There Will Almost Be an Ireland

Now that Barbados has thrown off the shackles of British rule, by a happy coincidence, it happens to be time to mark the centennial of the Irish Free State.

Here's what American editorial cartoonists had to say about it.

"For Ireland" by Clifford Berryman in Washington (DC) Evening Star, December 7, 1921

The Anglo-Irish Agreement of December 6, 1921 came just as talks to end the three-year-long Irish War of Independence appeared to be on the brink of breaking down, imperiling a truce that had been in effect since July.

"The Balky Horse" by Wm. C. Morris for George Matthews Adams Service, Nov./Dec., 1921

The Irish rebellion was only one of several signs that, while it might have been true that "the sun never sets on the British Empire," dark clouds were gathering to block it out here and there.

"The British Dilemma" by Billy Ireland in Columbus (OH) Dispatch, Nov./Dec., 1921

(Billy Ireland here includes a common reference to the two cats of Kilkenny.)

The Anglo-Irish treaty provided for an "Irish Free State" (Saorstát Éireann), not as a completely independent country, but as with dominion status. It would have its own legislature while remaining within the British Empire and swearing allegiance, albeit somewhat conditional, to the British crown.

"It's Only Taken About 750 Years..." by J.N. "Ding" Darling in  New York Tribune, December 8, 1921

The news was received with enthusiastic relief by nearly all cartoonists on this side of the pond as a sign that seven and a half centuries of conflict had finally come to an end. Full stop.

"The Journey's End" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, December 7, 1921

But the divvil, as they say, was in the details.

"'Big Brother' John" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., by Dec. 10, 1921

The six counties of majority-Protestant Ulster (Northern Ireland) had already set up a Daíl and Seanad separate from those of the isle's 26 majority-Catholic counties back in July, and the treaty provided Ulster the opportunity to opt out of the Irish Free State. It took that opportunity in December, 1922.

"Is the Ancient Feud Really Settled At Last" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Dec. 1921

A significant faction of the Irish Republican Army, moreover, and its political wing, Sinn Fein, rejected the Irish Free State in favor of a unified Ireland, completely independent of the British Empire.

John McCutcheon's is the earliest American cartoon I've found that suggested any misgivings about the Anglo-Irish Treaty's long-term prospects.

"Now, Old Top, We May Lie Down Together" by Wm. H. Walker in Life magazine, Dec. 29, 1921

William Walker here runs a close second.

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"Confidence Rather One-Sided" by Albert T. Reid in New York Evening Mail, December, 1921

Incidentally, it's not as if the U.S. didn't have its own off-shore territories clamoring for independence, too.