Collins Repudiation of the 'Pact'

Introduction from Chronology

Speaking in Cork, Collins repudiates the 'Pact' with de Valera (just two days before the election).  He tells his audience that he expected them to vote for the candidates they thought were best regardless of whether they were on the panel or not. 

He said that “the country [is] facing a very serious situation. If the situation is to be met as it should be met, the country must have the representatives it wants.  You understand fully what you have to do, and I depend on you to do it”.

Comment

Hopkinson argues that it is unclear whether Collins meant to break the agreement as he made a speech in Clonakilty the following day in which urged support for the pact and he also states that historian Michael Gallagher has pointed out that considerably less publicity was given to Collins’s speech than has often been claimed.  However, Macardle says that the Freeman’s Journal printed headlines in large type calling the electorate’s attention to Collins’s speech.  This view is supported by Curran who says that both the Freeman’s Journal and the Irish Independent printed Collins repudiation of the pact on election day. 

Curran goes on to give a series of arguments as to why he believes that Collins did mean to repudiate the pact (and puts down his endorsement of the pact the following day in Clonakilty to Collins’s concern about reaction by the anti-Treatyites to his speech in Cork).  Hopkinson echoes one of Curran major arguments for Collins’s repudiation of the Pact i.e. after his meeting with Churchill the previous day, Collins realised that the publication of the Free State constitution would end all hope of compromise along the lines of the Pact.

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