Sir,—Your reviewer describes David McCullagh’s From crown to harp as ‘scrupulous’ and an ‘exemplary’ piece of scholarship (HI 34.2, March/April 2026, p. 67). McCullagh has contributed notably to de Valera studies, but with respect to what Arthur Griffith called ‘a damnable lie’ I fear he nods. The ‘damnable lie’, repeated by McCullagh (pages 52 and 59), is that there was a ‘secret’ and prejudicial undertaking given by Griffith personally to Lloyd George in November 1921, and that this even took the form of a ‘signed memo’. Evidence in UK cabinet diaries and elsewhere is to the contrary.
First articulated in 1921, the ‘damnable lie’ was in 1935 enshrined in Frank Pakenham’s largely unreferenced book Peace by ordeal, which to this day is often cited uncritically. McCullagh gives for his source an editorial interposition in the published diaries of the 1921 UK cabinet secretary Thomas Jones. But that interposition is itself based on Pakenham and not on the diaries themselves, which paradoxically attest to the fact that Griffith refused to endorse baldly the proposal he is incorrectly said to have signed.
Readers may recall my Platform piece in HI 30.4, July/August 2022, pp 14–15, where I explained why Pakenham was wrong. More recently, in my Myths and lies of ‘the Irish revolution’ (Eastwood, 2025) I have had an opportunity to deconstruct Pakenham’s thesis in detail and with close referencing. It was ostensibly upon the intervention of members of his friend Lord Birkenhead’s family that he both began his research on Dev when working for a Tory research group and later published it. He worked with the personal collaboration of de Valera, with whom he long remained friendly.
Pakenham and others have confused different ‘undertakings’ and failed to identify clearly the text on a paper waved dramatically by Lloyd George on the final night of Treaty talks. I found it among Lloyd George’s papers at Westminster and it was neither ‘signed’ nor endorsed by Griffith.
This is not a minor detail of Irish history. When the ‘damnable lie’ is seen for what it was, the paradigm shifts and proper credit is given for a pragmatic settlement achieved on foot of the War of Independence. The spotlight of betrayal then shines not on Griffith and Collins but on British Tory ministers who reneged on the original idea of a boundary commission, and on Irish begrudgers who wrecked the commission’s possibilities and perpetuated an Irish psyche habituated to glorious failure. The ‘damnable lie’ also contributed to the minimisation of Griffith, founder of Sinn Féin and leader of the Treaty team. An example of this is the inexplicable omission from the first volume of the RIA’s Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series of Griffith’s own prompt report for the Irish cabinet on the final night of talks.
May I appeal to historians to read my recent profile of Pakenham and my critique of his book before again citing the later ‘Lord Longford’? If I am mistaken, produce the evidence.—Yours etc.,
COLUM KENNY