De Valera and Treaty Negotiations
Uploaded by Kerrytom on Aug 10, 2013
The decision of Eamon De Valera not to travel to the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations was a very contentious and divisive one. In this study I will attempt to figure out if this decision of De Valera’s had an influence on the outcome of the negotiations and I will also look at the possible reasons why De Valera came to the decision to stay at home. In order to fully comprehend the decision by De Valera to stay in Dublin during the Treaty negotiations, we must first look at the events which led up to these negotiations taking place.
The war of independence had been raging on in Ireland and in the summer of 1921 the British government proposed a negotiation for peace in Ireland. This stemmed from the Kings speech in Belfast, where he was inaugurating the first Parliament of Northern Ireland. In it he spoke emotionally about striving for peace in Ireland. “’I speak from a full heart’, he said with emotion that no one who heard him forgot, ‘when I pray that my coming to Ireland today may prove to be the first step towards an end of strife amongst her peoples, whatever their race or creed. In that hope I appeal to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and forget and to join in making for the land which they love a new era of peace, contentment and goodwill.’”
A truce came into effect on July 11th and on June 12th De Valera travelled to London for talks with British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. This began a series of four meetings in 10 Downing St. between de Valera and Lloyd George which began on 14 July and ended inconclusively on 21 July, when de Valera rejected an offer of what was in effect dominion status with safeguards for British defence interests. A prickly correspondence between the two men continued until 30 September, when de Valera accepted an invitation to a conference in London “with a view to ascertaining how the association of Ireland with the community of nations known as the British Empire may best be reconciled with Irish national aspirations”
The talks were due to begin on October 11th, but De Valera decided that it should be Michael Collins and Arthur Griffiths who were to lead the delegation and not him. De Valera’s...