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Fighting Speech

Category:
The Irish Independence Film Collection
Directed by:
British Pathé
Produced by:
British Pathé
Year:

1922
Duration:

43 sec
Language:
Silent with English Intertitles

This now famous piece of footage, shows Michael Collins addressing the Anglo-Irish Treaty to a huge crowd gathered outside College Green, March 1922.

Michael Collins described the Treaty as ‘the freedom to achieve freedom’. In practice, the Treaty offered most of the symbols and powers of independence. These included a functioning, if disputed, parliamentary democracy with its own executive, judiciary and written constitution which could be changed by the Oireachtas. Although a republic was not an option at the time, the Treaty still afforded Ireland more internal independence than it had possessed in over 400 years, and far exceeded the most optimistic goals of the Home Rule movement.

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