Dev's Inferno

Welcome to the history of Ireland It would have been a cold and dark night in Limerick On Monday the 5th slash Tuesday the 6th of December 1921 But De Valera was still up late He’d had a busy enough day He’d started out in Ennis, County Clare Reviewing the IRA brigades And then had attended a ceremony in Limerick Where he received the freedom of the city So that night he settled around the fireplace With Richard Mulcahy and Carl Brewer Maybe still discussing the state of the IRA Maybe wondering how things were going in London

Catuban! Or suddenly as we used to say in Irish essays The phone rang It was an IRA general calling Mulcahy To tell him the treaty had been signed Mulcahy told Dev and asked Did he want to speak to the general and get more information Dev simply said no And then the men went to bed And that was that

Ronan Fanning who wrote one of the leading biographies of Dev Writes about this reaction saying It was the first act in a pattern of behaviour over the next 48 hours So bizarre that it makes sense only in terms of presidential outrage And the fact that a treaty, any treaty Had been signed without his prior approval There were many, many people against the treaty right from the get go But Dev was the most prominent figure in the country And it’s critical to understand how he reacted

The next morning the three men returned to Dublin And as Mulcahy describes it There was no uplift in the air That’s fair, Dev didn’t know what had been signed And maybe he was apprehensive But you’d think the first thing he’d do when he got to Dublin Would be to find out exactly what the hell was going on And what this treaty looked like Right? Nope Instead he went home and spent the afternoon with his family

He then, get this Headed off to a round table symposium Commemorating the sixth centenary of Dante Of Divine Comedy fame The poem, not the band Now I love Dante and his Inferno as much as the next man But it doesn’t really seem that his centenary Was, you know, the most important thing going on that day, right? But Dev got all dolled up in his lecturer’s gown And went to the mansion house where the event was taking place

As he was getting ready to speak Eamon Duggan burst through the door Having raced straight from London that morning He handed Dev a copy of the treaty To which Dev replied What should I read it for? Duggan said, well, read it because it’s about to be published in London And Dublin within the hour What?! Dev exclaimed It’s to be published? Whether I have seen it or not? Whether I approve it or not? He then continued on with the bloody symposium

Pierce Baisley, who sat near Dev during the talk Wrote that he was, quote Astonished at Dev’s state of suppressed emotion When he had not taken the trouble to study the treaty Baisley believed that A treaty had been signed without being first referred to him And that was the source of his agitation This is backed up by something Dev wrote later to a friend It was an act of disloyalty to their president And to their colleagues in the cabinet Such as is probably without parallel in history They not merely signed the document But in order to make the vague accompli doubly secure They published it Hours before the president or their colleagues saw it

And you know, I think he’s probably right Neither Griffith or Collins Were particularly loyal to Dev at this point They had been sick of his meddling And it feels like for once since 1917 When Griffith ceded leadership of Sinn Féin to Dev He now grabbed it back Griffith believed he had made the best deal possible He wanted to avoid a war And yet, it seems like he blindsided Devolaire to do it And Dev had every right to be pissed with Griffith The man had gone back on his word And totally undermined Dev’s position as president But this is what happens when you take yourself out of the room Freeman argues this was not so much a betrayal As a failure of the leadership

And what occurs over the next little while Shows how much Dev’s control over Sinn Féin and the Irish movement Had kind of slipped away from him The way Dev saw it, as he later explained The plenipotentiaries were not bold enough To dare to make one heap of all their winnings Winning seemed almost a certainty But they could not see it And a great occasion was missed Great not merely for Ireland But for England too And for the world

I think maybe he’s overstating things a little bit And it does feel very easy for him to say all this When, you know, he wouldn’t get blamed for throwing Ireland back into a war And I think it’s all a little more complicated than that Dev had wanted to break on Ulster All of the Irish had He wanted to force the British back into an unpopular war And then he could come in and save the day But Griffith didn’t want to be blamed for starting that war And neither did Collins And to be honest, if Dev had had the iron grip he thought he had On the Irish movement It might not have mattered what the plenipotentiaries had signed

But over the next few days and weeks Dev quickly realised that he had lost control of the situation This was the first time in years that his leadership was openly challenged But he had consistently removed himself from the situation Both due to his time in America And his refusal to head to London with the delegates Had severely weakened his position All this time had brought Collins and Griffith And others closer and closer together On the other side of the split to Dev And this, it could be argued Is one of the reasons as to why he was so pissed Without even having seen the treaty It could have been any kind of agreement And some argue that he would still have been against it Because it was not his agreement

The next day he had to be talked down From firing Griffith, Collins and Barton from the Dáil cabinet Right there and then It seems one of the only things that stopped him Was that he was trying to keep W.T. Cosgrave Another cabinet member, on his side So instead he sent a statement to the press which read In view of the nature of the proposed treaty with Great Britain President De Valera has sent an urgent summons To the members of the cabinet in London To report at once So that a full cabinet decision may be taken Sinn Féin’s Peorgai pointed out that This might be altered, Mr. President It reads as if you were opposed to the settlement To which Dev replied That’s the way I intend it to be read Publish it as is

The cabinet meeting that followed On December 8th Was a nine hour affair A quote bitter and protracted meeting And a few things went against De Valera For a start it was one thing for Griffith to have signed the treaty But the fact that Collins had followed suit was vital As Freeman puts it It was Collins who made the difference During the cabinet meeting Dev argued that the treaty was invalid As it had been signed under duress To which Collins replied In a contest between a great empire and a small nation This was as far as the small nation would get Until the British empire was destroyed Ireland could get no more Collins was pro-dominion Sawed as a stepping stone And could bring a lot of people along with him

Dev was then further shook When Barton, who was meant to be a staunch ally of his Argued that the disaster was because we were not a fighting delegation Due to the fact Dev never came to London And then finally Cosgrave Who Dev was working to keep on side And who had opposed the oath previously Well he changed his mind Collins and Griffith had convinced him of the benefits of the treaty And so the cabinet voted in favour Four to three Collins, Griffith, Barton and Cosgrave on one side de Valera, Cahill Brewer and Austin Stack on the other

However in a pretty crazy move Dev refused to announce the majority verdict Instead he issued another press release This one saying The terms of settlement Were in violent conflict With the wishes of the majority of this nation As expressed freely In successive elections During the past three years

An important question is Well Was de Valera right? What was the general consensus about the treaty? Remember as we discussed way back When Sinn Féin were running for election Lots of people talked about lots of different things The idea of a free Ireland Was kept very vague To keep everyone on side But now the rubber was hitting the road And people had to decide What were they actually happy with?

So early reactions were a very mixed bag Generally the newspapers Both in Ireland and abroad Were elated by the news of the Anglo-Irish treaty Most of the Irish newspapers celebrated the treaty With the Freeman’s Journal writing The treaty secured every essential freedom Which the Irish people have sought For over seven long and sorrowful centuries Meanwhile the Kilkenny people were a little drier Writing The alternative to self-determination Is self-extermination And it was written that There was at first a general air of rejoicing Amongst the public and the IRA

Ironically Craig and the Ulster Unionists Were just as mad as Dev The Belfast Telegraph announced Ulster stands in a position of grave peril With Unionists declaring the treaty As a complete surrender on the part of the British One even went as far as to say The British Empire is doomed To be fair Today some would argue that he was right That this was the beginning of the collapse Of the British Empire as it had been The Unionists were worried about the border commission The very thing that had convinced Collins to sign the treaty In fact Craig travelled to London on December 9th Making it clear that Unionists would fight the treaty He said many already believe That violence is the only language understood By Lloyd George and his ministers To which Austin Chamberlain replied I know that you yourself desire peace And I cannot believe That men whose loyalty is their pride Are contemplating acts of war against the king But in the end there was little the hardline Unionists could do Most were content that the boundary commission Wouldn’t have a major effect And the treaty passed through the British government pretty easily

Things didn’t go as well back home in Ireland Though it seems public opinion Or at least the newspapers were pro-treaty Many many people agreed wholeheartedly with Dev For example Mary McSweeney A leading hardline Republican And the sister of Terence McSweeney Declared that the plenipotentiaries should have been arrested As soon as they set foot back in Ireland While one young IRA soldier wrote at the time Something must be wrong with the newspaper report As Collins could not have agreed to this And became literally ill through rage and disappointment

The Irish revolutionary movement That had risen from the embers of 1916 Patched itself together from groups of different people With different opinions Was finally beginning to splinter A dull debate was scheduled for the 14th of December When the Irish government would come together And vote on the treaty Over 15 days 440,000 words would be spoken And 2,300 individual contributions made Together they would sum up a debate Which would decide the fate of the country

But before anyone had even started On December 9th De Valera made his position clear Announcing publicly that I feel it is my duty to inform you immediately That I cannot recommend the acceptance of this treaty Things are about to get ugly The History of Ireland was written and produced by me, Kevin Dole Additional research and fact-checking by Robert Babington Music by Liam Doyle And additional help from assistant producer Aoife Murphy This podcast was recorded in the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kugan nation Sovereignty was never ceded