Digesting Decolonization

Abstract

This chapter examines how and when the Irish Free State went from partial to full political decolonization. It argues that Collins’s stepping-stone theory of the Treaty of 1921 would be proved correct, but that de Valéra and Childers and their allies also correctly observed the deficiencies of that treaty. The fate of southern Protestants is examined. The wilder allegations of genocide and ethnic expulsion are demonstrated to be without merit; their twentieth-century story is mostly one of integration and assimilation. Fianna Fáil’s program of constitutional transformation is traced and its significance for Northern Ireland evaluated. The Irish Free State’s state-building and consolidation of its sovereignty were diplomatic accomplishments of both Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil governments. The program of Irish state-building clashed with the aspirations behind all-Ireland nation-building. The “economic war” of the 1930s and the Anglo-Irish Agreements of 1938 are surveyed, before the decisions of de Valéra’s cabinet regarding neutrality in the Second World War and the supposed British offer of reunification are interpreted for their long-run significance for Northern Ireland.