Implementing Self.-Govemment

Abstract

Abstract Within two days of the King’s Speech to the Parliament of Northern Ireland and his call for peace and reconciliation, Lloyd George had invited de Valera and Craig to a conference. The ground appeared to be shifting under the very feet of the new government, Doubts increased as to whether the unionists could sustain self-government and consolidate Northern Ireland in the face of so many dangers. Craig called a meeting of his Cabinet and on 28 June 1921, with all ministers present, it unanimously agreed to accept Lloyd George’s invitation to a conference in London. There was some concern that the British Government might grant Southern Ireland more favourable concessions than those granted to Northern Ireland. Attendance at the conference was seen as a means of protecting Northern Ireland’s interests. De Valera had insisted that no settlement could be reached if it involved the separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of Ireland, and invited Craig to Dublin for talks. Craig refused, but Lord Midleton, the leader of the southern unionists, and the four Unionist MPs elected to the non-functioning Parliament of Southern Ireland, attended a conference with Sinn Fein in Dublin on 4 July. Some English newspapers criticized Craig for his refusal to meet de Valera in Dublin, predicting that it could wreck the prospect of peace between Sinn Fein and the London government. However, others felt that if he had ‘agreed to go to Dublin at Mr De Valera’s bidding, he would have demeaned himself as head of a self-governing community under the British Crown, and would have abandoned the whole position that the North of Ireland has taken up for centuries’.