Arthur Griffith

Extract from RIA Dictonary of Irish Biography by Michael Laffan

... New general elections were held in May 1921 and Griffith headed the poll in the contested constituency of Fermanagh and Tyrone, while also being returned unopposed for Cavan. He was released on 30 June, having spent almost two of the previous five years in jail. He joined de Valera in meeting southern unionist representatives, and was one of the group which accompanied the president to London for his private meetings with Lloyd George. On 26 August Griffith was appointed minister for foreign affairs in the new Irish cabinet, and the following month de Valera nominated him as the chairman of the Irish delegation which would negotiate with the British. ... The dáil agreed unanimously that the delegates should be plenipotentiaries who would ‘be given a free hand in [the] negotiations and duly to report to the dáil’, but the cabinet privately limited their power and directed that it should have the final word on any agreement. Three cabinet ministers (Griffith, Collins, and Robert Barton (qv)) were among the delegates, leaving only four members remaining in Dublin.

The negotiations lasted nearly two months. At the beginning they took the form of plenary sessions, but these were replaced by private discussions in which Griffith and Collins met Lloyd George and other British leaders. The main contentious issues were ‘Ulster’, the crown, and British defence requirements. The Irish delegation was badly briefed; in particular the negotiations were already under way before de Valera revealed to Griffith what his policy on the Ulster question should be (and even then he had not shown it to his colleagues in Dublin). Not only were there internal divisions within the delegation, but as the talks continued a gap widened between the representatives in London and the rump cabinet at home. ...