In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

3 I n 1919 Irish activists loosely gathered under the banners of Sinn Féin, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) launched an attempt to throw off British colonial rule in Ireland. Seizing the initiative from the Irish Party, these men and women instigated what has generally been referred to as the Irish Revolution, the War of Independence, or the AngloIrish War.1 The fledgling IRA attacked the police force and intelligence services , and Sinn Féin’s elected representatives abstained from the Westminster parliament and created a self-proclaimed legislature in Dublin called Dáil Éireann. At the same time, revolutionaries commenced a propaganda push that both explained the justice of the Irish case and demonized British colonialism and repression. The main audience was the United States, where Sinn Féiners such as Eamon de Valera and Mary MacSwiney crisscrossed the country raising money for and awareness of the cause. By 1921 the Dáil had at least taken on the appearance of a functioning government, particularly in the realms of finance, justice, and local government, and the IRA had fought a guerrilla campaign that gutted the Irish constabulary, significantly hindered British intelligence gathering in Ireland, and forced the British government to devote more resources to politically unpopular repressive measures. In July 1921 a truce was signed, as leaders on both sides feared the conflict had significantly strained political and economic resources. Weeks of negotiations in London began in October, and the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, most commonly referred to as the Anglo-Irish Treaty, were concluded in early December. The Treaty  introduction Cumann na nGaedheal, Historians, and the Irish Revolution created the Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann) with something similar to the status of a dominion. Under the agreement, a Dublin parliament had wide authority over Irish matters, full tariff autonomy, and the right to raise an Irish army. On the other hand, the Treaty placed Ireland clearly within the British Empire, forced Irish representatives to swear a watered-down oath of loyalty to the British Crown, gave the British military the right to use certain Irish ports, allowed six counties in Ulster to opt out of the Free State, and barred Ireland from undertaking its own naval defense. The Treaty passed through the British parliament rather easily—Ulster and Tory diehards complained, but lacked the votes to reject it—but caused a huge controversy in the more closely divided Sinn Féin Dáil. Pro- and anti-Treatyites differed on Ireland’s capability for further resistance, the possibility of wresting better terms from Britain, and the probability that Britain would actually allow Ireland the freedoms enjoyed by other dominions. In addition, antiTreatyites questioned the morality of swearing an oath to the Crown while also raising technical issues about the plenipotentiaries having exceeded their mandate and broken their promises to the Irish cabinet. The Treaty passed the Dáil by a slim margin of seven votes, and the dispute exploded into civil war by the summer of 1922. Although there were ranges of opinion within and between each camp on social, economic, and political issues, the two sides primarily differed on the wisdom of ratifying the Treaty. Elections in 1922 and 1923 generally favored acceptance of the Treaty, although not necessarily acceptance of the entire program of proTreaty Sinn Féin. Once anti-Treatyites were defeated in the field by the fall of 1922, they undertook a guerrilla campaign that Treatyites characterized as murder and sabotage. For their part, the Treatyite government executed seventy-seven anti-Treatyites without civil trials and held thousands more without formal charge. When anti-Treatyites dumped arms in May 1923 without formally surrendering, each side claimed that the other had committed atrocities that placed them beyond the pale of political cooperation . Anti-Treatyites continued to function initially under the banner of Sinn Féin, running candidates for and abstaining from the Dáil. Frustrated with this increasingly futile abstention, a majority of anti-Treatyites led by Eamon de Valera formed Fianna Fáil in 1926, and that party’s elected representatives finally entered the Dáil after the assassination of Treatyite Minister for Justice Kevin O’Higgins in 1927. On the pro-Treaty side, supporters voluntarily abandoned the name Sinn Féin, for reasons that have never been entirely clear, and formed a pro-Treaty political organization. After a false 4 Introduction start in December 1922, the party was formally launched in April 1923 as...

Share