Eamon De Valera leads talks with Britain instead of Griffith and Collins

[zeppelin247]

This is one for people who know and like Irish history, so what if when Britain and Ireland where negotiating the Anglo-Irish treaty in 1932 De Valera leads the talks instead of Collins and Griffith. As people who know Irish history know this treaty has caused a lot of controversy such as the civil war, making people believe that Collins abondoned the North, De Valera knew he could not get more so sent them to bring home bad news and that more could have been done. Therefore I would like to know what do people think would have happened in terms of the treaty, the IRA and the civil war

 

[Thande]

My knee-jerk reaction is to say de Valera would be less open to compromise and would blow it, perhaps on purpose due to being politically savvy enough to know that making compromises would discredit him anyway.

 

[Cook]

My knee-jerk reaction is to say de Valera would be less open to compromise and would blow it...

Having de Valera would be much like having Arafat at negotiations; they’d be endless and any concession would lead to another demand, wether this was deliberate or just a product of his personality is hard to see but the result would be the same.