For northern nationalists, up to the present day, one of the most galling episodes in modern Irish history was their abandonment by the Irish Free State government with the shelving of the Boundary Commission report in 1925.
In return, some of the Free State’s financial obligations, under Article 5 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, were waived. For the sweetener of financial concessions that applied only to its territory, the Free State government had, according to MP Cahir Healy, sold northern nationalists “into political servitude for all time”.
There has been much debate sparked by the recent report by Professors John Fitzgerald and Edgar Morgenroth published by the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) claiming that the cost of a united Ireland could potentially rise to €20 billion annually.
Could it be that northern nationalists’ dream of being part of a united Ireland could be shattered not by the people of Northern Ireland, but by the people of the 26 counties, and sacrificed for financial reasons?
The shelving of the Boundary Commission report in December 1925 was a defining moment in the relationship between southern and northern nationalists. The sense of abandonment that had been felt for much of the previous four years reached its zenith. Once it was revealed how the tripartite agreement between the British, Free State and Northern Ireland governments was reached, for many this was accompanied by rage.
With the Morning Post leaking the (largely accurate) Boundary Commission findings in early November 1925, a political furore was caused in the Irish Free State and amongst northern nationalists as it was revealed it had recommended very little territory would be transferred to the Free State and, in fact, some Free State territory would be transferred to Northern Ireland too.
To quell the report, the head and deputy head of the Free State government, WT Cosgrave and Kevin O’Higgins, dashed over to London. They needed a political win to stave off the humiliation caused by the report, something they felt had the potential to collapse the Dublin government.
O’Higgins declared that he would prefer for northern nationalists to be helped. A determined Northern Ireland prime minister, James Craig, resisted attempts that would have helped Catholics, including proposals to disband the Ulster Special Constabulary, reinstate proportional representation and end discrimination.
Lord James Salisbury, leader of the House of Lords, suggested that west Belfast nationalist politician Joe Devlin should be appointed as an Ulster liaison officer to northern Catholics, a sort of ombudsman. Craig rejected this too, preferring for the Free State to be relieved of part of the British national debt instead.
The Free State and British governments accepted Craig’s suggestion and the former was absolved of its responsibility under Article 5 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty to pay the British exchequer around £10 million a year. This showed the extent to which the Free State government was prepared to purchase its own independence at the expense of Irish unity.
In justifying the December 1925 tripartite agreement to the Dáil, Cosgrave said: “It stabilises our financial position. It secures that we are deprived of none of our citizens.”
When talking of “our citizens”, he was of course only referring to citizens of the Free State. When, at the same time, a delegation of northern nationalists asked to address the Dáil, Cosgrave emphatically refused, stating that the Northern Ireland parliament was the “legitimate assembly” to deal with their complaints.
For northern nationalists, it confirmed what many had felt since Cosgrave took power in August 1922 – that they were not his obligation nor his concern.
Interestingly, in a paper Prof John Fitzgerald co-wrote in 2020 with Seán Kenny for the European Review of Economic History, while they refer to the December 1925 deal as “the largest debt relief episode in the 20th century”, they claim “the political cost of the agreement exceeded the financial gain in the long run”. The political costs of granting Northern Ireland “greater leverage in the negotiations became painfully apparent in later decades”.
Professors Fitzgerald and Morgenroth’s recent report is one among many that has been published and increasingly will be published leading up to a border poll, whenever that poll takes place.
It appears that the report’s main usefulness, which essentially just looks at the subvention from the UK exchequer to Northern Ireland in an almost worst-case scenario, and not the wider economic implications of unification, was to trigger further debate on Irish unity and the economic benefits or costs of such a decision.
Cliff Taylor in The Irish Times claimed that “if voters in the Republic are presented with an annual financial cost of €20 billion – or even one north of €10 billion – then unification is unlikely to be voted through, as it would imply large tax increases”.
I hope and think we would not just see Irish unity through the prism of how much it potentially could cost us in the 26 counties
Perhaps I am overly optimistic of the Irish electorate but I hope and think we would not just see Irish unity through the prism of how much it potentially could cost us in the 26 counties. There are, of course, many counter-viewpoints that claim Irish unity will bring more economic benefits than costs. Regardless, were we in the south to vote against unity because of the potential costs to us, we will commit a greater act of abandonment of our fellow Irish people in Northern Ireland than our forefathers did in the 1920s.
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No matter how committed Free State governments were to Irish unity at the time, there were limited options open to them to bring it about. What will our excuse be? What will we tell future generations?
If it is to transpire that Irish unity is rejected by the 26 counties primarily for economic reasons, we will not only have mimicked Free State politicians in the past, but surpassed them, in selfishly abandoning our brethren to “political servitude”, just to save us from some potential financial discomfort that may or may not come to pass.
If that day ever comes, and I firmly believe it will not, we should hang our heads in shame. This deplorable act of betrayal would be seen around the world for what it would be.
