Provenance: Personal Secretary to Arthur Griffith, Kathleen Napoli McKenna

The Treaty brought an end to 700 years of British rule in 26 counties but opened a new and sad chapter in Ireland's history - civil war and the battle for the remaining six in Northern Ireland. Collins of course said famously on signing "I tell you, I have signed my death warran t". Despite the threat to his life Collin's believed the Treaty would act as a stepping stone towards a united Ireland. What followed was his assassination, decades of violence and partition of the Island to this day.

A personal lot of memorabilia from the most pivotal event in Ireland's turbulent history. The trip to London in 1921 by Michael Collins and a team of Irish delegates changed Ireland forever. This trip resulted in the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

The Anglo Irish Treaty 1921

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpD4ywwBUS0

"Collins was off to England with his picture snapped and posted on the front of newspapers, an experience he was not adjusted to enjoying. The Treaty negotiations started on October 11, 1921. The delegations were as follows:

"With them (Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins) went Robert Barton, the Minister for Economic Affairs and a former British officer bristling with all the Republican zeal of the convert; Eamon Duggan, a legal expert and a member of the Truce Committee; and George Gavan Duffy, the Dáil envoy in Rome. Erskine Childers acted as secretary to the delegation. For the (British) government there were the Prime Minister, Lord Birkenhead, Austen Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, Sir Laming Worthington Evans (Secretary for War), and Sir Hamar Greenwood (Chief Secretary for Ireland)" (Ronan Fanning, "Michael Collins: An Overview" Michael Collins and the Making of the Irish State).

Several of the British negotiators did not even want to shake hands with Collins so they went immediately to the bargaining table. A number of meetings and conferences took place over a two month period. Collins fully understood shortly after the negotiations started that he had been set up. Tom Paulin, critic, playwright and poet, discussed Collins's frustration during his interview on The South Bank Show:

"He did not have DeValera's slippery political cunning―Lloyd George famously said negotiating with Eamon DeValera was like trying to pick up mercury with a fork. He did not have that. He walked into a trap and in the negotiations he realized that and he used to say to his fellow delegates when the British weren't around, you know, 'That long whore has got me.' And he walked into a trap, he knew when he'd signed the Treaty as he said in the famous letter, he'd signed his death warrant."

Though Collins was initially regarded as a vile thug by some members of the British negotiating team, Lord Birkenhead actually warmed to him. Birkenhead was a prized legal mind of his time and, according to Ulick O'Connor, "was one of the great jurists in history." He was stunned that Collins could have allied his skill for mayhem with an astute knowledge of political affairs. The two became friends and Birkenhead reflected to Churchill in a letter how impressed he was with Collins.

After the tedious Treaty discussions, Lloyd George and his British team offered Ireland Free State status coupled with an oath of allegiance. Collins knew this was not what he was sent for, but on December 5, an ultimatum was issued. Lloyd George gave the Irish side until 10 p.m. that night to accept or reject the terms. Failure to do this would result in "an immediate and terrible war." The Anglo-Irish Treaty, the first ever treaty between England and Ireland, was signed by both sides around 2 a.m. on December 6, 1921. Collins was both disappointed and exhausted. Later he was to challenge the notion that he signed the Treaty under duress:

"I did not sign the Treaty under duress, except in the sense that the position as between Ireland and England, historically, and because of superior forces on the part of England, has always been one of duress. The element of duress was present when we agreed to the Truce, because our simple right would have been to beat the English out of Ireland. There was an element of duress in going to London to negotiate. But there was not, and could not have been, any personal duress. The threat of 'immediate and terrible war' did not matter overmuch to me. The position appeared to be then exactly as it appears now. The British would not, I think, have declared terrible and immediate war upon us."

Although Collins firmly denied that he signed the Treaty to avoid the threats hurled by Lloyd George, there are still questions to consider regarding his decision to go in the first place and his subsequent actions once he arrived in London:

"But sharp differences exist concerning the quality of his political judgement, above all during the Treaty negotiations and the post-Treaty period. Should he have gone to London at all, or like Cathal Brugha and Austin Stack, refused the poisoned chalice—or at least refused unless De Valera supped from it as well? Was he first out-maneuvered by De Valera in Dublin, and then by Lloyd George in London? Was he a novice in the hands of these allegedly more astute operators? Was he right to sign the Treaty? Did he subsequently, as Chairman of the Provisional Government, ‘try to do too much’ to avoid the Civil War, in contrast to De Valera’s ‘too little,’ in the lapidary formation of Desmond Williams?" (J.J. Lee, "The Challenge of a Collins Biography" Michael Collins and the Making of the Irish State).

Generally, however, the words that surround Collins' role in the Treaty negotiations are those contained in his self-fulfilling prophesy: "Think, what have I got for Ireland? Something she has wanted these past 700 years. Will anyone be satisfied at the bargain? Will anyone? I tell you this, I have signed my death warrant."

Eight months later, Michael Collins was shot Dead in an ambush - http://www.iol.ie/~obrienc/bnab.htm

Arthur Griffith, the head of Treaty Delegation and founder of Sinn Féin ironically died from a heart attack just 10 days earlier.

Autumn 1921. Kathleen McKenna is one of the “Dáil girls” sent to London for the Treaty Negotiations.