s about to be sent over to symbolise our loss of free status. The spirit of the nation was low, and brothers were on the eve of civil war.
The Republican army refused to accept the disestablishment of the Republic as lawful, and repudiated the Dáil which had committed itself to establish a Dominion. There was threat of war between that army and the forces which the Provisional Government called into being—and in one calamitous episode, a soldier was shot dead. In the desperate effort to prevent the outbreak, the Collins-de Valera pact was signed. By this understanding, the Treaty supporters agreed to devise a constitution which would contain no oath, and Republicans would enter that constitution to work through its machinery for the recovery of the lost status. Collins had praised the Treaty as giving “freedom to attain freedom,” and he was asked to make this good by dropping the oath as lawyers declared to be possible without violation of the Treaty. A “pact election “was held, which was not to be contested. The pact was broken. A Dominion constitution was clapped before the people on the very morning of the poll.
Once again it was Lloyd George who drove the sword of his malice through the hope of Irish peace. He declared that Britain could not accept the draft Irish constitution as a faithful interpretation of the Treaty. He obliged Collins to restore the oath and to break the pact. Republicans were returned to the Second Dáil in reduced, though surprisingly large, numbers. On June 28th, civil war began.
Deputy Patrick Hogan, Free State Minister for Agriculture, used to say, “We started the civil war.” Not all supporters of the Free State were equally ready to accept the responsibility, and efforts still are made to blame the Republican side. It was not when the cannon opened fire on the Republican army’s headquarters at Four Courts that the civil war became inevitable, but earlier, when the pact was broken and the political arm of Republican action paralysed. Yet, when the guns began and the centre of Dublin was set aflame again as in Easter Week, it is certain that the heads of the provisional Government, and all responsible leaders of the Free State, were dismayed at what bad been done—appalled by the horror of the fratricide. Though he had had no part in the circumstances which issued in the war (for his influence had been destroyed for the time by the breaking of the pact), Mr. de Valera cast in his lot with the men who were defending the Republic from violent subversion. He went through the fires of O’Connell Street with Cathal Brugha, who died in a last gallant protest, shot down by an Irish soldier after escaping the English in 1916, 1919, 1920 and 1921. As the news of Brugha’s death went forth well might all loyal Irishmen grieve, and others tremble. It was not Republicans alone who hoped, even while the Four Courts were smoking, for a battle-field armistice. With passionate zeal certain holy clergy and earnest laymen tried to bring the rival chiefs together and to avert the conflict. If only the Free State party had consented then and there to proclaim that the Republic was surrendered and the Dominion established under Lloyd George’s coercion—if only it had made known that the Treaty was carried into force under duress and under protest—that other protest in arms could, we are assured, be brought to an end. Even now the time has not come to reveal what evil influence prevented such a compromise. The Republican army was summoned to surrender to a Dominion Government; and it would not do so, and the war went on.
The sorrowful story need not be told at greater length. With most of the Republican deputies in captivity or on the run, the Free State Parliament came into being and the Second Dáil was not summoned to complete the transfer of authority which it alone could make if the Free State was to be legitimised. Thus, the Free State and its legislature were set up without continuity from the Republic, and in the clouds of an armed coup d’etat. This invalidated the new order in the eyes of all those who were loy