Mandate The mandate the party received in me eecion was coon exere ced by the unilateral establishment of an independent Irish Dalilallicill.
He al The 'Democratic Programme of Dail Eireann was unanimously duopica wien lne us facpunes)
isa kepudican proclamation Cha right of the people of Ireland torthe Eamon de Valera during the elec.
remained operative. Indeed, many in Sinn Fein were profoundly antiNevertheless the British coalition government of Lloyd George insisting Armed conflict right ¡ peaceful road to pondence had run its course ownership, of Ireland and to the blocked by the determination of , Sinn Fein and the IRA.
strength of the Irish changed the government's mind. Towards the end of thing. 1920 negotiations began The Irish side was represented Griffith, Michael Robert Barton. E. Dug Gavan Duffy and Erskine They went to the London talks on the explicit understanding that they had no authority to sign a They Manoeuvres British negotiators were headed by Lloyd George. and the talks were a triumph for him. He delegates to one side and worked individually, and eventually threatened "total war' on the Irish Deople if the British Deac without Socialist Challenge There was no way that Lloyd George and his coalition govern. ment would have done any such To them t perfectly legitimate to threaten 'total war' on an Irish population asking for nothing more than the right to rule LICUSCICA LoveS to objecting to such democracy was another thing The Loyalists by WELC memoers or the same class tha controlled the British Government shared too the ideology • 01 British imperialism — that nativer had to be kept down. The Govern ment also knew that in 1912 Britist mutiny if sent against "Ulster'.
If the British Government had insisted that the Northern come of Ireland be part of Ireland as a whole, acute divisions could have ing class, Unity of that class, was laced above unity and democracy 12 june 1980 Page 11
----- pull-quotes -----
took Irish