Second paragraph of third chapter:
There were a number of factors leading each side to consider a truce in the summer of 1921. For the British, the behavior of the Auxiliaries and the Black and Tans was generating substantial negative publicity, made worse by the government’s apparent sanction of such actions by the end of 1920. In addition, the British had been unwilling to unleash a full-scale war in Ireland and were leery of doing so without exploring alternative solutions. The British had been fighting the Anglo-Irish “war” with police and local security forces rather than with full-strength divisions of the British Army. With difficulties in Egypt and India, among other places, Britain could not afford to station too many regular troops in Ireland. Given that Britain was deeply in debt from the Great War, and Lloyd George’s coalition government was already having difficulty redeeming its promise to build “homes fit for heroes” after the war, Britain also did not have the financial wherewithal to launch a full military campaign in Ireland. The political will was lacking, too. Despite the presence of Tories in the cabinet – Lloyd George was the Liberal prime minister of a largely Tory cabinet, a holdover from the wartime coalition – there was a sense that the British public, as well as the Liberal and Labour parties, would not keep quiet about a full military campaign in Ireland, given that the relatively small-scale hostilities undertaken by the security forces were already causing unease.² In addition, Lloyd George correctly surmised that a settlement could be reached that was closer in practical terms to the offer of Home Rule already on the table than it was to the self-proclaimed Irish Republic.
² Arthur Mitchell, Revolutionary Government in Ireland: Dáil Éireann 1919-21 (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1993), 225.
This is a short and detailed book about the debates in Dáil Eireann in December 1921 and January 1922 about the ratification of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and about the political situation which led to it. Having fairly recently read Charles Townshend’s The Republic, which covers much of the same ground, I felt that Knirck’s general political account of the events of the War of Independence, which forms the first third or so of the book, isn’t as good as Townshend’s; but when he gets into the detail, first of the Treaty negotiations and then of the Dáil debates, he is much more solid (Townshend is running out of steam at that point).
On the Treaty, Knirck devotes considerable space to trying to work out what de Valera was actually up to, and comes to the conclusion that he wanted the negotiations in London to fail so that he could leap in with an improved proposal and save the day. Given the relative inexperience and weaker position of the Irish delegation, this would have been such a bold assumption by de Valera that I found it difficult to believe, but Knick marshals his evidence convincingly.
On the Dáil debates, the heart of the book, Knirck goes through the whole thing in fascinated detail, looking at the backgrounds of the members of the Second Dáil (who were all elected unopposed in May 1920), tracking those who moved from hard-liner to pro-Treaty and from dove to anti-Treaty, and tracing the procedural issues and the rhetorical style of the debates, which did become personalised at several points. I found this a much more attractive way of approaching the concept of the Republic than Townshend’s ideological analysis; looking at what people actually did and said is, after all, a fundamentally sound approach.
One important point that he makes is that both wings of the Sinn Fein leadership, and indeed the rank and file, were desperate to maintain a united movement until well past the moment when this was no longer feasible (which was probably when the plenipotentiaries signed in London). This led both sides into tactical and strategic mistakes. For us, looking back on over a century of division along lines established by the Treaty, it can be difficult to appreciate that serious leaders thought they could still avoid it as late as early January 1922. Hindsight gives you 20/20 vision.
Knirck’s most fundamental point is that most of the Irish political leadership in 1921 were politically inexperienced, and the debates reveal a new style of politics coming into being, but not quite there yet. They got outplayed by Lloyd George in London, and then by themselves in Dublin. Having seen other revolutionary situations elsewhere, I must say that it rings true. Whether or not you agree, his analysis of the primary sources – the Treaty debates themselves – is compelling. You can get it here.
