On December 6, 1921, representatives of the British government and the Irish Republic signed the Anglo-Irish Treaty in London. The treaty established the Irish Free State as a self-governing dominion within the British Empire, but it also partitioned Ireland, with six Ulster counties remaining part of the United Kingdom. The treaty was deeply divisive, leading to the Irish Civil War.

The Anglo-Irish Treaty was a subject of intense poetic debate, with writers like W.B. Yeats taking a nuanced view of the settlement, while others, like republican poets, condemned it as a betrayal. The treaty's compromise nature is reflected in the poetry of the period, which grappled with the meaning of partial freedom and the trauma of partition. The treaty's legacy continued to haunt Irish poetry for decades.