FROM THE ARCHIVES:In 1921 the Dáil's public debate on the Treaty was continuing and
The Irish Times's Special Correspondent was in the press gallery to give an unexpected insight on WT Cosgrave, who would lead the Free State within a year. -
JOE JOYCE
ALDERMAN COSGRAVE, who supported ratification, spoke first, and his remarks would have been more effective had they been a little less flippant. He kept his audience laughing most of the time, quoted Mr. Dooley to advantage, and said that Mr. Cathal Brugha was “not worth a damn except for war.”
He claimed that Sinn Fein had captured the imagination of the Southern Unionists, who had disappeared, save for a few individuals who ought to be in a museum. Mr. Cosgrave said many other amusing things, but his speech was in strange contrast to the speeches of the other Cabinet Ministers.
Nevertheless, one was grateful for Mr. Cosgrave’s levity before very long. Miss MacSwiney [sister of hunger striker Terence MacSwiney] followed him, and spoke for two hours and forty minutes without a break.
She had a quiver full of poisoned arrows, and she launched every one of them. Nobody escaped her mordant scorn. Southern Unionists were put side by side with gombeen men “and the other good-for- nothing characterless people of this country.” Mr. Lloyd George was denounced as an unscrupulous trickster; Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald was castigated unmercifully.
For nearly three hours, Miss MacSwiney was eloquent, tearful, ironic, fervent, reproachful, implacable; but bitterness was the driving force behind her every word, and a more unprofitable speech could not be imagined.
Still it was a remarkable achievement. Possibly, it is unique. Men have spoken longer and better, but it is fairly safe to say that few women have equalled Miss MacSwiney’s feat.
To speak for nearly three hours in any circumstances is beyond the powers of most human beings. To sustain such a pitch of bitter fervour as Miss MacSwiney sustained would have been considered impossible, if one had not heard her with one’s own ears. The speech was a kind of apotheosis of mediævalism. Miss MacSwiney would put the clock back 750 years.
Upon the general outlook as to the fate of the Treaty, there was much speculation last night. Will it be carried, and by what majority? Will it be defeated, and what will be the sequel?
On one point there appeared to be general unanimity. The Treaty, if put to the Dail’s vote, will be won or lost by a very small majority. One authority, who stated that a test poll had been made, gave it as definite that there were 58 ayes and 58 noes.
In the circumstances, it is not surprising that discussion turned on what will happen after the vote. Will there be a General Election or some form of referendum? The latter is more generally favoured. A General Election, it is feared, would create much turmoil, which would be very undesirable in the present state of public feeling.
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