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In February, 1922,
Downloaded from YTS.MX
Winston Churchill predicted to the House of Commons,
that Ireland would turn to civil war,
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
and he was soon proved right.
(Gunfire)
And he wrote...
...that "the Irish have a genius for conspiracy rather than for government."
I have before you, British archives, the enemy files,
as far as Ireland is concerned,
to learn how Britain crushed the Easter Rising,
and fought the War of Independence.
And now I'm compelled to return on another centenary,
to discover how Ireland's revolutionary generation,
descended into civil war.
As Michael Collins signed a treaty with the British,
which Eamon de Valera rejected.
And how the British intervened decisively,
revealed in these documents,
to ensure that their side won.
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Here is history that Irish people may prefer not to know.
The Treaty was just the start.
Both the Irish who signed it, and British ministers were agreed,
that they should smash Republican dissenters.
And the willingness of the British to supply artillery and ammunition,
was matched by the zeal of the Irish Provisional Government,
to accept British ordinance,
to pulverise the foe.
If the British were the devil, then this was a Faustian pact.
And these British documents reveal how Michael Collins,
on the winning side, reportedly sent a valedictory message,
before dying in a hail of bullets.
"Sir Winston...
"...we could never have done anything, without him."
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After two years of fighting,
hostilities in the Irish War of Independence,
were halted with a truce.
Called on the 11th of July 1921,
followed by negotiations towards an Anglo-Irish Treaty.
Later that summer,
British Prime Minister David Lloyd George,
accompanied by both his wife and his mistress,
was on a long fishing holiday in a remote Scottish village, Garrol,
when he learned that the Dail government,
had rejected the UK government's peace offer,
and would accept only full independence.
He invited the self proclaimed president of the Irish Republic, Eamon de Valera,
to meet him for Treaty talks nearby at Inverness.
After de Valera refused the invitation,
Lloyd George convened the cabinet,
the first time that it had met outside London.
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Military commanders and government officials,
were ordered from Dublin here to Inverness,
and the humbly born, radical Welsh Prime Minister,
David Lloyd George,
summoned his cabinet, including Tory grandees,
to attend his Highland fishing holiday.
And that involved for at least seven of them,
a massive return train journey.
According to the civil servant Tom Jones,
the Conservative Home Secretary Austin Chamberlain,
said "this is outrageous, dragging us to Inverness."
And sat up on the sleeper,
with one bottle of whiskey,
and six of soda water.
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This is an interesting document.
A bit of paper is passed around the table,
the members of the cabinet who were attending sign it.
You've got Lloyd George at the top, Austin Chamberlain,
Birkenhead.
Down the bottom Winston Churchill,
and in the middle, Stanley Baldwin.
And for discussion is what conditions if any,
should be placed upon a conference with de Valera, and the Irish Republicans.
Yeah, so the difficulty for both Lloyd George and de Valera,
was that, the truce had really em,
engendered expectations amongst the public,
that peace was really very much on the cards.
And the public were war weary, and they wanted their politicians to explore every avenue.
The Inverness cabinet, split into two camps,
a minority who wanted the Irish to accept as a pre-condition,
that there could be no Irish Republic,
and a majority, who were prepared to talk to Sinn Fein,
without conditions.
Lloyd George had breakfasted with the king,
on the morning of the cabinet meeting.
And the monarch had put pressure on him to be conciliatory in his talks with de Valera.
But Lloyd George sided with the hard liners.
The Irish would have to accept the oath to the Crown,
and remaining inside the Empire.
Or no talks...and no peace.
This is Tom Jones writing about Lloyd George's intervention.
"If the Conference started without securing in advance,
"Irish allegiance to the crown and membership of the Empire,
"the discussion would become quite entangled in the Ulster problem,
"where we had a very weak case.
"The Conference might break on that point, a very bad one.
"He, Lloyd George, would rather break, if there was to be a break, now,
"on allegiance and Empire.
"All this he delivered, very gravely,
"and it obviously shook some of his wobbling colleagues."
Sounds like that was a decisive intervention.
Lloyd George, could not confer with people that he'd once branded as the 'murder gang'.
And then...sort of be seen to give way on these vital symbols of the Crown and the Empire,
and allow them to take the PR battle if you like,
and win public favour by breaking down on the subject,
on the question of Ulster,
because as Lloyd George also says,
the British public might go to war for the Crown and the Empire,
but would they go to war to defend the manor in Tyrone? No they wouldn't.
This historic cabinet meeting, prompted a flurry of telegrams,
from each side.
And eventually, de Valera agreed,
to what became known as 'The Inverness Formula.'
After the meeting here in Inverness,
David Lloyd George writes to de Valera.
And this is extraordinary, a letter from the Prime Minister,
it comes from the Town Hall, Inverness, September the 7th, 1921,
And it ends up saying "you will agree that this correspondence,
"has lasted long enough.
"His Majesty's government, must therefore ask,
"for a definite reply, as to whether you're prepared to enter a conference,
"to ascertain, how the association of Ireland, with the community of nations,
"known as the British Empire,
"can best be reconciled with Irish national aspirations."
And that is quite interesting, because the early part of the letter,
makes it perfectly clear, that certain demands are not acceptable,
that it has to be on the basis of membership of the Empire.
On the other hand, that last paragraph says,
let's see how we can somehow accommodate the aspirations of the Irish people.
And that is the key paragraph,
because that is the formula,
the phrase that essentially unlocks the deadlock between,
de Valera and Lloyd George.
Dail Eireann had started the process of selecting its negotiating team,
while the exchange of telegrams,
between de Valera and Lloyd George went on.
Meanwhile, the British made sure that they were well prepared,
should the Irish delegation ever make it to London.
Once the negotiations got under way in London,
Brigadier General Ormonde de l'Épée Winter,
nicknamed 'O',
who'd conducted British Intelligence operations in Ireland,
masterminded spying against the Irish delegation,
who were headquartered at 22 Hans Place.
O recorded this amusing anecdote.
"Although I missed the chance of making the personal acquaintance of Daniel Breen",
leader of the IRA in Tipperary,
"I once rubbed shoulders with him,
"after the signing of the truce,
"when we were both making a bet with Dan Leahy, the well-known bookmaker,
"at the Galway races.
"I wondered if he had an automatic in his pocket at the time.
"I know that I had."
Well, in this dossier, I have a detailed report,
from an informant, who met senior members of the Irish delegation,
on the 30th of October, and the 1st of November.
Clearly they trusted the informant,
because they told him everything.
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The British had mount an intelligence operation,
they want to understand the Irish delegation.
Some of this is by way of profile,
and is maybe pretty low level intelligence,
but, for example,
de Valera is described here as a 'school teacher type idealist'.
Feels "Ireland is in bondage, strong on the wrongs to Ireland.
"In the Conference will probably speak at length on the bad treatment of Ireland by England,
"the broken promises,
"the support given by England to the 600,000 Protestants of Ulster,
"the bigotry of the Ulster men."
Well it's a very interesting pen portrait,
because we know that when de Valera met Lloyd George in the summer after the Truce,
he did go on for a very long period of time, in a long winded way,
about British oppression over hundreds and hundreds of years of the Irish.
So I think it's quite close to the truth on how de Valera negotiated,
he wasn't very good at getting to the point in negotiations,
in fact, that may have been one of the reasons why he ultimately didn't go,
to the peace talks in London.
What's also interesting is, that document suggests the British thought he would go.
They thought he would be leading the delegation,
and they built their plans around that.
So I think that's a very revealing document,
everyone thought de Valera would go,
not just on the Irish side.
Of course there are people who suspect more cynical motives for non-attendance.
Yeah, so I think de Valera also realised from those talks with Lloyd George,
just how difficult it would be to get compromise.
One of the things Lloyd George does when he meets de Valera,
is he brings him into his office,
and he shows him a huge map of the British Empire,
and talks about how important the Empire is,
and how much of the world is actually under the Crown.
So I think very quickly de Valera realises
this was something the British weren't going to give way on,
and he didn't want to be associated with talks that might fail.
I think we'll now move on to what I would regard as higher grade intelligence.
And this is based on an informant,
and the informant apparently has contact with the Irish delegation,
on the 30th of October and the 1st of November.
And this note is written to 'O', the head of the espionage operation.
"The general impression given by a conversation with members of the delegation,
"is that the clear statement of the Premier in the House of Commons,
"has made them realise, at last,
"that the government are determined to carry through their propositions.
"This spirit is difficult to recognise through the haze of stubbornness and bravado,
"which the delegates have created around them.
"But the informant states, that in his opinion,
"there's a distinct difference in his conversation today,
"from those he had previously."
So this informant thinks it's sinking in, on the Irish delegation,
that the British government is not gonna move on the questions of Crown and Empire.
Yes and I think that some of the delegation realise that quicker than others,
that actually the oath of allegiance was non-negotiable.
They were also very worried about the issue of Northern Ireland and Partition.
They've also been in London for some time now.
They're far from home,
they're isolated.
In Dublin they're still expecting this delegation to come home,
with a Republic, and with a removal of the border.
And the delegation themselves in London, are increasingly aware,
that they can't deliver on that.
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In London, the Plenipotentiaries became a magnate for journalists.
With Michael Collins a particular focus of fascination.
The Irish negotiating team, was also introduced,
to the leading lights of London high society.
Largely thanks to the efforts of one of the city's most celebrated hostesses,
in fashionable South Kensington.
On the 16th of November, 1921,
Michael Collins came here to Cromwell Place,
to be painted by Sir John Lavery,
who wrote...
..."he walked into my studio, a tall, young Hercules,
"with a pasty face, sparkling eyes,
"and a fascinating smile.
"I helped him off with his overcoat,
"to which he clung, excusing himself by saying casually,
"'there's a gun in the pocket.'".
John and Hazel Lavery, became increasingly friendly with the Irish delegation.
And from mid November, they would dine together here quite frequently.
Some friends of the Lavery's thought
that she played an important part of the negotiations.
Daisy, the Countess of Fingall commented,
"it might be said truly, that the Irish Treaty was framed,
"and almost signed at 5, Cromwell Place."
Sinead, what a pleasure!
Very nice to meet you.
Great to see you.
I'm just wondering...
...how was it that the Lavery's became involved at all in this business?
Well you have to remember that John Lavery was Belfast born.
He had been orphaned, and had spent a lot of time in Scotland.
Most people would associate him in the art world with the Glasgow Boys,
but he was Irish,
and then he married an American, Hazel Martyn Trudeau.
But she claimed to be Irish,
so she had an interest in Ireland.
So they became interested in being a neutral space,
where both sides could meet.
What about the Lavery's connections to the British government,
to Churchill in particular?
Sure, I mean Churchill was a really close friend of the Lavery's,
and I don't say that lightly.
John Lavery would paint with him,
he credited Hazel with teaching him to paint,
and really that relationship was really strong.
What do you think of the assessment of the Countess of Fingall,
that the Irish Treaty was pretty much crafted and almost signed,
at 5 Cromwell Place?
Does she exaggerate?
I think the sources that we have for the Lavery's involvement,
come from gossip,
so we know that Barbara Cartland,
Daisy Countess of Fingall,
we have Cleme Churchill talking about Lady Lavery,
travelling in the car to Downing Street in her favourite opera coat.
So we have that sense that we're hearing gossip.
But what I've always been interested in,
is the whole concept of salon politics,
the whole idea of the unwritten, sort of negotiation that happens between people.
And I think that's where the Lavery's were very instrumental,
in keeping the lines of communication open,
in a very tense period in Irish history.
Here's an interesting document, it's the type script,
on which Churchill has been working,
it's a draft of the 4th Volume of the World Crisis.
And he's talking here, looking back on the Civil War,
about Collins.
"The presentment of death,
"had been strong upon him for some days,
"and he narrowly escaped several murderous traps.
"He sent me a valedictory message through a friend, for which I'm grateful.
"'Tell Winston we could never have done anything,
"'without him.'"
I'm kind of assuming, that the intermediary was indeed,
Hazel Lavery. Would you share that assumption?
Hazel or John.
I think that when we think about Hazel,
we have to remember that John outlives her,
so he wants to place her centrally to the story.
Because so much of what was written about her,
was coming from the society magazines,
maybe her detractors.
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The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed on the 6th of December, 1921.
Having secured his settlement,
Lloyd George intended to take a back seat on Ireland.
The task of transferring power to the Irish Provisional Government,
was entrusted to one of the great defenders of the British Empire.
David Lloyd George's wizardry,
had induced the Irish delegation to sign the Treaty,
and now the Prime Minister could turn his attention to other things,
unless the pact was in danger.
Winston Churchill was charged with transferring power to the Irish Provisional Government,
steering the Free State Bill through parliament,
against Unionist opposition.
He foresaw civil war,
and looked to the coming conflict in terms of good and evil.
Telling the House, "if you want to see Ireland degenerate into a meaningless welter,
"of lawless chaos and confusion,
"delay this Bill.
"If you wish to see increasingly serious bloodshed along the borders of Ulster,
"delay this Bill.
"If you want to enable dangerous and extreme men,
"working out schemes of hatred,
"in subterranean secrecy,
"to undermine and overturn a government,
"which is faithfully doing its best,
"to keep its word with us.
"And enabling us to keep our word with it...
"...delay this Bill."
Winston Churchill became de facto the Minister for Irish Affairs, North and South.
In a letter to his wife he wrote: "Ireland is sure to bring us every
form of difficulty and embarrassment
and I expect I shall have to bear the brunt at the House of Commons."
There's a very interesting letter here which the Prime Minister Lloyd George writes to Winston Churchill
on the 8th of June 1922, "My dear Winston" it begins.
During the letter it's suggested that there have been exaggerated fears and claims
in Ulster that there's going to be an invasion by the IRA from the South.
Lloyd George is concerned that Churchill may go off the rails a bit here.
"Let's keep on the high ground of the Treaty, the Crown, the Empire.
There we are unassailable. But if you come down from that height
and fight in the swats,
you will be overwhelmed.
You've conducted these negotiations with such skill and patience
I beg you not to be tempted into squandering what you have already gained.
by a precipitous action, however alluring the immediate prospect may be.
We've surely done everything that Ulster can possibly expect
to ensure its security."
Lloyd George had very good reason for his fears
because Churchill was never afraid of force and one can say in his defence
that as a hero and of course he was always seeking to play the hero
that in wars, of national wars, that this was an enormous service to Britain.
But when it came to maintaining control as he saw it of the British Empire,
then it's a very ugly side of Churchill's character.
He was quite unafraid of using violence
and of indeed oppressing subject people.
Churchill, the man of action, found himself tempted both north and south of the border.
General Macready writes to him from the General Headquarters in Dublin
on the 14th of February 1922, suggesting that there could be a
coups by de Valera to overturn the Treaty.
Or indeed that de Valera might win an election on the republican ticket.
Macready says, "In default of any instruction on the subject,
I shall declare martial law at once in Dublin.
Tell the provisional government that they will kindly remain quiescent
and I shall take complete charge of the town, railway termini, seaborne traffic etc."
It was a very ugly business and one always has to see that British policy even at this stage
was still dedicated to keep effective control of Ireland.
Churchill believed that Ireland was entitled to a measure of self government
but he always believed that must be under the Crown.
He believed that Ireland, even at the '22 settlement should be reunited,
that Ulster should rejoin the Irish Free State.
But on the other hand, he believed that that must be under the Crown.
Early on the morning of the 14th of April 1922,
a force of heavily armed and anti-Treaty IRA men from Tipperary
arrived in Dublin under cover of darkness
and seized the Four Courts, the iconic centre of the Irish legal system.
Viewing this occupation as a direct threat to the Treaty,
the British Government urged Collins to remove the garrison.
The pressure was subtle at first and Collins played for time.
But when two IRA gunmen launched an extraordinary operation in London,
events suddenly spiralled out of control.
On the 22nd of June 1922, Sir Henry Wilson, who was the hard-line Security Chief in Northern Ireland,
who had attended in full ceremonial uniform the unveiling
of a war memorial at Liverpool Street Station,
was trailed by two gunmen to his Belgravia home
and shot dead on his doorstep despite drawing his sword in self-defence.
Was Collins involved? The British Government was more inclined to
blame the men holed up in the Four Courts in Dublin.
And at Lloyd George's instigation, Churchill wrote impatiently to Collins
to ask him formally to bring the situation to an end.
"The British Government are prepared to place at your disposal
the necessary pieces of artillery which may be required."
On the day of Henry Wilson's assassination, Lloyd George wrote to Michael Collins
claiming that documents had been found on the murderers that clearly
connected them with the IRA garrison;
and that the British Government had a right to expect that necessary action against Rory O'Connor
and the occupation of the Four Courts would be taken without delay.
Meanwhile, Churchill was talking about converting Dublin into a Pale once more,
with a bombardment from the sky.
The Bristol F2B was introduced as a fighter during the Great War.
But it was capable of carrying 12 20-pound bombs.
And as the siege of the Four Courts continued,
four Royal Air Force planes were readied to bomb the
centre of the city on behalf of the Provisional Government of Ireland.
The Bristol Fighters based at Collinstown were being readied for action.
Here is a very interesting memo.
It's a telegram.
It's dated the 29th of June and it's written by Churchill to be passed on to Michael Collins.
"Aeroplanes to be used by untrained persons for bombing will be a grave danger to you
and very likely to lead to blowing up of a lot of women and children.
Our aeroplanes manned by their own pilots will carry out any needed operations.
They could quickly be painted in Free State colours to show that
they were an essential part of your forces."
This is a most extraordinary document.
So Churchill is proposing here that RAF crews bomb the Four Courts
but that the planes be painted so they could be disguised
as though they were flying for the Provisional Government.
Yeah, obviously it points to the problem that the Irish Air Force as was
just didn't really have the capability and certainly didn't have the experience.
You have the RAF here at Collinstown, who have the planes and the material.
It would have been a quick run into the city centre.
But they didn't want the imagery of British planes over the Dublin skies.
So this sleight of hand, of painting them in the Irish colours
to make them identifiable on Collins' side,
was a way the Four Courts could be attacked from the air.
Meanwhile the British are doubting whether they have bomb power
to do the job.
Here's a conference of ministers which is held on June the 23rd 1922.
Air Marshall Trenchard states that the machines at Dublin,
the ones that were here were capable only of dropping light bombs of 20 pounds.
"These would knock out the upper storeys of the buildings
but could not be counted upon to penetrate.
It would be better to employ heavier bombs of 350 or 500 pounds."
Quite extraordinary, the level of violence that is being contemplated.
It is and they're in terms of the time very big bombs that he's talking about.
I think the problem again is the practicality.
Could a plane lift a bomb that heavy?
Even if it could get in the air, could it drop it in the right place?
In case we're in any doubt as to
whether this operation was taken seriously by the British Government,
what I've got here are log book entries.
On the 28th of June, there was a flight here at 18.30.
It says quite clearly here, "Reconnaissance, Practice Bombing".
This is not just an idle plan, this is something that is being built
around military preparedness for the IRA practising in theory to fly
over the city and bomb the Four Courts.
It's remarkable how gung ho Churchill is that he believes...
He's constantly looking for solutions.
Even in the case of air power, relatively untested technology,
certainly again within the setting of this major city,
so forceful but misguided.
By the night of Tuesday 27th of June 1922,
Michael Collins could no longer resist British demands to move from the Four Courts.
He sent a force of around 500 Provisional Government troops
to surround the building and two 18-pounder field guns,
borrowed from the British Army, were wheeled into place across the Liffey.
At 4 in the morning of the 28th of June,
the bombardment began.
(EXPLOSION)
The British saw the occupation of the Four Courts here in the heart of Dublin
by anti-Treaty forces week after week absolutely as a test
of the credibility of the Provisional Government.
(EXPLOSIONS)
Churchill grew impatient and issued an ultimatum in the House of Commons.
"The presence in Dublin in violent occupation of the Four Courts
of a band of men styling themselves
the Headquarters of the Republican Executive
is a gross breach and defiance of the Treaty.
Unless the occupation were brought to an end,
a very speedy end, then the Government would regard the Treaty
as having been formally violated
and would resume full liberty of action."
The attempt by Collins to retake the Four Courts begins in earnest
almost immediately after Churchill has issued in the House of Commons an ultimatum.
Yes and Collins was dismayed by this.
Rory O'Connor, the leader of the Four Courts Garrison,
and the others were anxious that the British should attack them.
That would unite the Irish, he hoped, against the British,
reopen the war against the British.
He wanted to provoke Collins into an attack.
If Rory O'Connor inside the Four Courts was setting a trap,
Churchill very nearly fell into it.
I have here the proclamation by General Macready
in typed form but the draft is here in manuscript.
We see the workings of this proclamation.
We see the crossings out, we see what it eventually becomes.
The last paragraph of this proclamation is from General Macready:
"I've therefore received instructions to clear the Four Courts of the lawless persons
who have occupied them and to take such persons into British military custody,
pending their further disposal.
These instructions have been duly carried out."
Except they weren't.
They weren't carried out.
And Macready didn't really want them to be carried out.
He was a clever man. He disliked the Irish but he was a very, very clever man
and he knew that if he attacked the Four Courts
it would force Collins into an effective alliance
with Rory O'Connor.
It would reopen the Anglo-Irish War, the War of Independence,
that was an appalling prospect for a man who wanted to get out of Ireland with his head held high.
He didn't want to implement these decisions,
so he played for time.
Fortunately for him and of course fortunately for Collins, he didn't need to implement them.
Collins went ahead and did the job himself.
Now here's an extraordinary thing.
Here is a note written by Maurice Hankey, the Cabinet Secretary, on the 23rd of October of that year.
Significant because a few days before Churchill has ceased to be a minister
because Lloyd George has ceased to be prime minister.
He says, "I received a telephone message from Mr Churchill's
private secretary asking me to destroy the draft Proclamation
that referred to in these notes.
Mr Curtis also wrote me the note attached.
I was unwilling to take responsibility of destroying the document."
How extraordinary that Churchill is after destroying this Proclamation.
He obviously didn't want history to record
how close he'd come to a terrible blunder.
Yes.
Hankey was obviously a good civil servant.
Churchill must have by then been mortified at the memory of what he wanted to do.
The blunder that he nearly charged into.
You have the extraordinary pattern that he and Rory O'Connor wanted the same thing,
wanted a war between the British and the Four Courts Garrison.
Macready didn't. Collins didn't.
Churchill was rightly ashamed of the role that he had played.
The Provisional Government's forces eventually took the Four Courts
after a three day bombardment.
But there were other republican garrisons in the city
and the fighting continued on the streets of Dublin.
British assistance was still needed.
As a former Secretary of State for Defence,
I'm struck by one item of business in particular that landed on the desk of one of my predecessors.
I've got here the conclusions of a meeting of the Cabinet
on the 4th of July, 1922.
"The Cabinet were informed that the Irish Free State Government had intimated
that if they could be supplied with some form of gas grenades,
their task at clearing the rebels out of their strongholds
would be greatly simplified.
The view was expressed that having regard to the Washington Convention
on subject of poison gas, it would be improper for the British Government
to supply the Free State Government of Ireland with the gas of lethal
or permanently injurious character."
Did you have any idea that the Provisional Government could ask the British for gas?
I didn't.
I think it odd.
I think it disconcerting, worrying and embarrassing
that an Irish Government should have wanted that,
after all the consequences of gas in the trenches in the First World War,
were by now by 1922, very, very widely known.
Maybe it was a sign of desperation.
Three days after the Anti-Treaty garrisons had been cleared from Dublin,
Churchill sent Collins a letter of congratulations, commenting that:
"The events which have taken place since you opened fire on the Four Courts
seem to me to have in them the possibilities of very great hope
for the peace and ultimate unity of Ireland."
There is also an interesting P.S. to Churchill's letter:
"I hope you are taking good care of yourself and your colleagues.
The times are very dangerous."
But Michael Collins didn't heed Churchill's warning.
Churchill had at first regarded Collins simply as a murderer.
And then, as a kindred spirit man of action.
And after the signing of the Treaty,
as a person of dubious reliability.
His reaction to his death was unsentimental.
He feared simply that it might clear the way
for an accommodation between the civil warring factions.
He wrote, almost immediately,
to Andy Cope at Dublin Castle.
"The danger to be avoided is a sloppy accommodation
with a quasi repentant De Valera.
It may well be that he will take advantage of the present situation,
to try to get back from the position of a hunted rebel
to that of a political negotiator.
You should do everything in your power to frustrate this."
# (music)
Caoimhe, what do you think of Churchill's fear
immediately after Collins' death - that this may
bring the two warring factions together?
Certainly, the death of Collins following so quickly on the death
of Griffith, you know, removes the two known quantities
from the British perspective. Collins and Griffith are men
that they negotiated the treaty with. They're partners I suppose
in this new arrangement, new political arrangement,
are suddenly gone from the scene/
# (music)
After Collins' death, Churchill appealed to WT Cosgrave
and other pro treaty figures to make the life sacrifice
of Michael Collins a bond of future Irish unity.
Warning against any accommodation with anti-treaty forces.
But Churchill needn't have worried.
The new leaders of the provisional government had no appetite
for compromising with the enemy.
It seems that the British view on this began to change fairly quickly.
Here's a cabinet minute of September the 21st:
"There seemed to be the general feeling that Cosgrave
with his administrative experience
upon the Dublin Corporation would be much more likely to overcome
these difficulties than Collins
with his cinema and stat turn attitudinising."
(Caoimhe laughs)
Yeah. I mean Cosgrave, his political journey begins
in pre Rising Sinn Fein. So pre Republican Sinn Fein.
This is the Sinn Fein of the Arthur Griffith era,
when they're interested in, you know,
novel political arrangements like a dual monarchy.
They're not fixated on a republic.
Whereas Collins comes from a very different political background.
He is an IRB man, he is a Fenian.
His maneuvering even after the Four Courts, he still is retaining
hope that there might be some possibility of a reproachment.
There might be some way that they can march together on the North, for example.
So there are questions around how reliable Collins is to deliver the Treaty.
And then of course, the nature of Collins' death,
killed in action at such a young age,
cements that celebrity status.
And the funeral really is the kind of the pinnacle of that.
Kevin O'Higgins is the Free State minister of justice:
Sir Francis Greer, the chief legal adviser to the British colonial office
says of him, "His performance has been admirable.
I'm amazed by the firmness and loyalty
he's shown by taking a stand on the treaty.
His attitude has been just what we would have dictated
had we been in a position to do so."
I might just remind you that O'Higgins
signed 77 death warrants.
Yeah. Including one for his friend Rory O'Connor,
who had been best man at his wedding.
The executions of the Civil War are not all of the leadership of the Republican movement.
Across the board, what you see is it's rank and file soldiers,
sometimes very, very young,
who are the ones selected for execution.
And there's been some interesting work that shows how, you know,
the geographical excursion of those executions
happen all across Ireland, in the four corners of the country,
and it's a way of kind of projecting and displaying,
state power.
You see as a Brit looking at these things for the first time,
I'm struck by how painful this must be.
That the anti treatites kill Michael Collins,
and what apparently they actually achieve in that moment
is to make things much better for the British by introducing
a new leadership which is even more wedded to the Treaty.
I think that's one of the reasons why Collins' death is so compelling.
Even a hundred years on.
You have all of these kinda sliding door moments;
what if Collins would have lived?
You know, would there have been a different sort of Ireland?
Would there have been a different course to the Civil War?
Would something different have happened vis a vis the North?
So the death of Collins closes down all those possibilities,
all those different paths that might have been taken.
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Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith,
the two leading Irish signatures of the treaty,
had died within ten days of each other in August 1922.
A few weeks later, the two men who'd steered the treaty
through Britain's parliament were both removed from office.
On October the 19th 1922,
the Conservative parliamentary party
met here at the parties club at the Carlton
There was a spirited debate.
And then it voted to withdraw from the government coalition with the Liberals.
Since David Lloyd George was a liberal,
he had to resign. Bringing to an end almost 17 years in office,
and nearly six as prime minister.
Conservative back benchers would found the 1922 committee.
Called after the year in which the ousted Lloyd George.
The name oozes menace for any leader.
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The pro unionist die hards in the Conservative Party
saw the treaty as a humiliating sell Sinn Fein,
and a threat to Northern Ireland, and to the empire.
Their opposition to the settlement
had fatally cost Lloyd George his coalition,
the support of some conservative MPs.
Niamh, just before being brought down
Lloyd George had been going through a tricky time.
He'd been selling honour for cash. Mm-hmm.
And there'd been a horrible bi election result for the coalition.
But how important a factor do you think Ireland was?
Ireland was very important to the Carlton Club rebellion
in October 1922.
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Bonar Law was absolutely against any negotiation with Sinn Fein.
Whom he deemed terrorists.
The murder gang, that word that Lloyd George had used
to describe them was what Bonar Law continued to describe them.
And so because of that,
he helped influence that vote that was decisively against the coalition.
Causing Lloyd George to therefore no longer be prime minister.
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The government very quickly contemplated holding a general election.
And Leo Amery, who has become the First Lord of the Admiralty
writes to the new prime minister Bonar Law,
and he is recommending to him pretty much an election manifesto.
And on Ireland, Leo Amery has drafted the following:
"The Free State government must be given a fair chance to restore
orderly government in Southern Ireland.
Which it is obviously endeavoring to do amid great difficulties.
But the government must insist on the protection
of the Unionist minority, and on full compensation
for damage done. There must be no interference with the rights
and position of Ulster." Do you think that represents
a toughening of language under Bonar Law?
I don't think it represents a toughening.
I think Bonar Law and those who clearly wrote that view
they wanted to make sure that Ulster was protected,
Unionist minorities were protected,
and they were very happy to give the Free State whatever
loosening in ties of sovereignty from London could be given.
As long as those who are against it, or those who threaten Ulster
or indeed the Unionist minority that are still in the Free State
are quashed.
On becoming prime minister,
Andrew Bonar Law called a general election.
And on the 15th of November 1922 led the Conservative Party
to an overall majority.
A big casualty in the polls was Winston Churchill,
who lost his seat.
He'd just been operated on for appendicitis.
and was too weak to hit the campaign trail.
Churchill later wrote that he was without an office,
without a seat,
without a party,
and without an appendix.
For Lloyd George, it was the end of his career in high office.
But he left believing he had solved the Irish question.
Looking back on the career of David Lloyd George,
he made great progress with the Irish question.
How do you assess Lloyd George's roll
and Lloyd George's sentiment about Ireland?
He thought he'd fixed the problem.
That long standing, age old Irish question had now been solved.
Matter done.
Winston Churchill for example
talked about it being a heroic, historic moment.
That finally the embittered question of decades was now at an end.
He saw it as done. In fact so many British ministers did.
Took them quite a few decades to realise that it wasn't.
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Nestled on a hilltop in the Phoenix Park,
the magazine fort for much of its 300 year history
bustling military village.
Soldiers, officers,
and their families,
living and working in the buildings within its walls.
# (music)
It's even been argued that the opening shots
of the Easter Rising were fired here,
as part of a Republican raid for arms.
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With the route of the anti treaty forces in Dublin.
Lloyd George's government was satisfied that the national army
had the situation in Ireland under control.
Now the British had a dilemma
over what to do with its remaining troops in Ireland.
By June 1922, most British soldiers had left Ireland,
but about 6,000 remained in Dublin
under the command of General Neville Macready.
The British government was keen to insure the stability
of the provisional government of the Irish Free State.
And ready to support the treaty side.
The British also needed a contingency plan
in case the Republicans got the other upper hand.
And Macready was around to provide what he called a watching brief.
In October, Churchill expressed the fear that a further withdrawal
would weaken the provisional government.
But Macready argued that his troops were vulnerable to attack,
and by then too few to make any difference in an emergency.
And so the last of them left the royal barracks.
And shipped from Dublin Port with their horses and equipment
on the 12th of December 1922.
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Throughout 1922,
the civil and military arms of the British state were dismantled across the 26 counties.
Dublin Castle is handed over to the provisional government in January.
The Royal Irish Constabulary was disbanded.
While the Black and Tans and the Auxiliaries were quickly evacuated.
The Union flag was replaced by the tricolour.
But perhaps the mot symbolic moment of all occurred at Windsor Castle.
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On the 12th of June 1922 in a ceremony
in Saint George's Hall in Windsor Castle.
King George V received back the colours of Irish regiments
that were being abandoned on the establishment of the Irish Free State.
He offered to look after them in perpetuity.
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Using this photograph from 1922,
we are following the route of the soldiers, bearing their colours.
How do you see the significance of this moment?
I think the ceremony really marks a really important
turning point in the history between Ireland and Britain.
And it essentially symbolises a British military withdrawal.
Perhaps even a British military defeat
in terms of the historic presents of Britain in Ireland.
The pass inside Saint George's Hall
and there the ceremony occurs.
What was the reaction of the people who were present there that day?
Well George V addresses the soldiers and officers.
And the reaction is very emotional. Men are crying.
This is a really interesting moment in history
because the British Empire's still expanding.
They've won the First World War,
they're expanding into parts of the Middle East...
The thoughts of home bring us to the biggest story of all.
The inspiring tale of a little nation that has encompassed he world.
One of the smallest countries on the map is responsible
for one of the mightiest common wealths in history.
What's happening in Ireland we can see as a kind of
early form of decolonisation.
Britain is withdrawing from it's first colony.
Now why has that happened?
Partly it's happened because the world had changed.
In a post war age of self determination,
and an age of democracy
it's becoming increasingly more difficult to make the argument for
imperialism, and I think we're seeing here one of
the first kind of examples of that kind of phenomenon unfolding.
So thinking about the tears that were shed in this room,
it seems that both Irish Republicans
and British Imperialists are quite gloomy at this moment.
Yeah, there's a really interest symmetry for Irish Republicans
who think that the Free State would be
permanently locked into the British Empire.
And in a sense they've lost the struggle for independence.
If you look at the other side, if you look at die hard imperialists
and Conservatives in the House of Lords.
They think this is the beginning of the end of an empire.
Ireland has been let go.
Its been given its own government.
It will only build upon that freedom,
and other parts of the empire will follow.
And of course,
the fascinating thing is nobody knows who's right in 1921 or 1922.
Just to complete the register of misery,
those who support the treaty
are not all that happy either.
No, I mean supporters of the treaty are painfully aware
that they haven't got what they fought for.
It's not the republic that they took an oath to defend
and it's not the republic that their comrades died for.
And then they have to fight the Civil War to defend
this very partial step forward towards independence.
So it's a tragedy all round.
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(gunshots)
The Irish Civil War has historically been
the cause of bitterness and shame.
It was fought between Irish people,
those who had made a deal with the British, like Collins,
and those opposed, like De Valera.
But these documents reveal to what extent those who
supported the treaty were aligned with the British.
Who supplied the weaponry that enabled them to win.
(canon fire)
I'm shocked to discover that Churchill wanted
thinly disguised British planes to bomb the centre of Dublin.
And that the Irish Provisional Government asked for poison
gas to use against its Irish opponents.
A request so outrageous that the British refused.
A few years after De Valera and Collins had fought to the death,
the death of Collins,
and may others.
Much of what both men had always wanted was achieved.
The oath to the king is discarded,
and then Ireland became a republic.
And to Britain's great pain,
that began the sunset of the empire.
Although out of the commonwealth,
Eire's many common interests with Britain
will still keep the two nations
close partners in the years to come.
When I was British Secretary of the State for Defence,
helicoptered into British barracks, smuggled into South Armagh,
I saw how pain afflicted Ireland still.
But while the British had crushed the Easter Rising,
and ended the War of Independence, and secured the Treaty.
Lloyd George and Churchill created a settlement
that pleased neither imperialists,
nor Unionists,
no Republican.
And a hundred years later,
many in Ireland live still with a second best for them,
but at least now they can live in peace.
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Subtitling RTE 2023.