THE current impasse over the Northern Ireland Protocol bears many similarities to a stand-off that took place 100 years ago when the Anglo-Irish Treaty was being negotiated.
The same questions over the status of the north in the Union were up for discussion in a tense atmosphere where unionists feared being sold out to Sinn Féin by a slippery British prime minister keen to seal a deal and move on from an Irish problem.
Likewise, in terms of the southern consciousness, it is fair to say that by late 1921 the north had receded substantially from its mindset despite the 230 killings that took place in the final phase of the Belfast pogrom in the six intervening months between the signing of the Treaty in December 1921 and the outbreak of civil war in June the following year.
In the south, it was as if the north had been hermetically sealed off, and the only real preoccupation was the undertaking that was set out in the Treaty that members of the Dáil in the new Irish Free State swear an oath to the king.
Throughout the negotiations on the Treaty, however, the north was central to the narrative. When in October 1921 the Sinn Féin plenipotentiaries, led by Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith, first met their British counterparts, led by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, at Downing Street they had five key issues to discuss: trade, finance, defence, the Crown, and Ulster.
The first three were quickly or at least easily resolved but the latter two dominated proceedings. They were also intertwined.
Early on, Griffith reported back to de Valera in Dublin that the British might concede on Ireland remaining united if the Irish made a reciprocal gesture on allegiance to the Crown. De Valera baulked and a precedent was set.
Lloyd George told Griffith that the integrity of Crown and empire was paramount and that if there was full deference to this, then he could face down the hard-line Conservative and Ulster Unionist alliance that wanted partition.
Whether Lloyd George could, and whether the 'Welsh wizard' was sincere, is open to question but there is no disputing that the integrity of Crown and empire was the British delegation's priority.
For Griffith, Irish unity was more important than Irish association with Crown and empire, and Lloyd George recognised this. Consequently, working through his emissary, cabinet secretary Tom Jones, he planted the idea of a boundary commission in Griffith's head.
He encouraged Griffith in the belief that a boundary commission, established by the Treaty, would recommend the transfer of so much territory from north to south that Northern Ireland would be unviable as a separate entity.
Griffith saw a Get Out of Jail Free card. The prospect of unity would be protected and parallel negotiations on substantive sovereignty for the new southern state, as a dominion of the empire along the lines of Canada, would not be compromised.
Critically, though, Lloyd George had not passed Griffith any written detail, and therein lay the devil. In the Treaty, how the Boundary Commission would operate was outlined only very vaguely and with no guarantees that counties and districts that had nationalist majorities would be transferred to the south.
Hardly anyone on the Irish side noticed, however – either in London, or back in Dublin. It was almost as if the negotiations had managed to secure unity, and that if they had been unsuccessful – depending on whether the viewpoint was pro- or anti-Treaty – it was because the Irish Free State would be a dominion and not a republic.
Had there been a northern voice at the Treaty negotiations things might have been very different. None of the five Irish plenipotentiaries - Griffith, Collins, Robert Barton, Éamonn Duggan or George Gavan Duffy - were from the north, or had northern connections, and neither did any members of the wider Sinn Féin delegation, including secretaries, advisers, etc.
Perhaps the northern voice that was most conspicuous by its absence, though, was the voice of Ulster unionism. Considering that Ulster was one of the five key issues up for negotiation, it is in a sense incredible that Sir James Craig, in his new capacity, from June 1921, as prime minister of Northern Ireland, was not in London.
De Valera had earlier objected to his inclusion in preliminary talks, seeing it as a pre-emptive rejection of any prospect of Irish unity, but the preclusion of direct representation from Ulster unionism at the Treaty negotiations actually, probably, also precluded any real prospect of Irish unity.
A meaningful formula for unity could only have been found if Ulster unionism was party to the calculation. Instead, Craig was happy not to attend, safe in the knowledge that Lloyd George could not negotiate away Northern Ireland in his absence.
There was one northern voice that the Irish delegation in London heard throughout the Treaty negotiations, that of celebrated Belfast portrait artist Sir John Lavery.
The subject of a recent exhibition at the Irish embassy in London, Lavery painted the portraits of members of both the Irish and British delegations. Moreover, his home and studio in south Kensington played host to their informal interaction, which complemented the formal negotiations.
It is perhaps no coincidence that of all the Irish plenipotentiaries Michael Collins was most concerned with Irish unity during and after the negotiations and that he and Lavery were especially close. How close Collins was to Lavery's wife, Hazel, is another matter.
:: Dr Mícheál Ó Fathartaigh and Dr Liam Weeks are co-authors of Birth of a State: The Anglo-Irish Treaty (Irish Academic Press, 2021).
