartime Co-operation and Post War Change, op. cit. p. 288, when the United Kingdom government in 1948 did consider making secession mean the ending of trade preferences for Ireland, and alien status for Irish citizens in the United Kingdom, but was deflected from this by pressure from the overseas dominions. See also R. M. Dawson, The Development of Dominion Status, op. cit. pp. 437—440. J. H, Thomas opposed an amendment during the debate on the Status of Westminster that “Nothing in this Act shall be deemed to authorise the Legislature of the Irish Free State to repeal, amend, or alter the Irish Free State Agreement Act, 1922, or the Irish Free State Constitution Act, 1922, or so much of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, as continue to be in force in Northern Ireland”. He pointed out that, “South Africa and Ireland are the two dominions with which there are Treaty obligations…Do you think for one moment that on a division you would dare to insert a clause that this should be applied to South Africa? ”

Page 35 note 2. British historians of the appeasement era are many in number, but few have considered Anglo-Irish relations in this context. An exception is Feiling, Keith, Neville Chamberlain (London, 1946)Google Scholar, who uses this episode as an example of the essentially “right-headed” nature of appeasement. For example, on p. 310, he states that agreement in the 1938 Anglo—Irish conference was “spurred on by the fall of Austria and Chamberlain's feeling that agreement with Ireland would be felt in Berlin”. See also Chamberlain's remarks on 13 April 1938 that “in this kind of agreement what was not included was sometimes more important than what was”. He “attached great importance to the psychological effect of the conclusion of another Treaty of a pacific character following the Italian agreement. The Ambassador of the United States of America had already spoken strongly to him on the valuable effect on opinion in America of an agreement with Eire”. (Cab. 23/93).

Page 35 note 3. N. Mansergh, ‘Ireland and the British Commonwealth of Nations: the Dominion Settlement’, T. Desmond Williams (ed.), The Irish Struggle, p. 139.