Each side in the 1921 negotiations used sufficiently elastic language to enable the Republic's delegates to suggest that what was taking place was inter-state negotiations, while allowing the British Government to suggest that it was an internal United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland matter.
Finally, the two structures of government (the British government's administration in Dublin Castle and the Republic's) began a process of convergence, to cover the year until the coming into force of the new Irish Free State.