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Letter dated 7 October 1921, appointing Arthur Griffith, Michael Collins, Robert C Barton, Edmund J Duggan and George Gavan Duffy as Envoy Plenipotentiaries in both English and Irish (the Irish copy is embossed with the seal of the president) signed by Éamon De Valera. Also a list of instructions and rules for the plenipotentiary team.
This is the most important historical document in the museum. Appointing Dáil Éireann’s delegation for the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations, it includes signed instructions from Éamon de Valera, who had recently been chosen as Dáil President by his colleagues. It is one of five original copies, and for 40 years the document languished at the back of a filing cabinet in a law firm on Ormond Quay. The exact role and powers of the plenipotentiaries would be disputed in the bitter debate that surrounded the Dáil’s ratification of the Treaty.