Diarmaid Ferriter: Beyond hero and villain versions of War of Independence

100 years ago today, Dublin messenger boy Paddy O’Connor delivered an important dispatch to Ernie O’Malley of the IRA’s 2nd Southern Division. Signed by the IRA’s chief of staff Richard Mulcahy, it announced that a truce between the IRA and British crown forces would come into effect two days later. The cessation of violence began a process that was ultimately to transform Anglo-Irish relations, rupture the republican movement and foster divisions that are delicate to this day.

The truce was marked by celebratory bonfires in Dublin city, reflecting the relief of a war-weary people. Some employers gave their workers a half day and triumphant whistles could be heard from the barges on the Liffey; others opted to go to the seaside on the tram and bands belted out A Nation Once Again as Tricolour flags were flown.

Others were far less excited. Ernie O’Malley recalled “There was no intimation as to how long the truce would last. Con Moloney typed my orders to the five brigades. We sat down to talk about the news in wonder. What did it mean? And why had senior officers no further information than a bald message? . . . So ended for us what we called the scrap; the people later on, the trouble; and others, fond of labels, the Revolution.”

How we mark its centenary and the subsequent slide towards civil war will reveal whether there is still an appetite to blame and judge

That scrap was their life and, as it ended, O’Malley was not alone in feeling bereft. The jubilance of citizens was matched by a disillusioned resignation on the part of many soldiers. It was now over to politicians to bridge the gap between their stated aim of an Irish republic and the reality of a British government determined to keep Ireland in the empire. In the run-up to the truce, Jan Smuts, prime minister of the South African Union, a self-governing dominion of the British Empire, sought to persuade Éamon de Valera, president of Sinn Féin, to accept dominion status rather than insisting on an Irish republic. De Valera claimed that was for the Irish people to decide, and Smuts tellingly responded: “The British people will never give you this choice. You are next door to them . . . To you, the Republic is the true expression of national self-determination. But it is not the only expression.”

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This correspondence presaged what was to become the major controversy surrounding the Anglo-Irish Treaty. How we mark its centenary and the subsequent slide towards civil war will reveal whether there is still an appetite to blame and judge or if the distance of a century has dimmed that desire. This year’s history Leaving Cert students were asked why both the negotiations and the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty were controversial and it was described by some students as “a very long question”. It certainly is and has to be; one of the consequences of the propaganda battles of that era and beyond was that the questions – and answers – became too conveniently short. At the time of the 50th anniversary of the treaty, historian Leland Lyons suggested the Irish “had a moral duty to sign” in the face of a threat of renewed war with Britain if they did not. Others saw that as evidence that this was a treaty signed under duress, therefore illegitimate, and that the general election of June 1922 which witnessed greater success for the pro-treaty side was also held under threat of conflict.

The text of the treaty debates, available online, runs to 440,000 words and they are the words that matter

At the time of the 75th anniversary, Tom Garvin, pinpointing 1922 as the “Birth of Irish Democracy”, argued that “moderate and realistic” nation-builders had triumphed over militant republicans contemptuous of “democratic principles of legitimacy”; that the pro-treaty leaders were “unconditional democrats and they killed people for the nascent Irish democracy that they saw menaced by the anti-treatyites”.

We need to move beyond this hero and villain school of interpretation of the events of a century ago. A good place to start would be with the treaty debates held in Earlsfort Terrace in December 1921 and January 1922. Poet Theo Dorgan, who is working with Anu Productions on a project to stage these debates later this year, has wisely suggested “by fearlessly and scrupulously replaying the debates in the words of those who participated we go past all partial and partisan versions. We are enabled to confront our history as it actually was, to hear their answers.” It is an important point. Their answers were in many cases long and complex and certainly not unthinking; nor do they deserve to be reduced to a paradigm of democracy versus dictatorship. The TDs spoke of sovereignty, the nature of republicanism, partition, social justice, legitimacy, violence and Ireland’s international relations; all still matters of profound relevance. The text of the treaty debates, available online, runs to 440,000 words and they are the words – without editorial intervention, selectivity or censorship – that matter in seeking to understand the political mindsets of a century ago and the depth of convictions.