The Sinn Féin Ard-Fheis was supposed to be held at the Mansion House, Dublin, on 7 February 1922, but two days before it was due to take place the convention was postponed for a fortnight as Collins and Griffith were busy in talks with the British. The big issue was whether Sinn Féin would go along with de Valera’s suggestion that the party should insist that its main aim would be to secure international recognition ‘as an independent Republic’.. 1.. In contrast, Collins wished the Ard-Fheis to call on the Provisional Government ‘to take an immediate opportunity’ of submitting the Treaty to the electorate for ratification.. 2..
Even though Collins was anxious to go to the electorate, de Valera brought his campaign to the public with the first of a series of political rallies around the country before the postponed Ard-Fheis. He allowed himself to be introduced to the crowd from a platform under the Parnell monument in O’Connell Street as ‘President de Valera – head of the Irish Republic’.. 3.. The huge crowd, which welcomed him, was largely made up of ‘what railway people call “novelty traffic”,’ according to Tim Healy. ‘There was a great curiosity and no enthusiasm.’. 4..
The Irish people would not accept the Treaty because it was signed under duress, de Valera told the crowd. ‘We, Irish republicans feel no more bound by that agreement signed in that fashion than the nationalists of the generations that have passed . felt themselves bound by the equally infamous Act of Union,’ he said. ‘The independence and unity of Ireland have been hopelessly compromised unless you prevent it.’. 5..
De Valera gradually began to emphasise his opposition to the partition issue, even though he had indicated a willingness to accept a county option solution on 22 August 1921. Now, almost six months later he seemed to be adopting a very different attitude. ‘As far as I was concerned,’ he said, ‘I would rather have taken the old Council of Ireland Bill for the whole of Ireland than the fullest measure of Home Rule for twenty-six counties. I have made my position as regards partition clear in the Ard-Fheis speech of October 26. It was clear to the chairman of the delegation when he went to London, because in the draft treaty there was a proposal with regard to the six counties.’. 6.. In fact, there was no Ulster clause in the draft treaty provided to the delegation as a guide before they went to London.
At a public rally in Cork on 19 February, de Valera raised the political temperature. ‘If the Treaty was signed under duress the men who went to London broke faith with the Irish people,’ he declared. ‘If it was signed without duress they were traitors to the cause.’. 7.. It was particularly volatile stuff. The country was ‘in greater danger’ than at any time in the last 750 years, he said, because ‘for the first time in that period a suggestion was being made to give Britain democratic title in Ireland’. In other words, the Irish people were being asked to endorse a treaty which meant that the British would henceforth have democratic rights to Ireland. He therefore challenged the Provisional Government to fulfil its promise to provide a constitution that would give the Irish people complete freedom. ‘Let them make the boast good,’ de Valera said, . ‘frame it, and then come before the people and they would know what they were voting on.’. 8..
Over 3,000 delegates gathered at the Mansion House for the postponed Ard-Fheis on 21 February. The proceedings were dominated by the personalities of de Valera and Collins. Even though Griffith had been elected president of the Dáil, de Valera was still president of Sinn Féin.
‘As long as I have been working in the Sinn Féin movement,’ de Valera said in his opening presidential address, ‘I have never had a partisan idea in my mind and I hope I will die without being a partisan in that sense.’. 9.. Yet he was the one who had called for Sinn Féin to divide into two separate parties after the Treaty was accepted by the Dáil. During the Treaty negotiations he had insisted that the IRA give unqualified allegiance to the government, but now that he was in opposition, he called for two separate armies. ‘I have sufficient faith in the Irish people to believe that they can divide without turning on one another,’ he said.. 10..
Most of the anti-Treaty animosity at the Ard-Fheis was directed at Collins. At one point de Valera looked straight at him. ‘There are people who talk of Ireland being a mother country but who are content to make her the illegitimate daughter of Britain.’. 11..
The main issue before the conference was a resolution proposed by de Valera stipulating that ‘the Organisation shall put forward and shall support at the coming parliamentary elections only such candidates as publicly subscribe to it, and pledge themselves not to take an oath of fidelity to, or own allegiance to the British King.’ This would, of course, have effectively barred any pro-Treaty candidates.. 12..
. Collins argued repeatedly for the chance to demonstrate the benefits of the Treaty. ‘If there is any false dealing with us by England,’ he declared, ‘they will find I am not a Redmond or a Dillon to deal with.’ This was clearly his answer to de Valera’s public pronouncement a couple of weeks earlier that Lloyd George’s policy was ‘to trick the Irish people and deal with President Griffith and Mr Collins as he dealt with Messrs Redmond and Dillon’.. 13..
‘If we are beaten in the Dáil we cannot go on,’ Collins said. He would accept the verdict and resign his office. ‘Some people say that England cannot now make war on this country,’ he added. ‘I know that England can go to war with us, and will go to war, and is at this moment watching for an opportunity to go to war with us.’. 14..
‘It is for the Irish people to say whether they will have the Treaty or not,’ Cathal Brugha, a member of the anti-Treaty committee interjected. ‘Put it to the Irish electors and let them decide whether Mr Collins decides to resign office or not. Let the British put someone else in Mr Collins’ place.’
There were loud shouts of ‘Withdraw!’
‘The people of South Cork put me there, not the British,’ Collins replied in indignation amid the uproar.
Confusion reigned for some moments before de Valera announced that Brugha would withdraw his statement in substance. ‘I had no intention and I have no intention of offending Mr Collins,’ Brugha said. ‘Mr Collins has been put in that position as a result of the Treaty in London.’
‘By whom?’ some people shouted.
‘By the majority of Dáil Éireann,’ Brugha conceded and the gathering applauded. ‘Is that sufficient now?’
. This was greeted with cries of approval from around the hall.. 15..
‘Do you know, in spite of it all,’ Collins told Piaras Béaslaí, ‘I can’t help feeling a regard for Cathal.’. 16..
The day’s proceedings dragged on for some nine hours. Historian Michael Hopkinson contends in his book, Green Against Green, that there was ‘very probably a pro-Treaty majority at the Ard-Fheis’.. 17.. He based this assessment on the fact that eleven of the fifteen members of the standing committee of Sinn Féin elected in January were strongly pro-Treaty. But there was a test of strength on a procedural matter about whether there should be an open vote or a secret ballot in relation to de Valera’s proposal on election candidates, which showed that de Valera probably enjoyed a majority. The standing committee had recommended a secret ballot, but an amendment was submitted on behalf of de Valera’s supporters calling on delegates who were representing their respective clubs to vote openly.
A vote was taken on a show of hands as to whether the voting should be open or secret. De Valera ruled that the majority favoured an open vote. If anyone wished to challenge his decision, he was prepared to agree to a formal vote. Collins admitted there was no doubt whatever about the decision, and de Valera then declared the amendment to have been carried.
Collins realised that his supporters were probably facing defeat at the Ard-Fheis. After a protracted discussion, he suggested that they should adjourn the Ard-Fheis for three months to allow passions to cool and give people a chance to see how things were developing. They would then be in a better position to judge whether the English were breaking faith with them. Even Brugha appeared to agree with the call for a three-month delay. He was . prepared to let ‘the Provisional Government function in its own way’, and also let Sinn Féin function, though he called for equal representation between the two sides on the party’s standing committee. ‘With these things,’ Brugha said, ‘unity would be preserved at any rate for three months.’. 18..
Minister for Defence Richard Mulcahy proposed the Ard-Fheis adjourn until the following morning to give the leaders a chance to confer privately in the hope of bringing forward proposals that would avoid ‘a general election until such time as the constitution was put before them’.
Griffith, Collins, de Valera and anti-Treaty committee member Austin Stack hammered out a formal agreement before the Ard-Fheis resumed the following morning. It was due to begin at 11 a.m., but the proceedings were delayed as they put the finishing touches to their agreement. They agreed to postpone the Ard-Fheis for three months to allow for the drafting of a constitution that would be published before the election. The electorate would then be able to decide between the Republic and the Free State before voting. During the three-month delay all departments were to be allowed to function as before the signing of the Treaty.
‘These articles have been signed by President Griffith and myself, Michael Collins and Austin Stack,’ de Valera explained. ‘Four of us have signed these articles of agreement, and we have agreed that we present them to you without speeches.’ They received the overwhelming approval of the conference.. 19..
At the Ard-Fheis the delegates from the six counties decided to establish the north-east advisory committee – with two representatives from each council district in Northern Ireland – to brief the Dublin government on northern affairs. The new . committee was established to provide a broad consultative role and to attract maximum northern nationalist support, especially the support that Joe Devlin of the old Irish Parliamentary Party might otherwise garner. The new committee afforded the northern nationalists a forum for letting off steam and helped to keep the issue of Northern Ireland very much to the fore within both the Dáil and the Provisional Government. The need to protect northern nationalists also united southern opinion in a common cause. There is little doubt that Collins shared the frustration of Ulster nationalists in relation to what was happening in Northern Ireland.
During the first weekend following the Ard-Fheis, de Valera was again campaigning against the Treaty, this time in Limerick and Ennis. In the circumstances, the pro-Treaty side could not afford to allow him to have all of the running. They felt compelled to respond on behalf of the Treaty. Collins and Griffith therefore addressed a massive rally near Trinity College, Dublin, on Sunday 5 March. Although it was a blustery day with showers, a huge crowd gathered between the college and the old House of Lords building, which later housed the Bank of Ireland. Students gathered on the roof of the college and there was hardly room for people to move by 3 p.m., when the proceedings were to begin.
There were several minutes of cheering when Collins mounted the platform under the portico of the bank opposite Thomas Moore’s statue. He took off his hat and coat, walked to the front of the platform and stood there with his hands on the wooden rail until the cheering died down. He then began in a deep, clear voice and his words were broken only by applause, except for a group of women hecklers. The speech was a fine blend of emotional appeal . and logical argument. Collins accused de Valera of surrendering the republican ideal when he realised it was ‘physically impossible’ after meeting with Lloyd George the previous July. ‘We could not beat the British out by force,’ Collins said, ‘but when we have beaten them out by the Treaty, the republican ideal, which was surrendered in July is restored.’
The Long Fellow, who often used figurative speech as an effective oratorical device, had said in Limerick the previous week that the Irish people were like a party that had set out to cross a desert, but on coming to an oasis, some of them argued that they should lay down and stay there, and be satisfied and not go on. ‘Yes,’ Collins countered, ‘we had come by means of the Treaty to a green oasis, the last in the long weary desert over which the Irish nation has been travelling. Oases are the resting places of the desert, and unless the traveller finds them and replenishes himself he never reaches his destination.’ Having figuratively reached such an oasis, they had earned a rest, but some in their midst were finding fault with the oasis. ‘They are poisoning the wells, wanting now to hurry on, seeing the road ahead short and straight, wanting the glory for themselves of leading the Irish nation over it, while unwilling to fill and shoulder the pack.’. 20..
The Treaty provided the opportunity to achieve freedom and the means to end partition, Collins contended. ‘We must remember,’ he said, ‘that there is a strong minority in our country up in the north-east that does not yet share our national views, but has to be reckoned with.’ He admitted that arrangements in relation to partition were not ideal, ‘but then the position in North East Ulster is not ideal,’ he said. If the Free State were established, however, Irish unity would be a certainty, he said. ‘Destroy the Free . State now and you destroy more even than the hope, the certainty of union,’ he continued. ‘You destroy our hopes of national freedom, all realisation in our generation of the democratic right of the people of Ireland to rule themselves without interference from any outside power.’. 21..
Freedom was assured because the Treaty guaranteed the Irish Free State the de facto status of the dominions. Henceforth, if Britain challenged the country’s status, ‘she would be challenging the status of Canada, South Africa, and the other dominions’. Those dominions would therefore have a vested interest in defending the Free State’s status. ‘Any attempt to interfere with us would be even more difficult in consequence in reference to the constitutional status of Canada and South Africa.’. 22..
As the deliberations at the party Ard-Fheis were winding up, a crisis began to develop in Limerick, where the local IRA took umbrage at pro-Treaty forces from outside taking over local barracks in breach of an earlier agreement where it was decided that local IRA forces, whether pro- or anti-Treaty, would take over barracks evacuated in their areas. Minister for Defence Richard Mulcahy had ordered Commandant General Michael Brennan from the 1st Western Division of the IRA in east Clare to take over five police barracks being vacated by the RIC on 23 February, along with St John’s Castle, from which the British army were departing. Brennan arrived with a force of over a hundred men to take control of the facilities.
Tension increased when the British army evacuated the Strand Barracks and handed the place over to pro-Treaty troops on 1 March, and Brennan and Ernie O’Malley of the 2nd Southern Division began vying for control of the city of Limerick. . O’Malley was already incensed at what he considered an invasion by outsiders. He introduced reinforcements from Tipperary and tried to get personnel from Rory O’Connor to attack the Free State troops. But O’Connor, Liam Lynch and Liam Deasy were all reluctant to co-operate with O’Malley for fear of provoking civil war. However, O’Malley did get support from Cork, from Tom Barry, Seán Hales and Seán Moylan.
President Griffith appeared anxious for the Free State troops to fight. ‘The situation is largely the outcome of incitement to indiscipline engaged in, or connived at, by some of Mr de Valera’s supporters,’ Griffith declared in a public statement. ‘The negation of national authority can under no circumstances be acquiesced to.’. 23.. Initially Collins agreed with him, but Mulcahy thought the Free State soldiers were not properly equipped for war. If they did not stand up, Griffith warned, ‘they would go down as the greatest poltroons in Irish history’.. 24..
There were 800 armed anti-Treaty IRA in Limerick ready to fight. ‘As it is a foregone conclusion that the mutineers will be able to lock us in, I propose cutting down the Limerick garrison to 500 reliable men,’ Brennan wrote. ‘Some of my men have too many associations with the mutineers to be properly reliable.’ Hence he was anxious to get an extra hundred good men from Commandant Seán MacEoin.. 25..
Realising that his plan to take control of Limerick city had gone dangerously wrong, Mulcahy jumped at the chance to extricate his forces when Mayor of Limerick Stephen O’Mara intervened to prevent a battle. Liam Lynch, the commander of the 1st Southern Division IRA, and Oscar Traynor, the commander of the Dublin Brigade IRA, met O’Mara, along with Collins, Mulcahy and . Eoin O’Duffy at Beggars Bush on 10 March. They agreed that the police barracks would be handed over to Limerick Corporation and would then be occupied by a small civilian maintenance crew, which would report to Liam Lynch, while the William Street Barracks would be occupied by a token force of Free State soldiers.
Brennan was enraged as, having been ordered to march his troops into Limerick and risk fighting a much larger force of IRA, he was now being told to march out again. He demanded to see Collins and presented him with a letter of resignation. ‘So you’re going, too!’ Collins snapped. ‘The rats leaving the ship. Well, go on. Clear out! Leave it all to me. You’re all the same, you fellows, putting your bloody vanity ahead of the good of the country.’. 26..
Like Arthur Griffith, Winston Churchill thought that the Free State should have taken a firm stand in Limerick. Although disillusioned, he went along with the decision. ‘You seem to have liquidated the Limerick situation in one way or another,’ Churchill wrote to Collins. ‘No doubt you know your own situation best, and thank God you have got to manage it and not we.’. 27..