it? “—Austin Stack asked Duggan. “Then why did you sign? How could you? “ “It was war in five minutes,” Duggan answered, “ unless we signed.”
By the release of the terms before the President had seen them, the English secured an advantage in propaganda; for the Treaty was in every newspaper on the morning of the 7th, accompanied by a chorus of enthusiasm. The whole English world, of course, acclaimed “England’s generosity,” and many people in Ireland who had lived through three years of mounting terror were so much relieved by the news of peace that their feeling overwhelmed their judgment. The President had had no opportunity to consider or pronounce upon the agreement, and it was assumed pretty generally that it had the approval of the whole Government, since no one guessed that Lloyd George had split that band of brave Irishmen and secured the signatures of some in defiance of their orders. Many of us can remember as vividly and painfully as if it happened yesterday our mental comment as we read the treaty:
“The Crown, the Empire, the Oath are accepted; the Six Counties can vote out; here is mere Dominion Home Rule without even a united Ireland. So this was the best that our Republican Government could do for us! Well, if those men say so, what can common folk do but make the best of it?
Little we guessed the terrible truth. Over some houses, by impudent people, flags were put out on the morning that the posters announced a treaty reached; but, by a wave of doubt that ran through the land like a chill, they were taken in the same day. In the country parish where the present writer lived, a collection was taken in the morning for a tar barrel, but the barrel never was burnt. In twelve hours, the nation was stricken by the suspicion that something was wrong.
Meanwhile, available members of the Cabinet met in Dublin. On appeal of Mr. Cosgrave that the delegates should be heard before they were repudiated, the President summoned them back for a conference next day; and all were present at a fateful meeting on December 8th that lasted far into the night.
Even then, at that tragic last hour, the nation’s worst calamity might have been averted if Griffith had declared that he acted under duress. He who had favoured the dual monarchy in other days, was well enough satisfied by the Dominion to be unwilling to take the gloss off the settlement. Republicans knew that the gloss was fallacious. Collins and Duggan stood with Griffith, while Gavan Duffy and Barton considered that their pledge, given to avert war, bound them to stand by their signatures. It is only fair to observe that, if Gavan Duffy and Barton had denounced Lloyd George’s constraint, the treaty would have been defeated and the purpose for which they signed it would have been frustrated. Only if all five delegates solemnly declared that they had signed under duress could it be accepted, under protest, as a thing forced on us. On December 9th, Ireland learnt, therefore, that the Cabinet had split. The President announced that he could not recommend the Treaty for acceptance, and that the Ministers of Home Affairs and Defence (Stack and Brugha) supported him. “The great test of our people has come,” he wrote, and he pleaded for a decision by constitutional means.
For three days, the Treaty had been gathering a volume of applause, and the world was astonished to learn that the Irish leader was against it. Instantly, the agents of propaganda circulated the legend of a dour, irreconcilable fanatic, who was jealous of the success of the chief delegates – Griffith and Collins, who were being made white-headed boys by powers and persons whom, in truth, both of them despised.
To the everlasting shame of some of our newspapers, there were leading articles again and again, during the ensuing fortnight, which protested against the Dáil’s scrutiny of the Treaty clause by clause and the exhaustive debate on status. The corrupt old Irish Parliament of the landlords took six months to debate the Union, but the Irish Republic was not to spend a few days in discussing its own disesta