Did Michael Collins achieve the best deal for Ireland and his supporters?

Answer 1

In my eyes he did but then again he is my HREO i think that if it was not for him we would still be under british rule and devalera used Michael Collins as a scape goat coz he knew that we would not get all 32 counties so yes i do think he did his best for Ireland and even in 1922 the Irish voted for the treaty so yes he did he do the best for IRELAND and it's supporters!!!

It was the best he could get at the time and de Valera knew it but wouldn't admit it and one of my teachers sees Alan Rickman in town every so often. (you know, from the movie)

The answer is no. At the time of the truce the most active units - in cork limerick and tipp were in a far better position then they had in 1919, a 250 square mile area of the country centred in rosscarbery had all british military and police stations destroyed. If you look at the civil war practicallly all units that actively participated in the war of independence were anti treaty, units that did or achieved little became pro treaty. They fought and died so as not to be a subject race - the treaty was in essence defeat for Irish nationalists. To be fair Michael Collins wasn't At Fault he shouldn't have had anything to do with the negotiations but he was at fault for starting the civil war byt bowing to English pressure after the assasination of Wilson that was wrongly blamed on the men in the four courts and actually was carried out by Collins own agents due to an out of date order that he never cancelled.

To answer your question simply yes he did as it was the only deal that could be done at the time. Their were many things that were happining at this moment in time the unionist up-rising in the north and the many politicians in England including churchill who was one of the brokers of the deal belived that the british were making a big mistake even by giving them this deal. Though they did come out in a better position that when they went in originally they were only supposed to be given 19 of the 32 counties of Ireland so some would say thay did better than expected as for the rebels who fought against this deal afterwards in the civil war. All I can say on that subject is that the Irish could not have fought against both the British and the unionists of the north at the same time miltary speacking they were ill equipped to do so and many of the men who were fighting in the rebellion at the time had become war weary people broken by seeing many of their family and friends dying and getting no where further. De Valerra who was a politician sent Michael Collins to do the dirty deed because he wanted to be in the clear to protest against it anyone who has studied these two major figures knows that Michael would not have gone if dev hadn't wanted him to anyway. Many think that Irish people could have struggled on but there is no way we could have. You also have to remember that this treaty came about after the fist world war the british military had improved greatly in comparison if we had not taken the deal the black and tans would have seemed like a party favour in comparison to what the british were prepared to do.