It was revealed publicly for the first time recently, during the release of state papers, that a discussion paper was drawn up by civil servants in Dublin in 1975 entitled “Negotiated Repartition of Northern Ireland”. The paper looked at how the border in Ireland could be re-drawn should there be a British withdrawal, large-scale violence, and even civil war.
The most dramatic option envisaged Northern Ireland losing two-thirds of its territory, with all of Fermanagh and large parts of Tyrone, Down, Armagh and Derry being transferred to the south. This change in territory would have seen the transfer of 486,000 people (285,000 Catholics and 201,000 non-Catholics).
The plan, of course, never came to fruition, but it was just one of many proposals to draw a border since the concept of partitioning Ireland was considered as a realistic option to break the deadlock between Irish nationalists and Ulster unionists during the Third Home Rule Crisis in the 1910s.
All proposals, including the one adopted under the Government of Ireland Act 1920, showed how difficult it was to create a border as there was no straightforward fit that neatly divided one community from the other. Even the core of the Protestant heartland in the north-east, in counties Antrim and Down, comprised substantial Catholic enclaves. Regardless of what border was drawn up, new minorities trapped on the wrong side would exist.
As the Third Home Rule Bill was making its way through Westminster in June 1912, a Liberal backbencher, TG Agar-Robartes, tabled an amendment to exclude the four north-eastern counties of Antrim, Armagh, Derry and Down from Home Rule. Although his amendment was defeated, senior leaders within the governing Liberal Party were convinced Home Rule could not be enacted without addressing the Ulster question. They just had to convince their ally, John Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Party. Once its leadership conceded to a temporary exclusion of some Ulster counties, partition in some form became increasingly likely.
What was then at issue was how much of Ulster and for how long. Members of the British administration in Dublin Castle looked at several different options based on counties, rural districts and poor law unions. One of the Dublin Castle advisors who suggested boundary changes, Sir James Brown Dougherty, conceded that “whatever plan may be adopted, bristles with difficulties”.
According to historian Conor Mulvagh, Dublin Castle advisors became drawn towards the exclusion of six Ulster counties primarily due to the threat of force from Ulster unionists, even though two of those counties, Tyrone and Fermanagh, had Catholic majorities.
Redmond was adamant exclusion would be temporary. The Ulster Unionist leader Edward Carson threatened forceful resistance unless exclusion was permanent, insisting unionists did not want “a stay of execution for six years”.
Just months after the 1916 Easter Rising was quashed, David Lloyd George negotiated separately with Redmond and Carson, telling the former the exclusion of six counties of Ulster would be temporary, and to the latter their exclusion would be permanent. Once Lloyd George’s duplicity was revealed and Redmond realised the exclusion would be permanent, he rejected the proposals.
Before the end of the First World War, exclusion from Home Rule was the only option being considered in terms of special treatment for some or all of Ulster. The Government of Ireland Bill, drawn up in late 1919, which introduced a separate Home Rule parliament for Ulster, also advocated that all the nine counties of the province should be included in the new parliament. Ulster unionists, however, sought six counties, and not the entire province, as this was the maximum area they felt they could dominate without being ‘outbred’ by Catholics. With two-thirds of the six counties Protestant, and the other one-third Catholic, unionists felt they would have a ‘permanent’ inbuilt majority.
The decision of the Ulster Unionist Council (UUC) was deeply unpopular amongst the 70,000 Protestants of counties Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan who believed they were being sacrificed to a Dublin parliament. Ulster Unionist MP Thomas Moles explained that the three counties had to be abandoned to save the six counties, stating: “In a sinking ship, with life-boats sufficient for only two-thirds of the ship’s company, were all to condemn themselves to death because all could not be saved?”
To avoid a nine-county parliament, James Craig had even suggested “the establishment of a Boundary Commission to examine the distribution of population along the borders of the whole of the six counties”. Once the UUC voted to accept a six rather than a nine-county parliament, unionists outside of the six counties resigned from the UUC. Many members of the Ulster Women’s Unionist Council from Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan also resigned.
Although Northern Ireland containing six Ulster counties was established in the summer of 1921, the border issue was not settled and formed a key part of the negotiations between the British government and Sinn Féin later in the year, much to the frustration of Ulster unionists. In particular, the British found it morally difficult to justify the inclusion of counties Tyrone and Fermanagh in Northern Ireland.
During all the attempts to draw a border in Ireland from 1912 to 1925, British governments were more interested in meeting Ulster unionist demands rather than Irish nationalist ones, the primary reason we have the border as it stands today
To settle the border issue, under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921, if Northern Ireland opted not to join the Irish Free State, as was its right under the Treaty, a Boundary Commission would determine the border “in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions”.
Despite the hopes of most nationalists, the ambiguous Boundary Commission that was dominated by a British chairperson, Justice Richard Feetham, when it finally did convene in late 1924, resulted in no changes to the border, as its report recommending minimal changes was shelved at the request of the Irish Free State government in late 1925.
It is important to note that during all the attempts to draw a border in Ireland from 1912 to 1925, British governments were more interested in meeting Ulster unionist demands rather than Irish nationalist ones, the primary reason we have the border as it stands today.
While there may be attempts in the future to call for a re-partitioning of Northern Ireland and a re-drawing of the border, as there may be attempts to insist on a super-majority to bring about Irish unity, these are unlikely to succeed given the standing of the Good Friday Agreement on the island and beyond, which clearly stipulates the avenues open for constitutional change in Ireland, north and south.