THE TWISTS AND TURNS OF THE ” TREATYITES” Part 1 by Donal Kennedy

 
 
It can be fairly said of C.P. SCOTT, Liberal MP, (1895-1906) Editor, then owner of the Manchester Guardian from 1872 to 1929, that like the proverbial pox-doctor’s daughter, he knew all the men that mattered,in Britain and Ireland, and many  further afield.
 
Scott kept occasional political diaries from the days of Asquith’s premiership until the late 1920s.
They were published in 1961, thirty years after his death. Apparently unnoticed by Irish or any
other reviewers.
 
I came across them some years ago without opening them. Now I reckon them more interesting than King Solomon’s Mines.
 
Asquith believed that votes for women would be a National catastrophe, Birell agreed and was against the extension of the franchise to all men, John Redmond and John Dillon, who, as younger men supported votes for women had changed their minds, Redmond apparently on religous grounds, Dillon in gratitude to Asquith for the latter’s promise of Home Rule. Do today’s Irish Feminists appreciate that. Liverpool’s Tay Pay O’Connor, media magnate and great warmonger, urged the suppression of Irish papers opposing Irish enlistment to the British forces and the imprisonment and perhaps hanging of their editors for treason.
 
What emerges inescapably  from Scott’s Diaries is that that Asquith’s Liberal Imperialists were hand
in glove with Balfour’s Tories preparing war on Germany years before the Great War and that as far
back as 1911 the precise timetable followed by the British Expeditionary Force for its landing and
deployment in France in 1914 had been agreed with the French Army.  General Sir Henry Wilson
was centrally involved.
 
Scott was very close to Lloyd George during the negotiations with the Irish delegates in 1921 and
rejoiced with him that they had achieved a long shared aim – IRISH HOME RULE. It seems that
the self-proclaimed democrat Scott had not registered the repeated rejection of that aim by the
Irish electorate who had established a sovereign republic by the quiet and pacific exercise at the
polls in 1918, strengthened it at the local elections in 1920, and stood fast to it parliamentary elections in 1921.
 
Scott met de Valera in London in July 21, who explained to him that a democratic Government was entitled to resist a usurping regime making war against its citizens, and executing the usurper’s spies.
 
Scott regarded Michael Collins as a likeable savage given to silly boasts about the damage he could
do to British troops in Germany if only he had some of his own fellows there, and given to demonstrations of rage on the telephone. Scott said Lloyd George shared his evaluation  of the likeable savage. 
 
Lloyd George took Collins and Griffith for suckers and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. He, and Griffith, feared and hated Erskine Childers, who was unimpressed with the offer, a template for that of the Godfather.
 
Griffith when President of Dail Eireann, Ireland’s democratic parliament urged the British established
Provisional Junta, headed by Collins, to attack and destroy the Republican Army.
 
Griffith did not know that troops under Collins were working hand in glove with Republicans in a Northern campaign supposedly against the Stormont Regime. Collins had deluded himself that
he could out-cheat Perfidious Albion. Such was his Conceit. He was a Lost Leader from the moment
 he accepted Lloyd George’s threats and Birkenhead’s blandishments. Birkenhead heaped
praise on Griffith and Collins for holding “Ireland in the Empire with an Economy of British Lives, a 
prospect which would have warmed the heart of Queen Elizabeth.”
 
 
 

 

 THE TWISTS AND TURNS OF THE ” TREATYITES” Part 1 by Donal Kennedy
 
It can be fairly said of C.P. SCOTT, Liberal MP, (1895-1906) Editor, then owner of the Manchester Guardian from 1872 to 1929, that like the proverbial pox-doctor’s daughter, he knew all the men that mattered,in Britain and Ireland, and many  further afield.
 
Scott kept occasional political diaries from the days of Asquith’s premiership until the late 1920s.
They were published in 1961, thirty years after his death. Apparently unnoticed by Irish or any
other reviewers.
 
I came across them some years ago without opening them. Now I reckon them more interesting than King Solomon’s Mines.
 
Asquith believed that votes for women would be a National catastrophe, Birell agreed and was against
the extension of the franchise to all men, John Redmond and John Dillon, who, as younger men supported votes for women had changed their minds, Redmond apparently on religous grounds, Dillon
in gratitude to Asquith for the latter’s promise of Home Rule. Do today’s Irish Feminists appreciate that.
Liverpool’s Tay Pay O’Connor, media magnate and Great Warmonger, urged the suppression of Irish
papers opposing Irish enlistment to the British forces and the imprisonment and perhaps hanging of
their editors for treason.
 
What emerges inescapably  from Scott’s Diaries is that that Asquith’s Liberal Imperialists were hand
in glove with Balfour’s Tories preparing war on Germany years before the Great War and that as far
back as 1911 the precise timetable followed by the British Expeditionary Force for its landing and
deployment in France in 1914 had been agreed with the French Army.  General Sir Henry Wilson
was centrally involved.
 
Scott was very close to Lloyd George during the negotiations with the Irish delegates in 1921 and
rejoiced with him that they had achieved a long shared aim – IRISH HOME RULE. It seems that
the self-proclaimed democrat Scott had not registered the repeated rejection of that aim by the
Irish electorate who had established a sovereign republic by the quiet and pacific exercise at the
polls in 1918, strengthened it at the local elections in 1920, and stood fast to it parliamentary elections
in 1921.
 
Scott met de Valera in London in July 21, who explained to him that a democratic Government was entitled to resist a usurping regime making war against its citizens, and executing the usurper’s spies.
 
Scott regarded Michael Collins as a likeable savage given to silly boasts about the damage he could
do to British troops in Germany if only he had some of his own fellows there, and given to demonstrations of rage on the telephone. Scott said Lloyd George shared his evaluation  of the likeable
savage. 
 
Lloyd George took Collins and Griffith for suckers and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. He, and
Griffith, feared and hated Erskine Childers, who was unimpressed with the offer, a template for that of
the Godfather.
 
Griffith when President of Dail Eireann, Ireland’s democratic parliament urged the British established
Provisional Junta, headed by Collins to attack and destroy the Republican Army.
 
Griffith did not know that troops under Collins were working hand in glove with Republicans in a Northern campaign supposedly against the Stormont Regime. Collins had deluded himself that
he could out-cheat Perfidious Albion. Such was his Conceit. He was a Lost Leader from the moment
he moment he accepted Lloyd George’s threats and Birkenhead’s Blandishments. Birkenhead heaped
praise on Griffith and Collins for holding “Ireland in the Empire with an Economy of British Lives, a 
prospect which would have warmed the heart of Queen Elizabeth.”
 
 
 

3 Responses to  THE TWISTS AND TURNS OF THE ” TREATYITES” Part 1 by Donal Kennedy

  1. Eoin June 15, 2023 at 12:34 pm #

    Yet again you fail to mention the treaty was ratified by 8o% of the people in the general election

  2. Nosuchanaplace June 15, 2023 at 3:05 pm #

    What was the % turnout in this election? Was the North allowed to vote?

  3. Donal June 15, 2023 at 4:38 pm #

    Eoin – Which General Election?

    And for which Parliament?

    Nosuchana place-

    The last time Ireland Ireland voted as a unit Republicans won a large majority of the seats.

    Formerly for about 40 years Nationalists won a large majority of the seats,

    Three times, including in 1918 Unionists did not contest most of the seats, knowing that
    they would lose their deposits. Liars and suckers misrepresent the fact the Unionists
    collected most of the VOTES CAST. Edward MacLysaght remarked on this dishonesty
    in his diary of 21 January 1919. Garrett Fitzgerald endorsed the liars’ deception in later
    years

    Who stopped Notherners from voting in 1921. Are you suggesting it was Republicans