Introduction: The Politics of Independent Ireland

Abstract

Despite marking Irish nationalism’s first tangible advance, and British recognition of an independent Irish state, the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December 1921 remains a largely uncelebrated event shrouded in controversy. Its terms were to prove so divisive that each arm of the revolutionary movement in Ireland—Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Cumann na mBan—split in the months that followed its narrow ratification by seven Dail votes on 7 January 1922. Under the terms of the Treaty, the twenty-six counties of ‘Southern Ireland’ seceded from the United Kingdom and joined the British Commonwealth as a self-governing dominion. The six northeastern counties of ‘Northern Ireland’—established under the 1920 Government of Ireland Act—were given one month, from its formal establishment, to ‘opt out’ of the new Irish Free State. However, in December 1918 Sinn Fein had asked for, and had been given, a mandate to re-establish the Irish Republic proclaimed during Easter 1916.