I Signed My Death Warrant by Ryle T. Dwyer

the acceptance of the invitation that formed the compromise. I was sent there to form that adaptation, to bear the brunt of it.’

    1 Director of intelligence, Michael Collins

5 - ‘The same constitutional rights that Canada and Australia claimed’
    De Valera had indicated in the Dáil that he intended to appoint Harry Boland as one of the secretaries to the delegation, along with Erskine Childers and somebody with a good command of the Irish language. But then he decided to send Boland to the United States instead, to prepare people there for a settlement incorporating less than the desired Republic. ‘I have a nice job now to prepare Irish-America for a compromise,’ Boland said. He told Joe McGrath that he ‘was going back to America on the President’s instructions to prepare the American people for something short of a Republic.’
    Collins and Boland, who had been the best of friends for years, were involved in a classic love triangle, as both were in love with Kitty Kiernan. Before leaving for America Harry told Collins that he had proposed to Kitty and she had accepted. ‘Of course, he was upset and assured me that it did not follow if you did not marry me that you would marry him,” Harry wrote to Kitty.
    Next day Harry sent Kitty a further letter. ‘Mick and I spent the last night together. He saw me home at 2 am, as I had to catch the 7.35 am. I bade him goodbye – only to find him at Kingsbridge as fresh as a daisy to see me off. I need not say to you how much I love him, and I know he has a warm spot in his heart for me, and I feel sure in no matter what manner our Triangle may work out, he and I shall always be friends.’
    Before the plenipotentiaries left for London they were furnished with credentials on 7 October 1921. President de Valera signed those credentials authorising each of the plenipotentiaries ‘to negotiate and conclude on behalf of Ireland with the representatives of his Britannic Majesty, George V, a Treaty or Treaties of settlement, Association between Ireland and the community of nations known as the British commonwealth.’ The cabinet also issued them with the fol­lowing secret instructions:

    (1) The Plenipotentiaries have full powers as defined in their credentials.
    (2) It is understood however that before decisions are finally reached on the main questions that a dispatch notifying the intention of making these decisions will be sent to the Members of the Cabinet in Dublin and that a reply will be awaited by the Plenipotentiaries before the final decision is made.
    (3) It is also understood that the complete text of the draft treaty about to be signed will be similarly submitted to Dub­­lin and reply awaited.
    (4) In case of break the text of final proposals from our side will be similarly submitted.
    (5) It is understood that the Cabinet in Dublin will be kept regularly informed of the progress of the negotiations.

    Since the Dáil had already conferred full plenipotentiary powers, the instructions from the cabinet, an inferior body, were not legally binding in any instance in which they limited the powers of the delegation. Indeed, from the instructions themselves, it would seem that they were not intended to limit those powers, because the first of the instructions basically reaffirmed that the delegation had the full authority ‘to negotiate and conclude’ a treaty. The word ‘understood,’ which was used in each of the three clauses that seemed to limit the delegation’s authority, indicated that the instructions were really an informal understanding that the plenipotentiaries were morally obliged to try to uphold.
    The instructions were designed by de Valera to ensure that he would ultimately have a kind of control over the delegation. ‘I expected to be in the closest touch with it,’ he wrote. ‘In fact, it was my intention to be as close almost as if I were in London.’ In