Michael Collins rose to his feet. In repose his eyes glimmer softly and with humour. When aroused they narrow - hard, intense and relentless. He speaks like this. One or two words. Then he pauses to think. His speech does not flow in a stream as it does in the case of Eamon de Valera. Yet from not one word is firmness absent. This work provides eye-witness accounts by two reporters from the Irish Independent newspaper of the historic Treaty debates of Dail Eireann, held in University College Dublin’s Earlsfort Terrace building in December 1921 and January 1922. Eamon de Valera, Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith and a host of other participants come to life. The colourful descriptions of the scene and of the reactions to speeches, written while the debates were in progress, are far more revealing than the published record of the debates.