Anglo-Irish Treaty - Status of The Irish Plenipotentiaries

Status of The Irish Plenipotentiaries

Éamon de Valera sent the Irish plenipotentiaries to the 1921 negotiations in London with several draft treaties and secret instructions from his cabinet. Pointedly the British side never asked to see their formal accreditation with the full status of plenipotentiaries, but considered that it had invited them as elected MPs: "...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". This initial invitation in August had been delayed for over a month by a correspondence in which de Valera argued that Britain was now negotiating with a sovereign state, a position Lloyd George continually denied.

In the meantime, de Valera had been elevated to President of the Republic on 26 August, primarily to be able to accredit plenipotentiaries for the negotiations, as is usual between sovereign states. On 14 September all the Dáil speakers unanimously commented that the plenipotentiaries were being sent to represent the sovereign Irish Republic, and accepted de Valera's nominations without dissent.

On 18 September Lloyd-George recalled that "From the very outset of our conversations I told you that we looked to Ireland to own allegiance to the Throne, and to make her future as a member of the British Commonwealth. That was the basis of our proposals, and we cannot alter it. The status which you now claim in advance for your delegates is, in effect, a repudiation of that basis. I am prepared to meet your delegates as I met you in July, in the capacity of 'chosen spokesmen' for your people, to discuss the association of Ireland with the British Commonwealth."

On 29 September Lloyd-George reiterated to De Valera that recognition of the Irish republic was "a recognition which no British Government can accord", and he repeated his invitation for talks on "ascertaining how the association of Ireland with the community of nations known as the British Empire may best be reconciled with Irish national aspirations", to start in London on 11 October, which was tacitly accepted by the Irish side. On 7 October de Valera signed a letter of accreditation as "President" on behalf of the "Government of the Republic of Ireland" (see image), but the letter was never requested by the British side. Both the Irish and British sides knew that, in the event of failure, the truce agreed in July 1921 would end and the war would inevitably resume, a war that neither side wanted. Three months had passed by with nothing agreed.

The ambiguous status of the plenipotentiaries was to have unforeseeable consequences within the Nationalist movement when it divided over the Treaty's contents in 1921–22. Plenipotentiaries usually have full powers to handle negotiations as they see fit, but De Valera had given them instructions to refer back to his cabinet on any "main question" and with "the complete text of the draft treaty about to be signed", which created difficulties. Subsequently, the anti-treaty side felt that the plenipotentiaries from the existing sovereign republic had somehow been persuaded to agree to accept much less. The pro-treaty side was to argue that after 11 October the negotiations had been conducted on the understanding that, even though the British were not negotiating with a sovereign state, the agreement was a significant first step towards Irish sovereignty.