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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 30 Oct 1935

Vol. 59 No. 1

Private Deputies' Business. - Establishment of a Republic—Motion.

Debate resumed on the following motion:—
That in the opinion of the Dáil the Government ought either to abandon the profession of Republicanism or to seek authority from the electorate for the immediate establishment of a Republic.—(Deputies Frank MacDermot, Seán MacEoin.)

I thought the President was going to continue his rather long speech but as he has not seen fit to do so, I will content myself by making a few remarks on the motion. I want it to be clearly understood, notwithstanding what the President says, that this is not a Party motion. Speaking here last April the President said that it was an offensive motion, prompted by a purely Party desire. I want it to be clearly understood that this is in no sense a Party motion. It was sponsored by Deputy MacDermot and myself, as far back as 1932, and was re-introduced in 1933. At that time the motion was tabled primarily to enable the President to clarify the political position for the great mass of the people on both sides of the Border. Despite the length of his speech, I think everybody feels that the President has contributed very little of any material extent in making that position clear. I want to make my own position clear. It is this. If the majority of the people of the Free State should decide to set up a Twenty-six County Republic, personally I believe they would be acting not only unwisely but unpatriotically. I also want to make it clear that if they should so decide, I have no intention of standing in their way. But it ought to be clear that nothing but heavy national sacrifices and national loss of dignity can follow from a continuance of the present position. What is that present position? It is a position of remaining in the Commonwealth but, at the same time, carrying on an insincere flirtation with formal Republicanism. It is for these reasons, involving as they do national honour as well as our material welfare, that I have put my name to this motion. If it was not stated in the long speech the President made, at least by his actions during the last three or four years, he has shown a tendency to adjust himself to the position of a Minister in the former Administration, whom, either unwittingly or deliberately, he misquoted. On the last occasion the President asked me a question. I would like to draw particular attention to that question. Speaking of the seconder of this motion, according to the Official Debates, Volume 55, No. 7, Column 2280, the President said:—

"I would like to hear, when he stands up, whether he is going to say that, now the circumstances have so altered and so changed, he thinks that if we could now reach the Republic he fought for and very nearly died for at one period, it would not be worth, as one former Minister said over here, raising his little finger to get it."

In that statement he quoted a former Minister, and he knows that that Minister did not say anything like that; that what that Minister did say was that he would not raise his little finger to establish a Twenty-Six County Republic. As I already stated, I am perfectly satisfied that the President now finds himself in the same position, and that he would not raise his little finger to establish a Twenty-Six County Republic. The President asked me a question. I would like to put this question to him. Can he give us an assurance, not only by one dying, but by thousands fighting and dying for a Thirty-Two County Republic, that we are going to obtain it; or, can he give us any assurance that having fought for it and died for it and not got it, that we could hold the position we now occupy, or the position that gave the President such pleasure and joy in Geneva? I do not want to say too much on this, but I want to say that I am sick and tired of people talking of their Republicanism, and what they would do, and what they would not do, while not meaning one little bit of it. If you do not agree with them you are an Imperialist, a pro-Britisher and so on. All I would like to say to them in that connection is this, that if this country ever requires the services of people like myself, we will not need conscription to get us into the field in defence of this country's honour. So far as I am concerned, I stand where I have stood for the past 15 or 20 years serving this country and doing what I think is best for it. I am satisfied that much can be done in its interests, but I do want to see an end put to one leg in and another out—joy in one place, sorrow in Ennis, and so on. It is time for that to stop. We should get to some definite position in which we can advance the interests of our country generally.

While I agree in the main with Deputy MacEoin, personally I am against the motion. I wonder has Deputy MacEoin thought of what might follow from the alternatives. I am sure he does not stand or never stood for a Twenty-six County Republic, and that is one of the alternatives asked for in this motion. There is great trouble and confusion about republicanism. We all know that republicanism is not the parent of Irish nationality. It was the method of expression of Irish nationality. I am sure the President will not contradict that statement. Our fathers were national in this country before any man in this country ever thought of setting up a republic here, and if there were a better method of expressing the national will and determination to be free in 1916 than by the method of proclaiming a republic, I have no doubt that that method would have been adopted as against the method of declaring a republic.

The trouble is that republicanism has not only become synonymous with nationalism, but as comprising the entire national sentiment of the country. Any man who was not a republican could not be a good Irishman, or a patriotic or national Irishman, until to-day it has come to this, that to express the high-water mark of patriotism in this country there is a competition in republican flag-waving, one trying to go higher than the other. But if real patriotism and love of country are to be judged by the standards of prosperity and comfort of the masses in a country, we find that those standards are going down while we are flag-waving. On the other hand, I would be equally against a motion in this House, if it were introduced, to stop featuring Commonwealth patriotism and nationality in this country. The sooner we begin to think of Irish patriotism and nationality in terms of what we can do for the well-being of the people and the advancement of Ireland, the nearer we will be to appreciating our duty as citizens and representatives of citizens in this country.

I might say that if I appear critical of the Government in this, I frankly admit that the Fianna Fáil Party or any other political Party are entitled to fly any kite they like to gain popularity or votes for themselves, provided it is done within the law, and for that reason, if for no other, I do not think the time of this House ought to be wasted in discussing a motion like this. But the motion is here now and we have to dispose of it. I think that it was a dangerous experiment to try to gain a monopoly of patriotism for any political Party by nailing to the mast of that political Party a form of government that had become associated with patriotism in the minds of the people. It was quite clear that a time would come when that cry of republicanism to get control of the Government of the Twenty-Six Counties, and which helped largely, perhaps, to get control of the Government of the Twenty-Six Counties, might be the undoing of the Party that got control. Personally, I think it is the best form of patriotism, and for Deputy MacEoin's Party the best politics to let the Government Party, which handled this two-edged weapon, now protect themselves from being cut with the back of the weapon.

There is a cry as to why a republic is not established. We were told that that was the only form of patriotism, and the head of anybody who did not wave that flag higher was in danger of being broken by wild men who had been urged on to the cry, "We and those behind us are the only patriots, and anybody who is not with us is an Imperialist." Surely in this country, as well as in every other country, republicanism, which is only a form of government, cannot claim to have amongst its adherents everybody who is a patriot, and that anybody outside the fold of that republican organisation cannot be a patriot. Of course, the confusion is becoming greater when we find after many centuries of enslavement that we have been told, and the people of the world have been told at the international centre at Geneva, that we now have our freedom.

Who said that?

I read it.

You did not.

I read it as a statement of the President's. He can contradict it and I will accept the contradiction.

As interpreted by gentlemen on the opposite benches. Read the thing itself.

If we are not a nation after the statement published by the Press of this country and I presume of the world——

How could 26 counties out of 32 counties be a nation?

Well, we have the head of the Royal House of Dalkey here.

Document No. 2 tells you that.

Does it? I never read that into it, and neither did Deputy Mulcahy.

If we are not a nation, how, in the words of the President, have we qualified to associate as equal with the nations of the world in Geneva?

That has no connection with my query as to how 26 counties out of 32 are the Irish nation.

I am not troubled about Deputy Donnelly's query, and I am afraid that Deputy Donnelly must have turned up his nose when he read the President's statement that we are a free nation after centuries of slavery.

Deputy Donnelly read nothing of the sort, and neither did Deputy Belton.

Well, then, the President did not say it?

Well, then, are we on equal terms with the free nations in Geneva?

Not every nation in Geneva is a free nation.

Not every nation in Geneva is a free nation? Well, are we free to support this wonderful Covenant of the League of Nations? Are we free to raise an army here and send it out to be annihilated on a European battlefield in support of that Covenant so that the Abyssinians may not be invaded by the Italians? Are we free to do that? I read that as the promise given, and Deputy Donnelly will not deny that that was the promise given, and he will not deny that the President of these Twenty-Six Counties made that promise.

To send an army from here against Italy?

Sure! How are you going to support the Covenant of the League of Nations...

Suppose we get back to the motion before the House?

Well, Sir, we are on the question of a free nation, and it will be very useful information, and certainly will make confusion worse confounded, when the President's interruption and statement, and Deputy Donnelly's interruption and positive statement from the Government Benches, will be read to-morrow in the Government press.

The Deputy has not answered the query yet.

It is not a time to be throwing in queries. There are too many queries over there. There is a note of interrogation over there on those benches that would go up to the top of the House. I do not want to detain the House long on this, and I do not want to develop it, because I think there will be ample time to-morrow for all the development we want in that direction, and the President will have full opportunity of unsaying, or contradicting, the statements that appeared in the press, attributable to him in Geneva. We shall all be very glad to hear the true statement from the lips of the President himself, and I am sure we will accept the President's statement to-morrow, when we hear him on these points, rather than the words of a pressman.

No word of a pressman.

I am not referring to the Irish Press. I thought it was correct. However, Sir, I think that nobody should be in a hurry to set up for decision in this country, in present circumstances, either the issue of a republic or of a Commonwealth; and certainly not while we have only 26 counties. If there is ever to be a clear decision taken on the question of republicanism as against any other form of government, it can only be taken, or should only be taken, with the 32 Counties vote as one unit. If the Government's policy is not to seek a decision on republicanism until that decision must be sought in the 32 Counties, then I would agree with it; but we want a clearer understanding in the minds of the people of what republicanism means; and while I have the greatest respect for the republican movement, or the national movement, rather, expressed in the form of republicanism from 1900 down to the present time, I am not one of those who think, or who would say or agree, that the leaders of the Irish people prior to 1916, who did good service and as good service in their day as any generation of Irishmen ever did in this country— I am not one of those who think or would say that their successors, who believe in Irish freedom under another form of Government rather than republicanism, should be considered Imperialists, Commonwealthers, or any other odious term you like to call them. I think that, even if we had the 32 Counties, a decision on the question of a Commonwealth or a republic should be postponed until the people of the whole 32 Counties have a fuller and clearer appreciation of what republicanism, as against other forms of government, means. To me, republicanism is not necessarily patriotism. You can be just as good a patriot and not be a republican. Republicanism is only a form of government. Other forms of government might be equally as good to some people—even better—but the only thing that an Irishman should be concerned with is what is the fullest and best type of freedom for this country. A day might come — I hope it will, and I should be glad to see it in our time — when a decision could be made in this country, but until we have an opportunity of making that decision, I think that this Government, or any succeeding Government of the Twenty-Six Counties, would be ill-advised, and would not be acting patriotically, in forcing an issue on a particular form of government here and trying to fool the people of the country that that form of government is the expression of real patriotism and love of country in this country. In conclusion, Sir, because I consider that it is inopportune to put the request contained in this motion into force by the present Government, or by any Government in present circumstances — for that reason, and for that reason only, if this question comes to a division, I am going to vote against the motion.

The fatal defect in Deputy Belton's argument in favour of the postponing of a decision on the question of the republic until we have become a unit of 32 counties is this: that until we have got rid of republicanism there is absolutely no hope of our becoming a united country.

This motion, as General MacEoin has said, is in no sense a Party one. It was first put down by me when I was an Independent member and here I am concluding with it as an Independent member again. It is not a tricky motion. The President has seen fit to suggest, because it happens to be one that is inconvenient to him, that it must be inspired by the basest partisan motives and that it is a tricky attempt to lure him into declarations that would be damaging to his Party, and lure the country into a position that would be damaging to it. It is nothing of the sort; it is a straightforward motion. It is an attempt to lead him gently and kindly from the world of phrases to the world of realities. Take for example his contention that when I invited him to say whether he proposed to set up a Twenty-Six County republic in this country or not it was much the same as to ask him had he stopped beating his wife; that it was a question to which a straightforward "Yes" or "No" could not in the nature of the case be given. Why is it that the President could justly complain if I asked him had he stopped beating his wife? The reason that he could not answer "Yes" or "No" is because either "Yes" or "No" would imply an untruth to his discredit. But he could perfectly well answer me the question about the Twenty-Six County republic without implying any untruth to his own disadvantage. The reason he does not want to answer "Yes" or "No" to that question is not that it would imply an untruth but that the answering of it would reveal an inconvenient truth. He knows he could not say "Yes" or "No" to that question without displeasing a considerable section of his followers and supporters. But the question is a perfectly fair one and it is one to which the Irish people have a right to know the answer. Deputy Belton has suggested that this motion is an attempt to force the Government into declaring a Twenty-Six County republic. It is not. It merely says to the Government: "Declare your republic or give up your republicanism." The time has come to do one thing or the other. I say this motion deserves the support of every Deputy in the House who is desirous of putting an end to shams. I am not accusing the Government of being consciously insincere. I am accusing them of having an insincere policy. I believe that the attitude of the Government on this whole national issue is cowardly and confused. The time has come to clarify and elucidate the national policy.

In one respect I have to confess that this motion has been a failure. It has led to very little clarification and to very few speeches from any side of the House. When the basic principles of Irish nationalism are the issue, there seems to be a general feeling that it is almost indelicate to talk about these things. The tendency is to remain silent. The President did not remain silent. He could not do that. He spoke at great length and, as General MacEoin pointed out, he succeeded in saying remarkably little. He dealt with this motion with his customary astuteness. He talked long enough to talk it out in the session before last; he forced it into cold storage and poor General MacEoin and poor Deputy MacDermot have now the task of bringing it out, reviving it and breathing some warmth into what has been so long congealed.

I did not succeed in getting anything to speak of in the way of clarification or elucidation from the President and I am going to take what revenge upon him I can. I have submitted to a good many lectures from the President and the House as a whole has submitted to a good many lectures from him. But from the present elevation in which I find myself on these benches I am now going to inflict a lecture upon him whether he likes it or not. What I want the House to do is to face realities. If there is any truth in the rumours going about that the Government are contemplating a new Treaty with Great Britain on the basis of what is called external association, it is even more important than it otherwise would be that we should be clear about our ends and that we should distinguish between what is superficial and fundamental. Can we not arrive at some agreement in our minds on the question of what are the fundamental aims which the statesmen of this country should be going after? It occurs to me that one could sum them up in three words — peace, freedom, unity. Let us talk a little about freedom first. Deputy Belton and the President got involved just now in a little altercation as to whether the President considers that this country is free or not——

Whether I had said it was free or not.

Yes, as to whether the President had said this country was free or not. Let us consider for a moment whether this country is free or not, and let us confine ourselves to the Twenty-Six Counties. I will come to the question of reunion in a minute. I perused very carefully the President's speech and many other speeches of his to see what evidence he could bring forward of the Twenty-Six Counties not being free. Any evidence he has produced boils down to this: that the Treaty position is what he calls a forced position and that we have not had from the British Government an acknowledgment of our right to decide for ourselves at all times whether to be members of the British Commonwealth or not. I should like general agreement to be reached in this House and in the country that it is desirable to get from the British Government, or from some future British Government, an explicit admission — in view of the events and Constitutional developments that have taken place — that in spite of the Treaty (whether you regard it as under the Treaty in the course of natural development or as something that they ought to agree to in supersession of the Treaty) we are free at all times to decide for ourselves whether or not to be in the Commonwealth. And I would go further and say that I think the Treaty, not only the actual Treaty of 1921 but any Treaty, is an unsatisfactory basis on which to rest the international position of this country. I think the international position of this country should flow naturally from its own choice and the march of events and not from an agreement with another country. I would like while we are in the British Commonwealth that our constitutional position should be on all-fours with every other member of the British Commonwealth. If we are to be outside the British Commonwealth, obviously no Treaty should be necessary for that purpose. If we are a republic, whether for the Twenty-Six Counties or for the 32 Counties, I personally would prefer it to be a genuine republic, not concealed or disguised or modified by something that is called external association. Honestly, I believe, that we can succeed, in the course of a comparatively short time, in getting an admission from the British Government that we are perfectly free to decide for ourselves at all times whether we are a State in the Commonwealth or not. Now, if we do succeed in getting that, can there be any sense at all in suggesting that the Twenty-Six Counties are unfree?

The President has commented a great deal lately on the ports. I cannot help feeling that the presence of these little maintenance parties in our ports is something that would not occur to the minds of 99 per cent. of the population of this country if politicians did not go out of their way to stir them up about it. But my personal view about the ports is this: I strongly suspect that the strategic importance of these maintenance parties is greatly overrated, and I wish the British would come to that conclusion and take the maintenance parties away so long as they irritate some people in this country. But it seems to me that one should take one of two points of view. Either the British Navy is our navy, and should be regarded by us as our own navy, in which case there is absolutely nothing to resent about their presence in our ports. If, on the other hand, they are to be regarded as an alien navy, I, personally, would wish them out of it, and even if it cost us, as Deputy Cosgrave said the other day, £300,000 a year to maintain those works ourselves, I would be in favour of doing it rather than that we should have in the country a force that we considered alien. Of course, I do not personally consider it alien. Recruiting is going on briskly, even now, in the Free State for both the British Navy and the British Army, and if our Government have the strong views that they profess to have about the presence of a British force in our country, it seems rather odd that they do nothing to stop such recruiting. The nonsense about the ports is only one of the many anomalies in the attitude of the Fianna Fáil Party and Government with regard to the whole question of our relations with the British Commonwealth.

I think, therefore, that in the matter of freedom, as far as the Twenty-Six Counties are concerned, we have no need to strive for a further advance, with the solitary exception of an admission that we are free to go out of the Commonwealth. It seems to me that with that exception we have just about as much freedom as any nation could possibly have. We can set up Fascism; we can set up Communism; we can commit any folly or we can accomplish any stroke of genius in arranging our political structure without the smallest interference from across the water. The President said, in the course of his speech, that it was impossible for this country to feel really free until we had shown they were free by declaring a republic. I suggest that such a statement as that is absolute nonsense. It is the same thing as saying, for instance, that a man who has just arrived at the age of 21 cannot feel that he has really attained the rights of his majority unless he has gone out and, shall we say, gone bankrupt. A minor cannot go bankrupt; therefore such a one cannot feel he is of age unless he has gone out and proved that he can go bankrupt. It seems to me that it is manifest that once our right to decide for ourselves whether to be a republic or to be in a British Commonwealth is acknowledged, there is absolutely no need for us to go the length of actually setting up a republic to feel free. If there were, then it would be equally necessary, having set up a republic and in order to make sure that we were free, to become a Dominion again, so that no one could challenge our right to be a Dominion. The whole thing is illogical and nonsensical.

Turning to the question of peace, and when I speak of peace I include both internal and external peace, it will be universally agree that peace is a matter of the most intense importance to a country. But you do not always get internal peace by surrendering to the clamours of a noisy faction. In considering the question of internal peace, I suggest that it is our duty to consider peace in Northern Ireland as well as peace in Southern Ireland. It would be a dereliction of duty for us, thinking of Ireland as a whole, to do something that might please a noisy minority in the Free State if the result of it was going to be to make serious trouble for our kith and kin across the Border. As regards external peace, I do think that one of the most fundamental things for this country is to secure permanent friendly relations with the people across the water. I think that a tradition of hatred is thoroughly bad for us in every way. I think that nothing is more belittling and degrading morally than continual hatred, and I think it should certainly be one of the most fundamental aims of Irish statesmanship to get rid of the feeling of hatred which has been common in this country, and which still is common in this country, in connection with the British. Not only is that hatred something that is bad morally, but it is something that is horribly dangerous, because if you go on stoking up the furnaces of hatred for ever in political speeches, in the newspapers day after day, and in the national schools, the result ultimately will be an explosion, and perhaps a state of things between the two countries when there will be a reconquest of Ireland and a renewal of all the agonies of our history.

Closely connected with this question of peace is the question of reunion with the North. For me the question of Irish unity is the most fundamental of all. I do not hesitate to lay it down as an axiom that Partition is absolutely intolerable. It was lately said by Mr. Winston Churchill that Ulster was firmly anchored within the United Kingdom. I would say that so long as Ulster is firmly anchored somewhere apart from the rest of Ireland, so long is Ireland firmly anchored among the enemies of Great Britain. I say that as a person who certainly, as much as anyone in this House, wishes to see the warmest and the most friendly relations with Great Britain. I have had it suggested to me by some very prominent politicians on both sides of the House that the North would be an embarrassment to us rather than otherwise, and that we were better off without them. Now, I simply cannot argue with people who hold such views. For me it is a matter of instinct rather than argument, for every bit of Irish nationalism in my bones cries out against Partition. Whatever makeshifts or pretences embarrassed politicians may be ready to accept, I am sure that there cannot be contentment in Ireland and there cannot be good relations with Great Britain on the basis of Partition. Any agreement with Great Britain which overlooks this factor will prove a delusion and a snare. Any measure of internal policy, any conduct of external relations, any propaganda, any philosophy which tends to widen the breach between ourselves and the Northern Unionists is, ipso facto, bad and anti-national.

Now, let us turn — with those thoughts in mind concerning peace and freedom and a united Irish nation — let us turn to the remarks of the President, when last this motion was under consideration. He takes as his sheet-anchor the General Election of 1918. On that occasion, he says, the Irish nation decided in favour of a republic and he maintains that that decision still holds good. Having taken such a decision the nation, he says, should not waver in its course. I would ask any member of the House to give me a reason why the verdict of 1918 should have this peculiar sanctity — a sanctity far exceeding that attached to the verdict of other general elections.

Because it was a practically unanimous decision of the 32 Counties.

There is such a thing, the President said, as considering the matter calmly, quietly, fully and once and for all. That is his description of the 1918 General Election —"calmly, quietly, fully and once and for all." I wonder if anyone with a straight face can say that is an accurate description of what took place at the 1918 General Election. It is the commonest thing in the world for democracies to change their mind about important political principles. Sometimes they change them frivolously and without due reason. Sometimes changing circumstances and new developments give them ample warrant for a change of attitude. In any case, nobody has the right to label one particular election as transcending all others. The people have as much authority to declare for the Commonwealth to-day as they had to declare for the republic in 1918, and, as we are certainly a thousand miles from having achieved the 32-county republic that was then desired, it is the part of a statesman not to profess himself tied hand and foot by an obsolete electoral decision, but to give the people the benefit of an unfettered judgment. This is all the truer when you recollect in what conditions of exasperation that electoral decision was taken, and the violence of anti-British feeling that had been caused by the threat of conscription. Consistently, from the days of Daniel O'Connell, the Irish people had accepted the idea of self-government within the British Empire. I see no reason why the single decision of 1918 should outweigh all the decisions that went before it. Why, the whole basis of the movement for Catholic Emancipation was that it was monstrous that the Catholics of this country should be debarred from asserting their loyalty to the British Crown at that time.

What about the Young Ireland Movement?

It used to be the enemies of the Irish people, who used to say that no Irish Catholic could sincerely accept the British connection. It was the enemies of the Irish Catholics who then maintained that. The main achievement of Daniel O'Connell was that he made it possible for Irish Catholics to get elected to Parliament and to take the oath of allegiance.

That has been taken away now.

I am not trying to exalt any one particular epoch more than another epoch. I just want to expose the nonsense that is talked by many Deputies opposite when they suggest that the whole history of Irish national effort shows that it has been directed towards the establishment of a republic.

Wolfe Tone did whatever he could for it.

As I have before pointed out to the Deputy, for the greater part of his life Wolfe Tone was not a republican. If I had his works here, I could read the Deputy passages in which he expressed the most emphatic loyalty towards the Crown. His republicanism started only when he was banished from this country. He was not regarded as a genuine republican by the extremists in the North. Why, I remember when even Patrick Ford of the Irish World declared that his aim was to see Ireland a contented portion of the British Empire. You have a perfect right to differ from me as to whether we ought to remain in the Commonwealth or not on the merits, but what you have not a right to do is to throw the election of 1918 at my head and tell me that that ends the question. In truth the verdict of 1918 has no application to the problem of to-day. The choice before us and the circumstances surrounding it in no way resemble those of 1918.

And for that matter the policy of the Fianna Fáil Party is hardly recognisable as being the policy of 1918. The President was querulous about my applying such a phrase as "the profession of Republicanism" to himself and his Party. As a matter of fact, "profession" is a neutral word neither implying sincerity nor insincerity. I am not accusing them of conscious insincerity, but, as I said before, I do accuse them of having an insincere policy — a policy by which they are deceiving themselves and deceiving the country. What is that policy? Nominally a 32-county republic. I ask them, as I have asked them before, to show how they have advanced one inch in that direction since they came into office, or how they propose to advance one inch towards it before they leave office. The maintenance of that formula of a 32-county republic merely serves to justify sedition in the South and to supply material for bigotry and intolerance in the North. It creates a fatal barrier to reunion and to the integration and development of our nationality. It holds out no promise of any sort of appeasement or spiritual progress. My belief is that the President has no intention of declaring this republic and that, if pressed about it in private as to when it might be expected, he would say: "Not for 15 or 20 years to come." Meanwhile the turmoil and uncertainty caused by his policy are to continue and he is to have the gratification of putting himself on a superior plane of patriotism to those of us who are less skilled in deceiving ourselves. Nor at the end of the period shall we be the least bit nearer to a 32-county republic. We may disregard the Treaty or abrogate the Treaty; we may have a new Constitution or a succession of new Constitutions; we may search out with a microscope everything that is suggestive of the British connection and banish it from the Irish Free State as St. Patrick did the serpents; we may remove the Lions and Unicorns from Dublin Castle, but at the end of it all we shall be no nearer to a 32-county republic. All we shall have done is to exasperate still more the people in the North whom we ought to reconcile. No Party in England, no matter how anxious it may be to make concessions, could obtain, or even look for, authority from the British electorate for overriding the desire of the majority in Northern Ireland to remain within the British Commonwealth.

What then is to be gained by this policy of pretence, this policy of delay? What reason is given for not setting up whatever sort of republic is within reach? "Oh," says the President, "the country is not economically strong enough to endure the deprivations that would follow from the setting up of a republic." Were the people told anything of that in 1918? If the same economic difficulties existed then, the people should have been told by Mr. de Valera, as he then was, that the sacrifices involved were too great and in that case their verdict might have been very different. If the same economic difficulties did not exist, I inquire again what relevance has the verdict to present circumstances? Looking into the future in the optimistic spirit which causes the President to say that we can provide occupation for four times the present inhabitants of the Irish Free State, we may of course convince ourselves that in 15 or 20 years we shall be able to dispense with the trade advantages, the labour advantages, and the individual openings and opportunities which go with membership of the Commonwealth; but what about the North? Is there the faintest reason for supposing that the North will cease to require a market in Great Britain, not only for its agricultural produce, but for its shipbuilding and linen trades? And can we contemplate with any sort of equanimity a condemnation of the Northern Nationalists to prolonged revolt, to prolonged estrangement from the Government under which they have to live, to continual feuds and hatreds between them and the Unionist majority? These are the things to which they are condemned by the continuance of so-called republicanism.

I can sincerely say, speaking for myself, that I would prefer an immediate twenty-six county republic outside the Commonwealth to the Government's present policy, but I am not asking the House to say so by this motion. I should feel that we were making some progress, that we were starting on a road — even though a very roundabout road — which would lead us in the end to our proper destination. I should feel that the maintenance of law and order would be made somewhat easier, that the more fanatical republicans would have the ground cut from under their feet and that another and less respectable kind of republicanism, which is used merely as a cloak for selfish violence, would be shown up for what it is. I do not believe that economic disadvantages now would be any greater than 15 or 20 years hence. I think the Irish people would have a chance to learn from experience whether complete separation from the British Commonwealth and the realisation of a republic were indeed so gratifying and so glorious as they have been led to expect. The result of "getting down to bedrock," as the President puts it, would be, I think, to cause us to revise and revalue our ideals or to cause the Northerners to revise or revalue theirs. As the President says, there is no finality in any solution. That you cannot set bounds to the march of a nation is a truism, a somewhat bombastic truism. The experience of a twenty-six county republic might lead us on to something better.

What is that "something"— that something to which I wish I could persuade the Government to take a direct road and not a roundabout one? If we had no racial question in this country, and no Northern question, I would honestly think it a matter of quite minor importance whether we were in the British Commonwealth or outside it, although I would still regard it as of fundamental importance that we should be on friendly terms with the British Commonwealth. But we have a racial problem and a Northern problem, and I have no patience with those who would dwarf our country by excluding the Anglo-Irish element from our national make-up, just as they would exclude from our national records all the achievements of our people on the field of battle or in the richer victories of peace and constructive activity, except where such achievements have been in conflict and not in co-operation with our British neighbours. It is, I suggest, an entirely new thing and an entirely bad thing in Irish nationalism that the contribution of a large section of our people towards our civilisation should be despised and rejected, and that no sacrifices should be thought worth while for the purpose of conquering their prejudices or even of satisfying their natural and praiseworthy ideals. I, for one, refuse to consider as invaders and intruders people whose ancestors were here in many cases before the first white men set foot in what is now the United States of America.

The proper aim of Irish statesmanship is to make a harmony out of ancient discords. At bottom, I believe that that is what all decent Irishmen have wanted throughout the centuries, even when they were most fiercely contending with one another. The trouble in this country above all countries, I think, is that we have fallen into the common human frailty of judging ourselves by our highest ideals and judging our opponents by their worst acts. In this country, men's acts have unhappily often been very far from giving a true impression of the ideals behind them.

A purely Gaelic Ireland, even if attainable, would be a non-Irish Ireland. To take all the tragic and glorious memories of the past — those cherished by opponents as well as those cherished by ourselves — and to fuse them into one national tradition which would be the heritage of all of us; to make it possible for us all to look back on the bitter old conflicts as we might on our childhood quarrels in the nursery; to make it possible for us all to look forward to a free, happy and prosperous future which we shall build up by our joint efforts, without the sacrifice either of our liberty to shape our own destinies or of the special loyalties and the considerations of convenience and common sense which invite us into a full partnership with the nations of the Commonwealth — that is the vision which seems to me worthy of our devotion, and that is the task to which I suggest we should dedicate all that we have of strength and patience. And it is because the policy, or lack of policy, of the Government — the stale claptrap and the weary fallacies of Fianna Fáil propaganda — keep us grovelling in a slough of despond when we might be treading firmly the upward path, that I ask the House to accept this motion.

I venture in conclusion to draw a moral from a recent event which has a more than superficial connection with the matters we are considering. I mean the death of Lord Carson. Lord Carson was not only the chief architect of partition; he was also the father of modern Irish republicanism. I believe he loved Ireland and also loved the British Empire; but the effect of his whole career was to inflict immense damage upon both. In private life he was a kindly, sympathetic, lovable person, but his politics were of the kind that refuse to understand or to do justice to opponents. Having once become a popular idol with a substantial section of our people, he could not bring himself to admit, even to himself, that the interests of his country required him to do anything that would deprive him of the least little bit of the halo with which fanatical admirers had surrounded his head. That tenacity must conquer in the end was his guiding principle and he forgot that such a conquest as he might thereby achieve could be worse than a defeat and that his desperate fidelity, in a changing and a growing world, to one narrow idea might commit him to larger disloyalties. I think, if I may say so, that just as there is a great similarity in character and mental equipment between the late Lord Carson and the President of the Executive Council, so there is a similarity in the moral dangers to which each has been exposed, and that while the President may succeed in retaining his halo intact by persevering in the path he now follows, he may also be ensuring that his career, like that of Lord Carson, will be one that will have brought almost unrelieved disaster to Ireland.

He will hardly be brought home in a gunboat.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: — Tá, 18; Níl, 74.

Tá.

  • Anthony, Richard.
  • Curran, Richard.
  • Daly, Patrick.
  • Desmond, William.
  • Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Finlay, John.
  • Holohan, Richard.
  • Keating, John.
  • MacDermot, Frank.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McGovern, Patrick.
  • McGuire, James Ivan.
  • Morrisore, James.
  • O'Donovan, Timothy Joseph.
  • O'Leary, Daniel.
  • O'Neill, Eamonn.
  • Rogers, Patrick James.

Níl.

  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Beegan, Patrick.
  • Belton, Patrick.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Boland, Patrick.
  • Bourke, Daniel.
  • Brady, Brian.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Breathnach, Cormac.
  • Breen, Daniel.
  • Byrne, Alfred.
  • Carty, Frank.
  • Cleary, Mícheál.
  • Concannon, Helena.
  • Cooney, Eamonn.
  • Corbett, Edmond.
  • Corkery, Daniel.
  • Corry, Martin John.
  • Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
  • Crowley, Timothy.
  • Daly, Denis.
  • Davin, William.
  • Derrig, Thomas.
  • De Valera, Eamon.
  • Donnelly, Eamon.
  • Dowdall, Thomas P.
  • Everett, James.
  • Flinn, Hugo V.
  • Flynn, John.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Fogarty, Andrew.
  • Gibbons, Seán.
  • Goulding, John.
  • Hales, Thomas.
  • Hayes, Seán.
  • Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
  • Keely, Séamus P.
  • Kehoe, Patrick.
  • Kelly, James Patrick.
  • Kelly, Thomas.
  • Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
  • Kent, William Rice.
  • Keyes, Michael.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kilroy, Michael.
  • Kissane, Eamonn.
  • Lemass, Seán F.
  • Little, Patrick John.
  • Lynch, James B.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • Maguire, Ben.
  • Maguire, Conor Alexander.
  • Moane, Edward.
  • Moore, Séamus.
  • Moylan, Seán.
  • Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
  • Norton, William.
  • O'Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Dowd, Patrick.
  • O'Grady, Seán.
  • O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
  • O'Reilly, Matthew.
  • Pearse, Margaret Mary.
  • Rice, Edward.
  • Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Martin.
  • Ryan, Robert.
  • Sheridan, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Victory, James.
  • Walsh, Richard.
  • Ward, Francis C.
Tellers: — Tá: Deputies MacDermot and MacEoin; Níl: Deputies Little and Smith.
Motion declared lost.

Has Fianna Fáil let down the republic?

Barr
Roinn