FROM HISTORY EDITOR PROFESSOR H.E. RODOTUS

IT’S THE DEAL that, for a hundred years, dared not speak its price. Kept a dark secret until now, the Kookaburra Bugle can reveal that in December 1921, Irish independence hero Michael Collins personally agreed with David Lloyd George, in a short paragraph, signed by both men, that the British could buy back the 26 counties it was giving freedom to, if Ireland was not one country within a century.

“It appears that after they signed the official Treaty, Collins and Lloyd George went out on the town together,” explained historian Dr Horace Orthodox. “To ease the tension that had built up so to speak. Mick liked a drink and Lloyd George liked anything in a skirt with a pulse. So they shuffled out the back of Downing Street and down to Soho. It was in a house of some ill repute that the secret protocol was agreed, rather as bet than anything else. You have to remember that Irish independence was given to the whole island initially. It was for the six counties of Northern Ireland to opt out if they so wished, which they inevitably did. But that didn’t happen for another year, so there was always the chance that Collins could win them over in the meantime, in his head anyway, however small. Collins being the man he was, and fully intending to either convince Unionists to join the rest of Ireland or force them at the point of a gun, found himself telling Lloyd George that Irish unity was a done deal. In reply, Lloyd George, ever the scheming scoundrel, bet the Big Fella that the country would not be whole within a century. Collins, notably prone to acts of wild hyperbole* – like standing up in the middle of an ambush – at times, said he was so sure of himself, that if it wasn’t the case that Ireland would be one, then the British could have the whole lot back again, for an agreed price.

“The price has never been revealed. And the problem with the secret deal is that it was written and signed on the flesh of a prostitute’s buttocks. No one quite knows who she was, and she’s long dead by now. Collins, himself, was dead within the year, and Lloyd George had reason enough not to try and track the girl down. But the deal is possibly still out there, waiting to be found. And enforced?”

*One can speak with ones body – ED