Irish Civil War

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to control major ports and restricted to a minimal military, Great Britain was protecting themselves from an imminent Irish takeover. On the pro-treaty side, Collins and Griffith argued that the Treaty would mean a prominent reduction in a British military presence in Dublin. With British control over Ireland’s major ports however, it was tough for de Valera and others against the Treaty to see military withdrawal. Although those in favor of the treaty saw the agreement as a stepping-stone to absolute independence, they were obstructed from doing so due to Great Britain’s protectively greedy negotiations.

Before the treaty was ever signed in London, there was already a split in unity on the Irish political front. De Valera opted not to go to London for the negotiations. It is believed that he did this because he did not want to have to sign a document that was unacceptable to him. Instead of attending himself, he instructed the Sinn Fein delegation with special instructions to report back to him updates on the treaty’s terms. This was in contradiction with the delegates’ plenipotentiary status. Griffith and Collins, the two delegates at the forefront of the negotiations in Britain, signed the treaty without consulting de Valera of the final terms of the treaty. Upon return to Dublin, the Irish delegates found an upset President awaiting them. Prior to the plenipotentiaries leaving, a document was signed outlining terms that must be met before the treaty was ratified. The delegates neglected one of the terms of the agreement however that stated that approval from Dublin must be awaited before ratifying the document in London. The third paragraph of this document stated, ‘The complete text of the draft treaty about to be signed will be similarly submitted to Dublin, and reply awaited.’ In response to the delegates’ failure to comply with this aspect of the agreement, de Valera responded, ‘The Treaty was signed in the small hours of the morning after certain alterations had been made, and we never saw the alterations. Had I seen it, I would have used my influence.’ It can be argued that because of this lack of coerciveness in the signing of the Treaty, the Irish Civil War that ensued after could have been prevented. De Valera illuminates this thought during the debates by saying, ‘This was most important, and I feel myself, had it been done, we might have got complete agreement between the Cabinet and the plenipotentiaries.’ If the plenipotentiaries had consulted the Cabinet back in Ireland before they signed the Treaty, perhaps a small alteration could have been made to the document, allowing de Valera and other members of Sinn Fein to support the Treaty.

After delving into the major strengths and weaknesses of the Treaty and hearing de Valera’s and other members of the Dail’s insights into what went wrong in the ratification of the Treaty, it is evident why a split in opinion led to the Irish Civil War. After Sinn Fein voted in favor of the Treaty in Ireland, the anti-Treaty republicans were persistent in fighting the war in which they had been fighting the past six years. Hayes comments, ‘On the anti-Treaty side were people who said that whatever scarcity of weapons there was they would continue to fight for the Republic to which they had taken an oath.’ De Valera and others opposed to the Treaty were prepared to sacrifice their lives in order to obtain absolute independence. This determination was a primary factor in the creation of the Irish Civil War. Dr. Anne Dolan, a lecturer at Trinity College also sheds light on the intensity of which the anti-Treatyites handled the pro-Treatyites abandonment of independence with. Soon after the Treaty was ratified in Ireland, the newly established Free State began executing those opposed to the Treaty due to their persistently adamant and violent nature; most of those that were executed were once comrades or acquaintances of those on the other side. Dolan writes, ‘During the course of the war, the Free State executed seventy-seven republican Irregulars for treason, three times those executed by the British during the Easter Uprising in 1916.’ These executions continued to add fuel to the fire as the war continued. Dolan’s inclusion of these numbers supports the idea that the Treaty ratified in Ireland which was intended to end the six years of revolutionary violence in the past only divided the Irish people and killed some of Ireland’s most influential leaders including Arthur Griffith, Cathal Brugha, Erskine Childers, and Michael Collins. Dolan later goes on the ask the question, ‘How should an insecure government remember its soldiers who died fighting the wrong war?’ The state in which Ireland was left in after the Free State eventually won the war was so dismantled that a stable government capable of unifying a disheartened community was almost impossible.

British diplomacy and their use of naval forces in Ireland after the Treaty was signed also played a crucial part in the creation of the Irish Civil War. After the Treaty was signed, there was belief that the British were actually removing themselves from Irish affairs. This was soon found to be untrue. ‘Absence of British activity created an illusion that we actually had a Republic, that we were free to come and go.’ John Linge, the author of The Royal Navy and the Irish Civil War, illuminates the influential role that Great Britain’s navy played in escalating the severity of the Irish conflict. The anti-Treaty forces had access to minimal weaponry and were limited to ‘small-calibre weapons,’ however the British navy maintained an overwhelming military presence surrounding Ireland’s coast. Linge states, ‘the Royal Navy, beyond its expected role of gun-running prevention, did have an influence on the early course of the Civil War…determined by the wider protection of imperial interests once British troops had withdrawn from the localities in May 1922.’ Concern began to arise from the anti-Treatyites over fear of Britain’s reluctance to retract military presence like they agreed upon. Linge writes, ‘The Morning Post, for example, took a dim view when in August one of its reporters was refused entry to southern Ireland by military sensors.’ The Provisional Government was attempting to hide the expanding presence of the British navy in Ireland, leading to further concern for the anti-Treatyites. Even with the Free State’s knowledge of British presence, they were also opposed to war beyond Ireland. British involvement in the conflict greatly reduced any chance of Ireland gaining enough trust in either side to civilly mend a once unified people. At the beginning of April 1922, the Royal Navy had one sloop, six trawlers, and two drifters. By the end of July 1922, the Navy had increased its fleet to two light cruisers, eleven destroyers,