Irish Boundary Commission Research Articles

Without a dog's chance: the nationalists of Northern Ireland and the Irish Boundary Commission, 1920–25. By James A. Cousins. Pp 356. Newbridge: Irish Academic Press. 2020. €24.95.

Without a dog's chance: the nationalists of Northern Ireland and the Irish Boundary Commission, 1920–25. By James A. Cousins. Pp 356. Newbridge: Irish Academic Press. 2020. €24.95.

The papers of the Irish boundary commission

The papers of the Irish boundary commission

Partners for stability? Irish Free State perceptions of the incoming British Labour government 1923–24

This article examines the anxiety and frustration of the Irish Free State government faced with the uncertainty of which party was going to become the next British government in 1923–24. The Free State government had only recently emerged victorious in its own fratricidal civil war and its moral and political legitimacy was still challenged in Ireland itself. The most contentious issue an incoming British government had to deal with on Ireland was the final demarcation of the boundary between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland which, according to Article 12 of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, would be determined by a boundary commission. The Free State government remained unconvinced that any incoming British Labour government had the competence, understanding or commitment to resolve this issue and contribute to long-term stability in Ireland, given Labour's perceived lack of knowledge and interest in Irish politics and its commitment to social and economic issues taking precedence. This apprehension was articulated in contemporary Irish government papers and personal correspondence and proved well founded, given the legalistic and cautious approach of the Labour government to establishing the Irish Boundary Commission.

The Irish Boundary Commission and its origins, 1886–1925. By Paul Murray. Pp xxi, 345. Dublin: University College Dublin Press. 2011. €60.

The Irish Boundary Commission and its origins, 1886–1925. By Paul Murray. Pp xxi, 345. Dublin: University College Dublin Press. 2011. €60.

The Irish Boundary Commission and its origins: 1886-1925

The Irish Boundary Commission and its origins: 1886-1925

Paul Murray. The Irish Boundary Commission and Its Origins, 1886–1925. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2011. Pp. 368. €28.00 (paper).

Paul Murray. The Irish Boundary Commission and Its Origins, 1886–1925. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2011. Pp. 368. €28.00 (paper).

The role of the Irish boundary commission in the entrenchment of the Irish border: from tactical panacea to political liability

The abortive saga of the Irish Boundary Commission has largely been dismissed as a minor footnote that warrants little elaboration in the discussion of Ireland's partition. This is unsurprising considering that its final report was hastily suppressed so as to prevent the destabilisation of the nascent regimes in Northern Ireland and the then Irish Free State. However, the concept of the Commission derives from the intensifying controversies of Irish Home Rule and partition, and the consequent difficulties in establishing how and where a boundary was eventually drawn as well as to the status of the entities it would be dividing. The Commission was legally conceived in Article 12 of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty but confusion over its wording protracted a sequence of events that ensured that it was almost three years before it actually met. Article 12 was eventually interpreted in a restrictive manner, which exposed inherent flaws that were either ignored or naively underestimated when it was originally adapted from part of the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles. Furthermore, the complexities of evidence were inadequately scrutinised by a small and under-resourced panel that operated under considerable political pressure to delimit a precise line that satisfied subjective terms of reference. Nevertheless, the revoked Commission served as a crucial catalyst in defining the Irish Free State's relationship with the British State and in entrenching the territorial framework of Northern Ireland's six counties that exists to this day.

Partition and the Irish Boundary Commission: A Northern Nationalist Perspective

Partition and the Irish Boundary Commission: A Northern Nationalist Perspective

Reviews of books

IRELAND: A SYSTEMATIC AND REGIONAL GEOGRAPHY, by B. S. Mac Aodha and E. A. Currie. Dublin: Educational Company of Ireland, 1968. xiii + 297 pp. 16s. 6d. THE WAY THAT I WENT, by Robert Lloyd Praeger. Dublin: Allen Figgis Ltd, 1969. 394 pp. 15s. THE CAVES OF NORTH‐WEST CLARE, by the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society (edited by E. K. Tratman). Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1969. 256 pp. 120s. GOLA: THE LIFE AND LAST DAYS OF AN ISLAND COMMUNITY, by F. H. A. Aalen and Hugh Brody. Cork: The Mercier Press, 1969. 127 pp. 12s 6d. TRANSPORT NETWORKS AND THE IRISH ECONOMY, by Patrick O'Sullivan. London: London School of Economics and Political Science, Geographical Papers No. 4, 1969. 62 pp. 21s. IRELAND IN WORLD COMMERCE, by Charles Hultman. Cork: the Mercier Press, 1969. 160 pp. 12s 6d. AINMNEACHA GAEILGE NA mBAILTE POIST, Oifig an tSoláthair, 1969. 187 pp. 5s. THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF IRISH SOCIETY, by E. R. Norman and J.K.S. St Joseph. Cambridge: the University Press, 1969. 126 pp. with 70 aerial photographs. 80s. THE HISTORY OF WATER POWER IN ULSTER, by H. D. Gribbon. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1969. 299 pp. 50s. REPORT OF THE IRISH BOUNDARY COMMISSION, 1925, with an introduction by Geoffrey J. Hand. Shannon: the Irish University Press, 1969. xxxiii + 155 + 109 pp. 65s. THE FERMANAGH STORY, by Peadar Livingstone. Enniskillen: Cumann Seanchas Chlochair, St. Michael's College, 1969. viii + 570 pp. £3. DINNSEANCHAS. Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1964 —Vol. 3, June 1969. An Cumann Logainmneacha, Baile Átha Cliath. 10s per annum. JOURNAL OF THE KERRY ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY. No. 3, 1970. 197 pp. Not available to non‐members. JOURNAL OF THE OLD ATHLONE SOCIETY. Vol. 1, No. 1, 1969. 54 pp. 15s. TEATHBHA: JOURNAL OF THE LONGFORD HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Vol. 1, No. 1, 1969. 80 pp. 10s. JOURNAL OF THE OLD WEXFORD SOCIETY. No. 2, 1969. 110 pp. 5s. Reviews of maps IRELAND: GENERAL SOIL MAP. Dublin: National Soil Survey, Soils Division, An Foras Talúntais. 1: 575,000. 1969. 37 in. × 24½ in. 10s. MAP OF DUBLIN, 1: 18,000. Dublin: Ordnance Survey, 1969. 37 in. × 21½ in. On paper, flat, 4s., or folded with cover and index, 5s.

The papers of the Irish boundary commission

The papers of the Irish boundary commission

Letter from the chairman of the Irish boundary commission

Letter from the chairman of the Irish boundary commission