Irish Examiner view: Anniversary of the creation of Irish Free State 

The treaty gave us the freedom to achieve freedom, allowing us to invest in education and to achieve economic expansion

Members of the Irish delegation at the signing of the Irish Free State Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, in London, on December 6, 1921. Picture: Mansell/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification by the second Dáil of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty which brought about the creation of the Irish Free State comprising 26 counties. 

While the immediate tragic aftermath saw the outbreak of civil war, followed by decades of economic deprivation, the anniversary provides us with an opportunity to reflect on whether breaking with Britain was worth it.

By any standard, it was undoubtedly so. 

The Act of Union of 1800, which came into effect the following year to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was one of the worst events in our nation’s history. 

Within 50 years, a million people had starved to death from the Famine and millions more had emigrated.

As Michael Collins put it, the treaty gave us the freedom to achieve freedom. It allowed us to assert our neutrality in the Second World War, to invest in education, and to achieve economic expansion. 

We have gone from being a backward, inward, impoverished, and repressed nation to a confident, outgoing, and more diverse one. 

That is worth celebrating.