In his monumental, three volume history of Ireland, THE GREEN FLAG, Robert Keecorrectly tells us that Arthur Griffith died on 12th August 1922.
But he wrongly describes him as Prime Minister of “the New Free State Government.”
Wrong, because the Free State did not come into being until 6th December 1922.
When Griffith died he was President of Dail Eireann, having been elected by it to that office on the resignation of Eamon de Valera in January 1922.
(De Valera had,in addition, been elected by the Second Dail Eireann, President of The Irish Republic on its first meeting in August 1921, at the instigation of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, to strengthen his hand in negotiations with the British. The IRB had retained its once necessary conspiratorial structure and practices, which were neither useful nor justifiable following the electorate’s establishment of the Republic and Dail Eireann.)
Griffith’s role in August 1922 is difficult to categorise. I think he had no role at all. Had Civil War not broken out the Second Dail would have had one final meeting to hand over to a Third Dail Eireann. A General Election had taken place on 16th June 1922.
Some of the candidates elected then gathered in Dublin in September 1922, but the status of the gathering was never convincingly established. Laurence Ginnell attempted to have it explained before he would take his seat, but he was told that he must first swear an oath of allegiance to King George V, his Heirs and Successors. Away from the meeting, successful candidates at the election continued to shoot each other until the following April.
The British were happy with the situation and the inauguration of the Parliament of Southern Ireland, while those Irish who had taken the Oath and their seats called it Dail Eireann.
Learned Professors will swear that 1922 saw the establishment of democracy in Ireland.
Not because its true, for it is manifestly false, but because that’s what such Professors are paid for.
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