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Boundary Commission (Ireland)
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The Boundary Commission was established under the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the Anglo-Irish War in 1921. Its purpose was to decide on the precise delineation of the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland if Northern Ireland chose to secede from the Irish Free State as was widely anticipated. The Irish Free State was itself established on 6 December 1922 and encompassed all of Ireland including Northern Ireland.
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The Boundary Commission was established under the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the Anglo-Irish War in 1921. Its purpose was to decide on the precise delineation of the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland if Northern Ireland chose to secede from the Irish Free State as was widely anticipated. The Irish Free State was itself established on 6 December 1922 and encompassed all of Ireland including Northern Ireland. However on 8 December 1922, just two days later, Northern Ireland secded from the Irish Free State by exercising its right to do so under the Treaty.
With the secession of Northern Ireland from the Irish Free State back to the United Kingdom, in accordance with the Treaty it fell to the Governments of the United Kingdom, the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland to nominate members to a Boundary Commission to deliniate the precise border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. While nationalists hoped for a considerable transfer of land from Northern Ireland to the Free State (reflecting the wishes of people who lived along the new border), the Northern Ireland government obstructed the establishment of the Commission, resulting in the British government assigning a representative to represent their interest.
When the Commission decided on a very small net transfer of land to Northern Ireland (the reverse of what was expected), its conclusions were leaked to the Morning Post in 1925, causing protests from both the unionists and nationalists. In order to avoid the possibility of further disputes, the British, Irish, and Northern Ireland governments agreed to suppress the report, and the existing (Government of Ireland Act 1920) border was ratified by W. T. Cosgrave, Sir James Craig, and Stanley Baldwin in December 1925.
The provisional border 1920 – 1925
The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was enacted during the height of the Anglo-Irish War and partitioned the island into two separate Home Rule territories of the United Kingdom, to be called Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. In its determination of this border, the Parliament of the United Kingdom heard the arguments of the Irish Unionist Party – but not those of most of the elected representatives of the nationalist population. Sinn Féin refused to recognise any legitimate role of that Parliament in Irish affairs and declined to attend it, leaving only the minuscule Irish Parliamentary Party present at the debates. James Craig's brother told the British House of Commons unambiguously that the six north-eastern counties were the largest possible area that unionists could "hold".
Article 12 of the Treaty
After a clause providing for Northern Ireland (as defined by the Government of Ireland Act 1920 to opt out of the new Free State, the remainder of Article 12 declares:
Accordingly in 1922 the new Free State established the North-Eastern Boundary Bureau which had prepared 56 boxes of files to argue its case by 1925.
The Commission
Due to the delay caused by the Irish Civil War, it was not until 1924 that the Commission was appointed. The Northern Ireland government, which adopted a policy of refusing to cooperate with the Commission since it did not wish to lose any territory, refused to appoint a representative. Ultimately the Labour government in Britain and the Irish Free State government legislated to allow the UK Government to impose a representative on their behalf in order to enable the procedure to go ahead. The Commission was convened in 1925 consisting of:
- Justice Richard Feetham of South Africa as Chairman (appointed by, and representing, the British Government)
- Eoin MacNeill, Minister for Education (appointed by, and representing, the Free State Government)
- J.R. Fisher, a Unionist newspaper editor (appointed by the British government to represent the Northern Ireland government)
Crisis
[This section is missing - It concerns the crisis caused by Newspaper reports of what the Border Commission would award - including large parts of East Donegal (from Irish Free State to Northern Ireland). Crisis negotiations between the Governments and eventual settlement - Without this section, this Article is entirely misleading - Considerable further work required on this Article]
Negotiation
The Commission's report has never been officially released, continuing to be withheld by both Governments. However the negotiating positions have been known since 1925 from the Dáil debates (see below) and newspaper reports, but are seldom mentioned in mainstream history books. Arguably the report did not therefore need to be released, and describing it as "withheld" made it seem as if something had been hidden from the public. The republican view was that the entire partition and Boundary Commission process was a British imperial plan to divide and control Ireland, with the demographic report suppressed; the Northern Irish unionist view was that it had all been publicised and approved by the three parliaments involved.
The nationalist interpretation of Article 12 was that the Commission should redraw the border according to local nationalist or unionist majorities at the finely granular District Electoral Division (DED) level. Since the 1920 local elections in Ireland had resulted in outright nationalist majorities in County Fermanagh, County Tyrone, the City of Derry and in many District Electoral Divisions of County Armagh and County Londonderry (all north and east of the "interim" border), this might well have left Northern Ireland unviable. Unionists were content to leave the border unchanged. Although Justice Feetham might have used the Parliamentary Constituency boundaries, he evidently decided to maintain the status quo. His casting vote meant that the border created in the Government of Ireland Act 1920 was to remain largely unchanged. However a crisis emerged
The final agreement between the Irish Free State, Northern Ireland, and Britain was signed on 3 December 1925. Later that day the agreement was read out by Stanley Baldwin in the House of Commons. The agreement was enacted by the "Ireland (Confirmation of Agreement) Act" that was passed unanimously by the British parliament on 8-9 December. Effectively the agreement was concluded by the three governments, and the Commission then rubber-stamped it, so the publication, or not, of the Commission's report became an irrelevance. The Agreement was then formally registered with the League of Nations on 8 February 1926.
Imperial debt
In the background, under the terms of Article 5 of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty the Irish Free State had agreed to pay its share of the Imperial debt:
"(5) The Irish Free State shall assume liability for the service of the Public Debt of the United Kingdom as existing at the date hereof and towards the payment of war pensions as existing at that date in such proportion as may be fair and equitable, having regard to any just claims on the part of Ireland by way of set-off or counter-claim, the amount of such sums being determined in default of agreement by the arbitration of one or more independent persons being citizens of the British Empire."
This had not been paid by 1925, in part due to the heavy costs incurred in and after the Irish Civil War of 1922-23. The essence of the agreement was that the 1920 boundary would stay as it was, and in return, Britain would not demand payment of the amount agreed under the Treaty. Since 1925 this payment was never made, nor demanded.
Diarmaid Ferriter suggests a more complex trade-off; the debt obligation was removed from the Free State and non-publication of the report, in return for the Free State dropping its claim to rule the Catholic / nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. Each side could blame the other side for the outcome. William Cosgrave admitted that the security of the minority depended on the goodwill of their neighbours.
Dáil debates on the Commission, 7 - 10 December 1925
In the Dáil debates on the outcome on 7 December 1925, Cosgrave mentioned that the sum due under the Imperial debt had not yet been fixed, but was estimated at £5m. to £19m. annually, Britain having a debt of over £7 billions. The Free State's annual budget was then about £25m. Cosgrave's aim was to eliminate this amount: "I had only one figure in my mind and that was a huge nought. That was the figure I strove to get, and I got it." Cosgrave also hoped that the large nationalist minority in Northern Ireland would be a bridge between Belfast and Dublin.
On the final day of debate, Cosgrave revealed that one of the reasons for independence, the elimination of poverty caused by London's over-taxation of Ireland, had not been solved even after four years of freedom:
- "In our negotiations we went on one issue alone, and that was our ability to pay. Not a single penny of a counter-claim did we put up. We cited the condition of affairs in this country—250,000 occupiers of uneconomic holdings, the holdings of such a valuation as did not permit of a decent livelihood for the owners; 212,000 labourers, with a maximum rate of wages of 26s. a week: with our railways in a bad condition, with our Old Age Pensions on an average, I suppose, of 1s. 6d. a week less than is paid in England or in Northern Ireland, with our inability to fund the Unemployment Fund, with a tax on beer of 20s. a barrel more than they, with a heavier postage rate. That was our case."
His main opponent was Professor Magennis from Ulster, who particularly objected that the Council of Ireland (a mechanism for future unity by the 1970s, provided under the Government of Ireland Act 1920) was not mentioned.
The government side felt that a boundary of some sort, and partition, had been on the cards for years. If the boundary was moved towards Belfast it would be harder to eliminate in the long term. Kevin O'Higgins pondered:
On 9 December a deputation of Ulster nationalists arrived to make their views known to the Dáil, but were turned away.
After 4 days of heated debate on the 'Treaty (Confirmation of amending agreement) Bill, 1925', the boundary agreement was approved on 10 December by a Dáil vote of 71 to 20.
See also
Bibliography
- Report of the Irish Boundary Commission, 1925 Introduced by Geoffrey J. Hand (Shannon: Irish University Press, 1969) ISBN 0-7165-0997-0
- Ireland's Civil War C. Younger, (Fred Muller 1968) pp515-516.
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