100 years ago, in December 1924, the newly-established Boundary Commission undertook a preliminary visit to Ireland “for the purpose of seeing portions of the country, acquainting itself with economic and geographic conditions, and ascertaining what sources of information are likely to be available for the purposes of its work”.
No formal sittings were scheduled for the tour, just informal conversations with different people and groups.
The Northern Ireland prime minister, James Craig, attempted to obstruct the commission, alleging that the Irish Free State commissioner, Eoin MacNeill, “might be the object of hostile demonstrations or worse”.
He sought to prevent commissioners taking any evidence in Northern Ireland. Craig also claimed that the Church of Ireland primate, Archbishop Charles Frederick D’Arcy, said that “if any of the commission visited him, he would take steps to have them removed from his house”.
As it transpired, even though the northern government publicly did not recognise the Boundary Commission, when its members were beginning their tour, the northern ministry of home affairs offered them “any protection that may be found necessary”.
The trip began in Armagh on December 9, spending three nights at each of four stops: Armagh, Enniskillen, Newtownstewart and Derry.
The “luxurious Crossley” – previously the official car of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland – that the chairman, Justice Richard Feetham, travelled in, and a “great yellow touring car” transporting MacNeill, became a familiar sight in border areas as the commissioners travelled hundreds of miles over two weeks.
A “dogged band of pressmen shadowed the commissioners like sleuths of the law every step of the way”.
In Armagh, the commissioners visited the two primates. Despite his threats, Archbishop D’Arcy did not take steps to have them removed from his house.
Cardinal Patrick O’Donnell was the new Catholic primate. His predecessor, Cardinal Michael Logue, died in November 1924.
From their base in Armagh, the commissioners visited Newry, the Carlingford Lough areas, and the Armagh-Louth and Armagh-Monaghan border.
They also visited the Silent Valley Reservoir in the Mourne Mountains, constructed to supply Belfast with water.
They then drove through the Mournes to the Banbridge-Portadown water works in Fofanny, Hilltown.
After Armagh, the Boundary Commissioners moved to Enniskillen on December 13, from which they visited the Fermanagh-Monaghan border around Roslea and Clones. They also visited Fermanagh’s borders with Cavan and Leitrim.
- Cormac Moore: How the ‘third man’ on the Boundary Commission 100 years ago helped secure the border for unionismOpens in new window
- Brian Feeney on Friday: Eoin MacNeill and the tragedy of the Boundary CommissionOpens in new window
- Cormac Moore: Fake news and the battle over the Irish borderOpens in new window
Afterwards, they moved to Newtownstewart where they viewed Donegal’s border with Fermanagh and Tyrone.
A nationalist representation who met the commissioners in Omagh on December 17 were not happy with the encounter, with one claiming it was “all bosh” while another said the group came out “just about as wise as they went in”.
Worryingly for the nationalist case, the viewings of the Boundary Commissioners were mainly close to the existing boundary, suggesting only small rectifications to the frontier were likely.
Some unionists were not satisfied either. Egbert Trimble, a member of Enniskillen Urban Council, asked Feetham “to state the terms of reference to the commission and the interpretation the commission placed upon them before the council should give any evidence”.
When Feetham asked Trimble to submit the council’s case, Trimble replied that he was asking him to “finesse my King and Jack, with you sitting over me with the Ace and Queen, in dummy”.
Feetham replied: “I am sorry I do not understand you… I know nothing about cards.”
A similar encounter happened with members of Fermanagh County Council in Enniskillen, a unionist-controlled body.
The deputation consisting of, amongst others, MPs James Cooper and Charles Falls, and Sir Basil Brooke, told Feetham they were uncertain about cooperating “as they did not know what the terms of reference to the commission were, whether they were dealing with the whole of the Co Fermanagh, or merely a slight border rectification”.
Feetham replied that these were questions he “could not answer”.
Following the visit to Derry, a made-up story developed about MacNeill that was persistently told in Dublin for years afterwards to suggest his scholarly detachment and apparent disinterest in the work of the commission.
It was said that he left his fellow commissioners on one occasion to visit by himself one of the most significant monuments of ancient Ireland, the Grianán of Aileach in Inishowen.
But instead of it being “an archaeological frolic of MacNeill’s own”, it was a Sunday excursion by the commissioners and their staff, organised by the mayor of Derry.
In Derry, just as the Boundary Commissioners were concluding their tour, the Derry Journal also published what was a bombshell piece of news for nationalists.
It said Feetham had informed a nationalist deputation that “historic considerations are not to be taken into account in determining the border” and that ”the commission are not endowed with powers to take a plebiscite for the purpose of ascertaining the wishes of the inhabitants”.
Those calling for a plebiscite were, according to the Derry Journal, “merely beating the air”.
While the Boundary Commission refuted that it would not have any regard to historical considerations, it did not deny there would be no plebiscite.
In his 1924 Christmas message to the Newry Telegraph, the president of the Free State Executive Council, WT Cosgrave, claimed “the outlook is infinitely brighter than seemed possible a year ago – I am more than ever convinced that my optimism will be justified”.
In Ireland “she speaks in trumpet tones against arbitrary division. In the long run it will be generally agreed that her voice is the voice of wisdom”.
To Cosgrave, the boundary was no “longer one of acute political controversy, but of practical examination by the body legally entrusted to deal with it”.
But from their brief interactions with the Boundary Commission in December 1924, many northern nationalists did not share Cosgrave’s boundless optimism.
Instead, there was a deep sense of foreboding that the commission would not deliver what they had hoped it would, one that proved justified a year later as most nationalists’ worst fears were realised.
