December 5, 1921

Following the conclusion of negotiations between Irish government representatives and British government representatives, the British give the Irish a deadline to either accept of reject the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The treaty established the self-governing Irish Free State but still made Ireland a dominion under the British Crown. The treaty also gave the six counties of Northern Ireland, which had been acknowledged in the 1920 Government of Ireland Act, the option to opt out of the Irish Free State and remain part of England, which they opted for. The Anglo-Irish treaty split many and on this day in 1921 Prime Minister David LLoyd-George said that rejection by the Irish would result in “immediate and terrible war.”