I Signed My Death Warrant: Michael Collins and the Treaty

'Think - what have I got for Ireland?' Michael Collins wrote just hours after signing the Treaty. 'Something which she has wanted these past seven hundred years. Will anyone be satisfied at the bargain? Will anyone? I tell you this early this morning I signed my death warrant. I thought at the time how odd, how ridiculous - a bullet may just as well have done the job five years ago.'

To Michael Collins the signing of the Treaty between Ireland and Britain in 1921 was a 'stepping stone'. What mattered to Collins was that Ireland be given a chance for independence, a chance for Irish people to govern their own affairs under their own flag. Eamon de Valera called the Treaty 'treason', and subsequently led his followers out of the Dáil in protest - an act that precipitated the Civil War.

I Signed My Death Warrant is a compelling study of the controversy surrounding the Treaty. Examining the characters and motivations of the two main Irish protagonists, de Valera and Collins, T. Ryle Dwyer also gives new insights into the views and ideas of the other people involved in the infamous Treaty negotiations - on both sides of the Irish sea.