Dáil Cabinet Meeting - December 3rd
Introduction from Chronology
Dáil Cabinet meets at 11.00am – as the boat Collins, Gavan Duffy
and Childers were on had a collision, they arrive just as the meeting is due to
start.
Members of the delegation who were not cabinet ministers were
present at the morning session (along with Kevin O’Higgins and Erskine
Childers) but afterwards the cabinet met alone.
More Detail
The meeting lasted from 11am to
7pm. (Curran points out that the delegation members who just arrived in
Dublin were in poor condition for a long meeting at which vital decisions were
to be taken.)
Macardle points out that
no formal minutes were taken of this meeting. Austen Stack wrote a
memorandum on cabinet meetings, Barton made some jottings, and there are
unconfirmed notes made by Acting Secretary to the cabinet, Colm O Murchadha. (The Secretary to the Cabinet, Diarmuid O’Hegarty, was in London.) Therefore, most of
the accounts of this meeting come from participants’ recollections.
The proposals before the cabinet
are given as Appendix 19 in Macardle (but it is not
clear whether this document includes the amendments made after Collins and
Griffith’s discussions with the British side on December 1st and the
amendments handed to the Irish side by Thomas Jones the previous night. Kenny says that it was the document brought
by Griffith).
The discussion focused on the
form of the Oath and partition. It was agreed that the delegates would
return to London and say that they could not accept the oath in the document
but there was no formal agreement on a revised oath (or, at least, differences
of opinion existed on a revised acceptable oath). De Valera put forward
the following oath “I _____ do solemnly swear true faith and allegiance to the
constitution of the Irish Free State, to the Treaty of Association and to
recognise the King of Great Britain as the Head of the Associated States.”
In addition, there were
differences of opinion on what was agreed – in particular, if the delegates
would sign a revised treaty before or after bringing it back to the Dáil
cabinet.
One
of the key problems in the draft Treaty was that a flaw in the Boundary
Commission clause in that it failed to specify an electoral unit for the local
opt out option. According to Curran, this flaw had been pointed out to
Griffith but that the focus in the cabinet discussion on the oath meant that it
was missed.
On
December 19th, Collins was to tell the Dáil that they took away
“impressions” rather than “conclusions”.
Finally, after some discussion,
it was agreed that de Valera would not go to London.
The delegation returns to London on the that night.