It was not a Treaty.
IT was not “ratified” by Dail Eireann, the elected Parliament of Ireland.
It was discussed by the RUM “Parliament” of “Southern Ireland” in January 1922 at its only meeting.
It was earlier discussed in Dail Eireann (a body unqualified to ratify it by BRITISH Law) and the first Teachta Dala called on to consent to it was the TD from Armagh.
When the RUM Parliament Met there were no “Members of Parliament” from Armagh, Antrim, Down, Fermanagh, “Londonderry” or Tyrone present.
But the Teachta Dala for Armagh had also been elected TD for a Cork Constituency. So under the guise of an MP in the Parliament of Southern Ireland he went through the charade of “Ratifying” the “Treaty”.
Griffith’s Biographer, Padraig Colum, wrote that there was more Irish on that one quorate meeting of that “Parliament” than on any day In Dail Eireann.
Perhaps you’ve seen John Ford’s Quiet Man and remember Mary Kate Danaher’s shame when confessing why her bridegroom had to sleep in a “malacodlata” rather than the marital bed. She was unwilling to tell the story in the more widely understood Sacs-Beurla than in the Gaelic. Ireland, like her Bridegroom, was not GETTING HER WHOLE Entitlement. Read Saorstat Eireann for Mala Codlata and Irish Republic for Marital Rights.
The unreconstucted Republican, Ernie O’Malley, was an advisor to John Ford. I wonder if he had anything to do with that brilliant scene.
I believe Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins were heroic men.
Griffith was fooled by Lloyd George into writing a compromising promise, and that promise was used by Lloyd George to force him to sign the Articles of Agreement. Griffith would never go back on his word.
Collins recognised that Lloyd George, Birkenhead,and Churchill were crooked as a ram’s horn and flattered himself that he could out-cheat them if necessary, but he was like a babe in the woods in Downing Street.
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