A 1921 cartoon from Punch features in David McCullagh\u2019s new book, From Crown to Harp \u2013 How the Anglo-Irish Treaty was Undone.<\/p>\n
It depicts an Irish nationalist asking an innkeeper whether the hostelry is called the Harp. The landlord genially replies: \u201c Crown and Harp, sir, but I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll find it any less comfortable for that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
David McCullagh says the cartoon encapsulates British thinking at the time of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is exactly the British attitude, that the addition of the crown is not going to make any practical difference, but it gives us that little symbolic thing to cover the fact that we are surrendering control of 26 counties in Ireland.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe book looks at why that was so important, and it looks at how various Irish governments successfully chipped away at the Treaty, and reduced the status and powers of the crown, bit by bit by bit, until eventually you have the republic.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
When we meet for sandwiches and coffee in Market Lane on Oliver Plunkett St, the writer and broadcaster is on a visit to RT\u00c9 Cork for an appearance on Today with Maura and Daithi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We chat about his new book – \u201ca must-buy for Christmas,\u201d he deadpans – and his new RT\u00c9 Radio 1 show, Today with David McCullagh, which starts at 9am on Monday.<\/p>\n
He says he wrote the book during a \u201chandy\u201d bout of insomnia, getting up at 5am to work on it, and building upon research he had done for previous biographies of \u00c9amon de Valera and John A Costello.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cBits of those were about the relationship with Britain, and this brings it together and looks at why the crown, the monarchy, was so important a part of the Treaty, so important that the British insisted on including it at gunpoint. Literally at gunpoint.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cThey were quite prepared for the new Irish Free State to have as much practical independence as it wanted, but they insisted on keeping that symbolic link, which was anathema to any Irish republican, after the sacrifices of the War of Independence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe British and the anti-Treaty republicans assumed that the Treaty was going to last, if not forever, at least for generations,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was a good Cork man, Michael Collins, who said, \u2018This Treaty gives us the freedom to achieve freedom\u2019.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
Collins didn\u2019t like the Treaty, he says, but recognised that if Ireland became a dominion, the other dominions were gradually developing towards independence, and Ireland could ride that wave and gain more independence for itself.<\/p>\n
\u201cDe Valera\u2019s mistake, I think, in the Treaty debates, was to assume that partition was temporary, but the Treaty settlement was permanent, whereas in fact it was the other way around,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
That was a common mistake, he adds, with everybody in the D\u00e1il assuming \u201cthe Boundary Commission was going to do the divil an\u2019 all and make Northern Ireland completely unviable, and that would put an end to partition.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, they turned out to be incorrect for various reasons, that I go into in the book.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He says the Treaty debates were \u201centirely focused on the crown and on the Oath of Allegiance, on this symbolic link to the British crown, which, in practice, meant very little, but which to that revolutionary generation meant everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cDe Valera\u2019s alternative, external association, accepted that Britain had legitimate strategic needs in Ireland for defence, and he was prepared to offer them that, and he was prepared to offer them a connection between Ireland and Britain, if Ireland would be outside of the Empire, which meant it wouldn\u2019t have to swear allegiance to the British king.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that was the Treaty split.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is, he says, a historical irony that it was Michael Collins\u2019s political successors in Cumann na nGaeadheal who \u201cdid a lot to unlock the padlock on Irish freedom with the Statute of Westminster, which basically was London acknowledging that the dominions could do whatever they wanted, including walk out of the Commonwealth if they so wished, which is hugely important, but Cumann na nGaeadheal thought, \u2018Okay, that’s all we need, we don\u2019t need to move any further\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey removed the padlock. It took de Valera to open the door and to go further with the 1937 constitution, but he retained a tenuous link to the crown with the External Relations Act, under which Irish diplomats had their letters of accreditation signed by the British king.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did that partly to avoid trouble with London, partly to avoid a renewal or an intensification of the Economic War, but mainly to provide a path back to unity on the island of Ireland, in recognising that if unionists ever came back into a United Ireland, there would have to be some kind of a link with the crown, no matter how tenuous.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It then took another change of government, he says, for John A Costello to \u201cactually walk through the door\u201d, declaring a republic in 1949.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIn the end, you have a situation where de Valera, who had said that it was impossible to remove the Treaty without bloodshed, and a Fine Gael-led government, Fine Gael, who had fought against a republic, declared a republic.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
There are ironies and inconsistencies on all sides, he says, in what he sees as a fascinating story.<\/p>\n
\u201cWinston Churchill said the Treaty settlement would stand for all time as the relationship between these two islands, and he was out a bit because it only stood for 28 years, and it was undone, unravelled, removed, without a shot being fired, without any violence, without anybody having to wade through anybody\u2019s blood. And I think in terms of a sustained campaign of diplomacy, it was unrivalled.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even if David McCullagh, a Dubliner through and through, has no Cork connections \u2013 \u201cNone whatsoever,\u201d he cheerfully declares – there is a Cork connection to the story of Ireland\u2019s sovereignty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe moment when de Valera achieved full sovereignty in the 26 counties was the moment he stepped off the tender at Cobh in 1938 to see the handover from the British to the Irish of the Treaty ports,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cCobh was first, Berehaven was second, and Lough Swilly was third.<\/p>\n
\u201cDev spoke sometimes about when he was going to America in the 20s, and he\u2019d get on the liner to go across the Atlantic, and they\u2019d have to pass the port with the British flags flying, British troops there, and he said as long as that was the case, we did not have full sovereignty in the 26 counties.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe handing over of the ports was hugely significant because it meant that Ireland could remain neutral in the Second World War, which would have been impossible if the British had still been in occupation of the ports.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was able to say, \u2018We now control every square inch of the 26 counties,\u2019 and then obviously went on say: \u2018We fervently hope that we will be controlling the other six counties in short order’.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was an absolutely massive moment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The presenter has a significant enough moment himself on Monday, when he takes over from Claire Byrne on the Today show.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I’m really looking forward to it. I was in at a meeting the other day about our plans – which I’m not going to share with you – but they played the amended jingle for Today with David McCullagh. That was kind of a moment,\u201d he concedes.<\/p>\n
Having studied history and politics in UCD, his journalism career began in 1989 at the Evening Press. He joined RT\u00c9 in 1993, becoming its political correspondent in 2001. He presented Prime Time from 2013, moving to the Six-One News in 2020.<\/p>\n
He is probably Ireland\u2019s most high-profile Bruce Springsteen fan, having seen the Boss 41 times and counting, and friends say Born To Run is the odds-on favourite to be the first tune he plays during his new gig.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new job is really exciting, because it\u2019ll be a different sort of challenge for me, covering a lot of topics that wouldn\u2019t generally come up in news programming,” he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be a lot of fun, and I\u2019m hoping that the listeners will feel that it\u2019s fun as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n From Crown to Harp by David McCullagh is published by Gill.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 1921 cartoon from Punch features in David McCullagh\u2019s new book, From Crown to Harp \u2013 How the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[79,93,61,60,278],"class_list":{"0":"post-129048","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-cork-news","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}