Editing Irish War of Independence (section)

===Treaty===
[[File:The peacemakers- George Gavan Duffy, Erskine Childers, Robert Barton and Arthur Griffith in a group (28455606301).jpg|thumb|Members of the Irish negotiation committee returning to Ireland in December 1921]]
Ultimately, the peace talks led to the negotiation of the [[Anglo-Irish Treaty]] (6 December 1921), which was then ratified in triplicate: by Dáil Éireann on 7 January 1922 (so giving it legal legitimacy under the governmental system of the Irish Republic), by the [[House of Commons of Southern Ireland]] in January 1922 (so giving it constitutional legitimacy according to British theory of who was the legal government in Ireland), and by both Houses of the British parliament.<ref>{{Cite web |date=7 January 1922 |title=Dáil Éireann – Volume 3 – 7 January, 1922 – Debate on Treaty |url=http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/DT/D.T.192201070002.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607070232/http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/DT/D.T.192201070002.html |archive-date=7 June 2011 |website=historical-debates.oireachtas.ie |publisher=Oireachtas Parliamentary Debates Record}}; {{Cite book |last=Nicholas Mansergh | title=The Irish Free State – Its Government and Politics |publisher=Read |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-4067-2035-8 |pages=39–40}}</ref><ref name="bunburyCivil">{{Cite web |last=Turtle Bunbury |date=2005 |title=The Irish Civil War (1922–1923) |url=http://www.turtlebunbury.com/family/bunburyfamily_lisnavagh/TKMB/bunburyfamily_lisnavagh_tkmb1922-1923.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181124220027/http://www.turtlebunbury.com/family/bunburyfamily_lisnavagh/TKMB/bunburyfamily_lisnavagh_tkmb1922-1923.html |archive-date=24 November 2018 |access-date=24 November 2018 |website=turtlebunbury.com}}</ref>

The Treaty allowed [[Northern Ireland]], which had been created by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, to opt out of the Free State if it wished, which it duly did on 8 December 1922 under the procedures laid down. As agreed, an [[Irish Boundary Commission]] was then created to decide on the precise location of the border of the Free State and Northern Ireland.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Michael Laffan |date=2004 |title=The Emergence of the 'Two Irelands', 1912–25 |url=https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/the-emergence-of-the-two-irelands-1912-25 |url-status=live |publisher=History Ireland |volume=12 |issue=4 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181125073916/https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/the-emergence-of-the-two-irelands-1912-25 |archive-date=25 November 2018 |access-date=24 November 2018 |website=historyireland.com}}</ref> The republican negotiators understood that the commission would redraw the border according to local nationalist or unionist majorities. Since the [[Irish local elections, 1920|1920 local elections]] in Ireland had resulted in outright nationalist majorities in [[County Fermanagh]], [[County Tyrone]], the City of [[Derry]] and in many [[district electoral division]]s of [[County Armagh]] and [[County Londonderry]] (all north and west of the "interim" border), this might well have left Northern Ireland unviable. However, the Commission chose to leave the border unchanged; as a trade-off, the money owed to Britain by the Free State under the Treaty was cancelled (see [[Partition of Ireland]]).<ref>Bromage, Mary (1964), ''Churchill and Ireland'', University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, IL, p. 106. {{LCCN|64-20844}}</ref>

A new system of government was created for the new Irish Free State, though for the first year two governments co-existed; an [[Dáil Ministry]] headed by President Griffith, and a [[Provisional Government of Ireland (1922)|Provisional Government]] nominally answerable to the House of Commons of Southern Ireland and appointed by the Lord Lieutenant.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Darrell Figgis |url=https://www.libraryireland.com/irishconstitution/article-50.php |title=The Irish Constitution Explained |date=2002 |publisher=Creative Media Partners, LLC |isbn=9781376884531 |quote=Section III – The Executive – (A) Executive Council/Aireacht |access-date=24 November 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313082840/http://www.libraryireland.com/irishconstitution/article-50.php |archive-date=13 March 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>