Republican Part

Above : English Prime Minister At The Time, David Lloyd George

This impunity naturally encouraged the Republican Part to whom the name ”Irregulars ” began to be applied. The’ had now a well-organised force; and in April they, by a sudden attack, seized the Dublin Four Courts and there entrenched themselves, using some of the old manuscripts from the Record Office to barricade the windows, and establishing a bomb factory in the office itself.

In the midst of this turmoil, the elections for the new Dail were held (June). By an arrangement entered into between the Provisional Government and the Republicans, a panel of candidates from both parties was arranged. Thus, the Republicans gained many seats which would not otherwise have fallen to them, but the results on the whole were in favour of the upholders of the Treaty. The Irregulars had now held the Four Courts for over two months, without any attempt to dislodge them having been made by the Irish Provisional Government. On June 26th Winston Churchill, the English Colonial Secretary declared, in the House of Commons, that this state of things could not be suffered to continue. If the Provisional Government did not at once take action to put down the rebellion in its own capital, the British Ministers would consider that the terms of the recent Treaty had not been observed, and that therefore they themselves were freed from the obligations which they had undertaken.

A body of Irregulars took refuge in one of the largest of the Dublin hotels, and were only dislodged when that too had been burnt to the ground. By the middle of July, order had been restored in Dublin, but in very many parts of the country stnfe continued.
In August, two great calamities fell on the Irish Free State. On the 12th of the month, Arthur Griffith, worn out by anxiety and overwork, died suddenly. On the 22nd, Michael Collins was shot in an ambush at Bealnablath, Co. Cork.
Which loss was the more serious it would be hard to say. So far, Griffith had been the political philosopher, the planner of policy, and to him men looked to build up and to guide the new State during the early years of its existence. Collins, on the other hand, had so far appeared as the man of action, the resourceful war-leader, who with small means achieved great things. What his role would be in time of peace remained to be seen. Those who knew him best recognised in him qualities far above those of the mere soldier, and hoped that the ending of the war would only open up a wider field to his activities. Though the two men differed much in age: Griffith being over 50, and Collins only 30; it could be said of both that they had been called away, as it seemed prematurely, from unfinished tasks, at a time when it might have been hoped that still greater deeds might have crowned those which they had already done for their country.
On September 9th, the new Dail met, and the work of drafting a Constitution on the lines laid down by the Treaty was begun, and continued for about two months.
The First Article declared the status of the Irish Free State (Saorstat Eireann) to be that of a ” co-equal member of the Community of Nations forming the British Commonwealth of Nations.”
The Legislature was to be of two Houses, of which the lower (Dail Eireann) should be elected on adult suffrage, while a vote for the Upper (Seanad Eireann) was given only to citizens of thirty years of age or upwards. The Seanad was to consist °f sixty members.
All Bills, when passed by the two Houses, were to be submitted to the Crown representative (the Governor-General)

Less than two days after this speech had been delivered {June 28th), a regular attack on the Four Courts was begun by the Free State troops. It was, however, declared later, both by Churchill himself and by members of the Irish Provisional Government, that this attack had been decided on, not owing to what had been said in the British Parliament, but in conse¬quence of the kidnapping of a General of the Free State Army in a Dublin street by a party of Irregulars.
Arms and other supplies were furnished to the attackers by the English Authorities, but their offers of the help of British troops were declined.
The siege of the Four Courts did not last long. On the second day the building went on fire. When ‘(June 3otn)> the Irregulars surrendered, little remained save a heap of ruins to mark the site of an architectural masterpiece, which had been renowned amongst experts all over the world for its beauty and the symmetry of its details. Worst of all, the splendid and irreplacable collection of manuscripts in the Record Office,