President W.T. Cosgrave delivers New Year message of hope

Dublin, 2 January 1923 – In his first News Year’s address as President of the Free State, William T. Cosgrave said that his message for 1923 was one of hope: ‘hope for peace, order, and goodwill; and hope for unity with our countrymen temporarily divorced from us.’ 

President Cosgrave said that the first New Year’s Day in Saorstát Éireann was a reason for celebration and said that Ireland’s new found liberty could now be used to ‘restore unhindered the language and culture of the Gael; develop our country and its trade; improve in every way the lives of our citizens; and, as a co-equal member in a commonwealth of free nations, stand erect and recognised amongst the nations of the earth.’ 

But as well as looking ahead, President Cosgrave’s message also reflected on events of the last year, on the challenges the Saorstát faced from within and the leaders it lost.

‘Our people desire peace’, he message states, and they intended to achieve it ‘in the only way possible by establishing the right of the majority to rule within the nation.’

‘Having attained our rightful place amongst the nations we found democracy challenged, and in making secure the rights won and in vindicating representative institutions, we have lost two great leaders. Many gallant soldiers and patriotic citizens of the motherland, whose unselfish labours and sufferings helped to found and consolidate Saorstat Eireann, have given up their lives also in its defence.’

His message concluded: ‘To every citizen of the Saorstát and to every soldier of our chivalrous army, I wish God’s blessing, and send cordial greetings for a Happy New Year.’

While using his new year message to promote peace, Mr Cosgrave has nevertheless made clear that his government will only accept peace under certain terms. In a response to a resolution from ex-officers in the mid-Tipperary IRA demanding a meeting of government and republican leaders with a view to achieving a peaceful settlement, Mr Cosgrave insisted:

‘The basis for peace must be that the Treaty shall stand without abrogation, explicit or implied, of any part of it; that the Oireachtas established under the treaty and constitution shall be the sole sovereign authority within the jurisdiction assigned it in those instruments; that there shall be no armed force or military organisation, and no carrying or keeping farms or material of war, except such as the same authority shall authorise or permit...’

Without meeting what President Cosgrave considered to be ‘fundamental conditions’, any peace would, he believed, ‘only be a false peace, endangering the whole future of Ireland and removing the hope of national unity’.

The resolution urging a peace conference was passed at a meeting of mid-Tipperary former IRA men in the Sinn Féin Hall, Thurles, on 30 December. The meeting was held under the presidency of James Stapleton, ex-Vice-Brigadier, Mid-Tipperary Brigade and copies of the resolution were sent to both President Cosgrave and Éamon de Valera.

[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]