Quotes About Dail

Mother put on her serious face. "I can't stand idly by and watch the country go down the Swannee. The political arena is the only logical and reasonable course left open to any decent Irish patriot. Besides, last night the cumann nominated me to contest the seat left vacant by the death of Dinny Blackstone who has represented the area in the Dail for twenty years. Who am I to argue?" "Sure he's been dead for at least ten years," Rory said. "It's a wonder that anyone finally noticed.

However de Valera got his way with the private session suggestion. He had two major objectives in following this course. One, he wanted Dail approval for the sort of draft treaty he felt should have been signed. Secondly, he returned to the charge of signing without permission:

Cosgrave as Minister for Local Government may have taken a hand in inducing no less than twenty County Councils to pass resolutions of support for the Treaty proposals outside the Dail.

He then led his party into the Dail and took the Oath. Asked once28 how he could square taking the Oath with his civil war position, he replied, 'I didn't really take an Oath. My fingers didn't touch the Bible'.

Collins wrote to the Freeman, protesting at the slur on de Valera. But the gesture had no effect on the Great Adamantine. For although, as one of the pro-Treaty members of the Committee, Joseph McGuinness, said in the Dail afterwards, 'the people on this side literally went on their knees to President de Valera to try and preserve the unity of the country