Irish Republic - Anglo-Irish Treaty

Anglo-Irish Treaty

Each side in the 1921 negotiations used sufficiently elastic language to enable the Republic's delegates to suggest that was taking place was inter-state negotiations, while allowing the British Government to suggest that it was an internal United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland matter. The Anglo-Irish Treaty, when signed on 6 December, was similarly put through three processes to satisfy both sides. It was:

• passed by Dáil Éireann, to satisfy the belief in the Republic's supporters that it was a state and its parliament was sovereign;
• passed by the United Kingdom, to satisfy British constitutional theory that a treaty had been negotiated between His Majesty's Government and His Majesty's subjects in Ireland;
• passed by the House of Commons of Southern Ireland, to reflect the belief in British constitutional law that Ireland already possessed a home rule parliament. In reality the House of Commons had the same membership (bar four) as the Dáil, though anti-Treaty members of the House stayed away.

Finally, the two structures of government (the British government's administration in Dublin Castle) and the Republic's began a process of convergence, to cover the year until the coming into force of the new Irish Free State.