Table Of ContentDE VALERA
2££££ULSTER
QUESTION
1917-1973
Winner ofthe Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize
Bowman
John
'theessential keyto understanding British and Irish
policytowards Ulster' Enoch Powell
De Valera and The Ulster Question
1917-1973
Digitized by the Internet Archive
2012
in
http://archive.org/details/devaleraulsterOObownn
DE VALERA
AND THE
ULSTER QUESTION
1917-1973
JOHN BOWMAN
Oxford New York
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1989
Oxford UniversityPress, Walton Street, Oxford0x2 6dp
Oxford New York Toronto
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Oxfordisa trademarkofOxford UniversityPress
Publishedin the UnitedStates
by Oxford UniversityPress, New York
©John Bowman 1982
Firstpublished1982by Oxford UniversityPress
Firstissuedasan Oxford UniversityPresspaperback 1983
Reprinted 1983, 1984, 1989
Allrightsreserved. Nopartofthispublication maybe reproduced,
storedina retrievalsystem, ortransmitted, in anyform orbyanymeans,
electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording, orotherwise, without
thepriorpermission ofOxford UniversityPress
Thisbook issoldsubject to thecondition that itshallnot, byway
oftradeorotherwise, be lent, re-sold, hiredoutorotherwisecirculated
withoutthepublisher'spriorconsent inanyform ofbindingorcover
otherthan thatin which it ispublishedandwithoutasimilarcondition
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Bowman,John, 1942-
De Valera andthe Ulsterquestion, 1917-1973.
1. Ireland. Partition. AttitudesofDe Valera, Famon, 1917-1973
I. Title
320.5'4'09415
ISBN0-19-285216-7
LibraryofCongress Cataloging in Publication Data
Dataavailable
Printedin Great Britain by
Richard Clay Ltd.
Bungay, Suffolk
For Eimer
and in memory ofmy parents
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the following individuals and wish to record
mythanks: FrankAiken, the late Ernest Blythe, F. H. Boland,
Kevin Boland, the late Lord Brookeborough, Noel Browne,
Mike Burns, Dan Bryan, Patrick Buckland, Jack Carroll,
Michael Carroll, the late Erskine Childers II, M. J. Costello,
Cornelius Cremin, Bernard Crick, Conor Cruise O'Brien,
Paddy Devlin, Ted Dolan, James Dillon, T. Ryle Dwyer,
Robin Dudley Edwards, the late Brian Faulkner, Gerard Fitt,
Donal Flanagan, Alexis FitzGerald, Garret FitzGerald,
Douglas Gageby, George Gilmore, the late Joseph Groome,
Kevin Healy,KerryHolland, Patrick Hillery, Patrick Keatinge,
John M. Kelly, Brian Lenihan, the late Sean Lemass, Lord
Longford, Jack Lynch, Charles Lysaght, Edward MacAteer,
Sean MacBride, the late Frank MacDermot, the late Malcolm
MacDonald, Sean MacEntee, Peter McEvoy, Fred McEvoy,
the late Liam MacGabhann, Brendan MacGiolla Choille,
Patrick MacGill, the late Patrick McGilligan, the late Michael
Mclnerney, Edward MacLysaght, Deirdre MacMahon, Tom
Manning, Jack Miller, Maurice Moynihan, Edward Mulhall,
Brigid Mullins,John A. Murphy, thelateSeanNunan,Dermod
O'Bryne, Patricia Grennan O'Byrne, Martin O'Donoghue,
Peadar O'Donnell, Ronan O'Donoghue, Cornelius O'Leary,
T. P. O'Neill, Bernadette O'Sullivan, William O'Sullivan,
Eamonn Phoenix, Brian Quinn, Brian Reynolds, Liam Robin-
son, the late David Thornley, James Tully, Elizabeth Turner,
andJ.H. Whyte.
I also wish to record my thanks to the directors, librarians,
keepers, and staffsofthe followingrecordofficesandarchives:
Manuscripts Department, Birmingham University Library;
Department of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library,
Oxford; British Library; Public Records Division, Public
Archives of Canada, Ottawa; Department of Western Manu-
Acknowledgements
viii
scripts, University Library, Cambridge; Manuscripts Division,
Library of Congress, Washington; Freeman Library, Depart-
ment of Geography, Trinity College, Dublin; House of Lords
Record Office, London; National Archives, Washington;
Department of Manuscripts, National Library of Ireland;
Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library;
Archives of the Department of External Affairs, Ottawa;
Public RecordOffice,London;Public RecordOfficeofIreland,
Dublin; Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast;
Radio Telefis Eireann; Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New
York State; State Paper Office, Dublin; Manuscripts Room,
Trinity College, Dublin; Archives Department, University
College Dublin. I am especially indebted to the staff of the
Library, Trinity College, Dublin.
As my 'Note on sources' below underlines, there has been
a dearth of good source material for the writing of contem-
porary Irish history. Consequently, Irish historians are in-
debted to the families of Ernest Blythe, Erskine Childers,
Frank Gallagher, Patrick McGilligan, Mary MacSwiney,
Richard Mulcahy, and others who have made their papers
available forresearch.I gladly add my thanks here. I am grate-
ful to Lord Craigavon for permission to photocopy his
mother's diary; and to Mrs Dingwall for permission to read
her father, W. B. Spender'spapers at the Public Record Office
of Northern Ireland in Belfast. I feel a special debt to the
political reporters on Irish newspapers for their accurate and
fair-minded chronicling of Irish politics: this is especially
noteworthy in the case of the Irish Press — founded after all
by de Valera — and so often pilloried as the 'kept paper' of
the Fianna Fail party.
I am especially indebted to the late Francis MacManus,
T. W. Moody, and T. Desmond Williams for their encourage-
ment at important moments. I gladly record my thanks to
Professor Basil Chubb of Trinity College, Dublin, my super-
visor for the original Ph.D. thesis on which this book is based,
—
for providing the right mixture of cajolement, approval
and coercion. I am indebted to the staff of the Oxford Uni-
versity Press for their courtesy and guidance.
To my family the completed typescript and, earlier, the
thesis onwhichitisbased,musthaveseemedlikeBillyBunter's
