December 6 - The "Irish Free State"

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   On  December 6, 1922, after centuries of Irish struggle for independence, the �Irish Free State� was constituted.

The �Irish Free State� was the result of a compromise between the British government and the nationalist, republican independence movement after six years of military and diplomatic conflict.  Although the �Easter Uprising� in Dublin of 1916 had been a short-lived and unsuccessful attempt to establish Irish sovereignty, that had been brutally oppressed by British troops, the movement for independence had gained momentum that could not further been ignored by the British that had occupied the island since the Middle Ages.

Not only had there been another attempt to establish an Irish Republic in 1919, that had only been recognized by the Soviet Union as an independent state; a war of independence between the British troops and the armed wing of the nationalist Irish movement, the IRA, had began in 1919 and over the next few years the Irish waged an increasingly bitterly fought guerilla war against the British forces, especially after the employment of British para-military troops, the �Black and Tans�, which distinguished themselves by the number and manner of atrocities committed against the civilian Irish population. Although the Irish nationalists were far from united, constant tensions between the political leadership of Eamon de Valera and the command of the IRA under Michael Collins occurred about the strategies employed in the war, the vast majority of the Irish people supported the republican cause and in July 1921 the British realized that the colonial war in their own backyard could not be won. A truce was offered and in the summer of 1921 both sides entered negotiations to determine the further fate of Ireland.

Michael Collins

On December, 6 1921, the Anglo-Irish treaty was signed, a compromise that especially amongst the Irish Republicans was thought of as highly unsatisfactory. 26 of the 32 Irish county were granted self-governing autonomy as a dominion state of the British Empire, similar to the status of Canada and Australia, the remaining six counties, Ulster, would remain part of the United Kingdom. As the �Irish Free State� would still recognize the British monarch as its nominal head, the Republicans regarded the treaty as a betrayal of their cause. Nevertheless, a year later, on December 6, 1922, the �Irish Free State� began its, in the end rather short-lived existence, despite of all objections on both sides and despite the emerging Irish Civil War between the �treaty� and �anti-treaty� faction of the Irish nationalist movement. Only in 1937 did Ireland become a fully independent, sovereign and democratic Republic. The conflict over Ulster, the Northern-Ireland that had remained British, continues until today.

What else happened on this day?

1240    Mongol forces under the command of Batu Khan occupied and destroyed Kiev.

An important day in the history of the pencil. Not only did  in 1805  Nicholas-Jacques Conti invent the number system that is still today used to rate pencil lead hardness: the higher the number, the harder the graphite; but also in 1822 John Eberhard was born, the founder of the first large-scale pencil factory in US.

Complete list of events:

Wikipedia