the anglo-irish treaty 1921 um was the outcome of peace talks that took place between Ireland and England after the Irish War of Independence um Shin Fein sent a delegation to these talks that included people like Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith debalera refused to go there are kind of a number of reasons put forward as to why he didn't attend one being that he was Head of State who wanted to stay in Ireland another was that he wanted to control more extremists back at home but anyway he didn't go Lloyd George headed up the British delegation and he was held by people like Winston Churchill the Irish aims going into these talks were they wanted a republic and they did not want to partition the British aim was simple they wanted to keep Ireland in the Commonwealth on the 6th of December 1921 the anglo-irish treaty was signed terms of the treaty included Ireland would be known as the Irish free state Ireland would be a Dominion so part of the British Commonwealth the king of England would be represented in Ireland by a governor general members of the Irish government would swear an oath of Allegiance so an oath of loyalty to the king of our England and Britain would have use of Ireland's she ports which were berhaven Cove and luxwilly and a boundary commission would be set up to decide the border between North and South look at the terms the treaty were absolutely controversial the two most problematic terms were the oath of allegiance that was to be said to the king of England and the boundary commission the reason why the boundary commission was so controversial is because this for the first time accepted and acknowledged the fact that Ireland had been divided and that Ireland had been partitioned between December and January of 1921 rolling into 1922 the doll debated the tree sheet and these were extremely heated debates Pro trijy side argued that the IRA was running out of arms and ammunition um that we kind of had no option Britain threatened an immediate and terrible War if the treaty wasn't signed and the IRA were not up to fighting that they argued that the treaty was a stepping stone towards full Independence they argued that it gave us more than home rules so we got our own flag our own currency our own Army politicians in favor of the anglo-irish treaty included people like Collins and griffith although Collins did acknowledge that when he signed the treaty he was signing his death warrant because he knew it would not be accepted by all people in Ireland the anti-treesy side so people like devalera they argued that the treaty did not give Ireland the Republic that they wanted and they thought that better terms could have been negotiated especially surrounding the boundary commission they also took issue with the oath of Allegiance as this recognized the English king as the head of state on the 7th of January 1922 the doll voted 64-57 in favor of the treaty and devalera and his followers walked out of the doll