During the commemoration of our independence struggle, the foundation of the State and the Civil War, a new generation of historians gave us an opportunity to look again at events we thought we knew. They have shown us a scale of complexity and nuance which had been missing for so long from a narrative which focused on simplistic presentations of a handful of personalities.
What we still have much to learn about is how the new State developed in the years afterwards.
Social historians have led the way, showing the terrible impact of defensive sectarianism and the lack of diversity – something overwhelmingly caused by the nature of the Partition imposed in 1920 and steadily reinforced over the following 30 years.
The work of those involved in the Trinity College Dublin project, Witnessing War, Making Peace: Testimonies of Revolution and Restraint in Inter-war Ireland, is already helping to rewrite the emphasis placed on Civil War divisions – showing how most people chose not to be defined by where they stood on that conflict.
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One area where there has, until now, been little recent comprehensive work relates to what actually happened regarding the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which caused the Civil War.
This is the issue addressed by David McCullagh in his excellent new book exploring the origins and ultimate fate of the Treaty.
A deeply researched and impressive work, it succeeds in pushing aside much of the noise of those often-frantic decades, leading us through the theological complexity of issues which even those involved struggled to understand. It also adds significant new depth and colour to the past work of people such as Nicholas Mansergh and Deirdre McMahon.
McCullagh is absolutely correct to focus on the role of the Crown – originally central and then purely symbolic – as the one central thread of British concern. As the London government struggled to redefine its place in the world after the collapse of the imperialist hubris of previous times, pressuring former colonies and dominions to continue some form of loyalty to the Crown became a dominant obsession.
One of the many reasons why the inclusion of the oath in the Treaty was so divisive was directly because it was intended by London as a practical demonstration of the lack of full sovereignty of the new Irish Free State.
The demise of the Treaty, though not its lasting impact, can be seen in three distinct phases.
Under the Cumann na nGaedheal government, the policy was to seek to assert Irish sovereignty to the maximum extent possible within the terms of the Treaty and the evolving status of other Commonwealth countries.
Many came to feel that the governing party believed in Collins’s stepping stones, but only within the confines of the Treaty – something minister Ernest Blythe confirmed with a 1927 speech in which he said he would strongly oppose a republic because “We have... all the powers and liberties we want.”
The election of Fianna Fáil and Éamon de Valera in 1932 led to something close to panic in London and with every justification, particularly when its early tough response to measures which undermined the Treaty failed to lead to a hoped-for return of Cumann na nGaedheal to power.
[ Leo Varadkar: The 1921 Treaty shaped Irish politics for a centuryOpens in new window ]
Over the next six years, de Valera effectively dismantled all significant elements of the Treaty, leaving only the issue of formal relations with the Crown in foreign affairs.
The scale of the action during those years remains remarkable. Starting with the abolition of the oath (achieved by only a handful of votes) and ending with the adoption of an unambiguously republican constitution and the return of the Treaty naval ports, the effective sovereignty and neutrality of the State was now assured.
Having started in 1932 fighting de Valera on every minor concession, by 1938 London was in such a weak position that it quickly conceded every point short of the final break with the Commonwealth and Crown.
This was combined with de Valera’s anti-colonial and pro-international law policy at the League of Nations, establishing Ireland’s status in Europe and the world.
The final connection with Britain was continued membership of the Commonwealth, retained by de Valera both for economic reasons and his concern to maintain some practical link with Northern Ireland.
Stephen Kelly has written about how efforts by de Valera and Seán Lemass in particular to challenge Partition through engagement with Northern Ireland were regularly undermined by the need to placate more fundamentalist views.
This comes very much to mind when reading the chapters about the circumstances of how John A Costello’s government formally withdrew from the Commonwealth and declared a republic.
Ours may very well be the only country in history which became a republic a decade before it declared itself to be one. All the substance had been dealt with in Bunreacht na hÉireann, but 1949 was the moment when the “R word” was formalised.
The chronology of events leading to the repeal of the External Relations Act is clearer than the shambolic nature of its announcement. It was, as the late, great political scientist Tom Garvin so memorably put it, an act of “ideological beggar my neighbour”, motivated by a desire to remove the taint of past policies.
However, it was done without thinking through the immediate consequences or waiting for the Crown’s relationship with newly independent India to be worked out. This led to Westminster passing the first statutory guarantee of the unionist veto on unity.
The Treaty may well have been dead, but the Partition which preceded it was further strengthened.
In this impressive book, David McCullagh has opened up an issue which remains instructive in many ways. It deserves a wide readership and debate.
Micheál Martin is Taoiseach and leader of Fianna Fáil
