By keeping the annuities, we could build up a national industry every years as big as the Shannon Scheme.

It is my considered opinion that in the fullness of time history will record the greatness of Michael Collins and it will be recorded at my expense.

It is indeed hard for the strong to be just to the weak, but acting justly always has its rewards.

An independent Ireland would see its own independence in jeopardy the moment it saw the independence of Britain seriously threatened. Mutual self-interest would make the peoples of these two islands, if both independent, the closest possible allies in a moment of real national danger to either.

I shall strive not to be guilty of adding any fuel to the flames of hatred and passion which, if continued to be fed, promise to burn up whatever is left by the war of decent human feeling in Europe.

Of course I wrote most of the Constitution myself. I remember hesitating for a long time over the US presidential system. But it wouldn't have done - we were too trained in English democracy to sit down under a dictatorship which is what the American system really is.

The economic and social problems would tend to become, like the military situation, more and more difficult as time went on and we became more and more isolated.