Thursday November 30 1995

Without consent

The Government of Ireland Act and the Boundary Commission

The British government has slowed the peace process down to the point where it no longer exists and in the closing months of 1995 pessimism has returned as the predominant mood in Anglo-Irish relations. These months also mark the 75th and 70th anniversaries of the Government of Ireland Act and the Boundary Commission. They partitioned Ireland and created the present constitutional settlement which is at the root of the conflict.

A FEW DAYS after the last of the leaders of the Easter Rising in Dublin had been executed by firing squad Lloyd George, soon to be British prime minister, wrote to Edward Carson, leader of the Ulster Unionists: ``We must make it clear that at the end of the provisional period Ulster does not, whether she wills it or not, merge in the rest of Ireland.''

The wily Welsh Liberal Party leader had determined that his solution to the `Irish Question' was to be the partition of the country. It was a new concept which had never been a unionist demand. They had always demanded that all of Ireland should stay within the United Kingdom. ``We never asked for partition and we never wanted it'' said Lord Glentroan, the unionist Minister for Agriculture, many years later in the Stormant Parliament.

The primary consideration of Lloyd George and all his colleagues in the British establishment was not to divide Ireland for the sake of dividing her. Their main aim was to retain the whole country, divided or not, in the British Empire. Lloyd George's achievement was to divide not only the island of Ireland but also the forces of Irish nationalism which threatened to take their country out of the British Empire.

The Government of Ireland Bill which laid the basis for partition was introduced in the House of Commons in December 1919. It was rejected by all sides in Ireland and the pro-Unionist Irish Times commented: ``The Bill had not a single friend in either hemisphere, outside Downing Street.''

Not a single Irish member of any party voted for it. With the establishment in Ireland of Dáil Éireann after an overwhelming vote for Sinn Féin and full independence, the Bill seemed doomed at birth. Yet it was the law which would shape the destiny of Ireland for decades.

Not a single Irish member of any party voted for the Government of Ireland Act. With the establishment in Ireland of Dáil Éireann after an overwhelming vote for Sinn Féin and full independence, the Bill seemed doomed at birth. Yet it was the law which would shape the destiny of Ireland for decades.

While the Government of Ireland Bill was passing through Westminster in 1920 the Black and Tan War was escalating and in the north-east of the country the forces of unionism were preparing to establish the state provided for them in the Bill. The Ulster Volunteer Force was reorganised and by October had up to 30,000 members. Unionist leaders Carson and James Craig pushed for the establishment of a Special Constabulary, later to become the B Specials. Their request was granted by Lloyd George and the illegal UVF became the legal servants of the Crown and unionism.

With the British government diligently preparing the legal ground for partition the unionist forces set about preparing the political conditions in the Six Counties which they would rule. Between June 1920 and June 1922 428 people were killed in conflict there; 8,750 Catholics were driven from their jobs; 23,000 Catholics were driven from their homes.

The unionists had already recognised that they would not have a sufficient majority to control the historic province of Ulster with its nine counties. Carson spelt it out crudely in the House of Commons on 18 May:

``We should like to have the very largest area possible, naturally. That is a system of land grabbing that prevails in all countries for widening the jurisdiction of the various governments that are set up; but there is no use in our undertaking a government which we know would be a failure if we were saddled with these three counties.''

(The three counties were Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan.)

In the same debate Lloyd George frankly admitted that if the Irish people were asked what form of government they wanted they would choose an Irish Republic ``by an emphatic majority''.

Lloyd George and his government were determined that they would never have that. Throughout the rest of 1920 they waged war on nationalist Ireland in order, in the words of The Times, ``to scourge the Irish into obedience, leaving as sole alternative to resistance, the acceptance of the present Bill''. That was in November 1920, the bloodiest month of the Anglo-Irish war.

In that month 18-year-old IRA Volunteer Kevin Barry was hanged; in India Corporal James Daly of the Connaught Rangers was executed for leading a mutiny in that British regiment in protest at Black and Tan atrocities; 14 British agents were executed by the IRA in Dublin; 13 people were shot dead by Black and Tans at Croke Park; two IRA officers, Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy, and a civilian, Conor Clune, were tortured and shot dead in the guardroom of Dublin Castle; at Kilmichael in Cork the IRA inflicted the worst military defeat on the British so far.

It was against this background that the Government of Ireland Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons on 11 November 1920. It defined the area of the two states as they were to remain until the present day. Winston Churchill, in a comment that has echoes in today's arguments about self-determination and consent, said that as the Six Counties had been given all the trappings of a state ``every argument of self-determination ranged itself henceforward upon their side''. The Government of Ireland Act became law on 23 December 1920.

With his Partition Act now law Lloyd George tightened his repressive regime in Ireland. At the same time as he extended martial law he offered to talk to republican representatives - but only if arms were surrendered. Acting President Arthur Griffith replied: ``This was not a Truce but surrender, and there would be no surrender, no matter what frightfulness was used.'' As the war intensified into 1921, with no-let in republican resistance, Lloyd George was forced to forget this pre-condition to talks. But he stuck to his partition plan rigidly and this was what guided him in the complicated negotiations to come.

His task was to sell the Government of Ireland Act to both unionists and nationalists with as little modification as possible. To do this he had to assure unionists that there would be no change in the size of their new `Northern Ireland' state. He had to persuade nationalists that in return for staying in the British Empire they would be able to reduce the Northern Ireland state to a size that made it unworkable and made Irish unity inevitable. Lloyd George managed to do both.

He achieved it during the negotiations that led to the Treaty of December 1921. Only by persuading Arthur Griffith and Michael Collins that Article 12 of the Treaty would effectively mean the end of the Northern Ireland state did he succeed in wining their agreement. Article 12 provided for a Boundary Commission which would ``determine'' in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions the boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland''.

On this basis the Treaty was signed and supported by just over half of Dáil Éireann. Civil War ensued in the 26 Counties while the Six-County state established itself and partition became entrenched.

At the same time as Lloyd George extended martial law he offered to talk to republican representatives - but only if arms were surrendered. Acting President Arthur Griffith replied: ``This was not a Truce but surrender, and there would be no surrender, no matter what frightfulness was used.''

The final part of Lloyd George's plan fell into place 70 years ago this month in November 1925. The last hope of nationalists in the Six Counties rested on a Boundary Commission. The most hopeful - or the most naive - interpreted Article 12 of the Treaty to mean that areas with a nationalist majority would revert to the Free State. Thus Counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, South Down and South Armagh, and Derry City and Newry would be outside the Orange state. But the unionists had warned from early on that they would have none of this.

In 1922 Craig had declared: ``I will never give in to any rearrangement of the boundary that leaves our Ulster area less than it is under the Government of Ireland Act.'' He said later that any more than the most minor changes would mean ``bloodshed and chaos of the worst description''.

At the same time Michael Collins believed that under a Boundary Commission ``we secure immense anti-Partition areas''.

But in 1924 the chickens came home to roost. Meetings between Free State premier WT Cosgrave and Unionist premier James Craig failed to reach agreement and in April Cosgrave requested that the British government, under the terms of the Treaty, set up the Boundary Commission. The unionists refused to nominate a representative. The British themselves then appointed a South African Justice Feetham to chair the Commission. They nominated JR Fisher to represent the unionists and the Free State's appointee was Education Minister Eoin Mac Neill.

In the public controversy which ensued the full duplicity of Lloyd George two years earlier was exposed. Republican leader Eamon de Valera published the letter written to him by Arthur Griffith during the Treaty negotiations conveying the promise given to Griffith by Lloyd George that if the unionists refused to allow a Boundary Commission to delimit the area of the Northern government ``he [Lloyd George] would fight, summon parliament, appeal to it against Ulster, dissolve, or pass an Act establishing an All-Ireland parliament.''

Leading Tories then revealed what they had told the unionists. Walter Long said that he had pledged on behalf of the Cabinet to Carson and Craig in 1920 that the Six Counties ``should be theirs for good and all and there should be no interference with the boundaries or anything else, expecting such slight adjustments as might be necessary to get rid of projecting bits...'' Lord Balfour, another Tory, also spoke up. He revealed the hitherto secret letter written to him by Lord Birkinhead, a signatory of the Treaty, in 1922. The letter was to reassure Balfour that Michael Collins' reassurances to Northern nationalist were groundless. Collins had told nationalists that Article 12 of the Treaty would protect them. Birkinhead said that the main purpose of Article 12 was to ``preserve Northern Ireland'' as it was.

All this came out before the Boundary Commission had its first meeting. To make doubly sure that its cards were marked the House of Lords passed a motion saying that the Treaty's Article 12 ``contemplated nothing more than readjustment of boundaries''.

This moved even the anti-republican and fiercely pro-Treaty Irish Independent to comment:

``If Article 12 were capable of bearing any other meaning but that placed upon it by Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith and the Irish people it would never have received five minutes consideration int his country.''

Little was heard of the Boundary Commission as it continued its deliberations through the summer and autumn of 1925. Then on 7 November 1925 Ireland was shocked by a leak of the Commission's report which appeared in the London paper The Morning Post. None of the large nationalist areas were to revert to the Free State and the most substantial change was for part of East Donegal to go into `Northern Ireland'. The majority nationalist counties of Tyrone and Fermanagh and the nationalist towns of Newry and Derry, as well as South Armagh and South Down, were to stay in the Orange state.

Eoin MacNeill resigned from the Commission on 21 November. Four days later he resigned from the government, ending his political career.

Cosgrave and two of his ministers crossed to London for talks with the British. The Agreement they signed there on 3 December marked their final abandonment of Northern nationalists and effectively sealed partition. The powers of the Boundary Commission were revoked and the whole of the Six Counties was guaranteed to the Unionist government. The Council of Ireland, a sop to the principle of Irish unity, was also killed off.

Republicans condemned the agreement and proclaimed their ``unalterable opposition to the partitioning of our country''. The Irish Labour Party described the London Agreement as ``unmitigated betrayal''.

The biggest losers of course were the Northern nationalists. They had expressed their desire for Irish independence and unity in election after election. Without the consent of any of them they had been incorporated into a sectarian state, established under a British act of parliament for which not one Irish vote was cast. They were trapped in a state without their consent. And there they remain today.