Longtime supporters of Irish independence declared the
Republic of Ireland Bill had finally removed the last institutional
barriers that Great Britain had insisted on in the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
But, as with so many events involving the cause, the implicit
promise of the 1840s patriot song “A Nation Once Again”—i.e., one not only
free, but fully united with all 32 counties—remained unfulfilled.
In fact, when the diplomatic moves and countermoves of
Ireland and Britain concluded several months into 1949, it only solidified the
partition between the Catholic-dominated 26 counties in the south and the six
Protestant ones in Northern Ireland: what one mordant wit termed, when
anti-Treaty forces lay down their arms at the end of the Irish Civil War, “three-quarters
of a nation once again.”
This final push towards independence was not the work
of Eamon de Valera, the figure who dominated the nation’s politics for
four decades, but rather John Costello—who,
despite wielding power over two terms in the Forties and Fifties, was correctly
labeled “The Forgotten Taoiseach” [Gaelic for “Chief” or “Leader”] by
John Bruton, who held that post himself some five decades later.
Why did Costello take this last step, particularly
when de Valera had not done so when he had the chance?
Already, “Dev” had cleared so much diplomatic space
through his wranglings and faceoffs with Britain.
Most notably, he had used the abdication crisis
surrounding King Edward VIII to push through Ireland’s legislative body, the Dáil
Eireann, the External Relations Act of 1936, which eliminated the Crown’s
role in Irish domestic affairs while retaining its influence in external
affairs, including as part of the British Commonwealth.
At the time of the act’s enactment, Costello had
already expressed reservations about some of its provisions. (Not without
justification: It was a typical study in ambiguity by de Valera.) A decade
later, politicians across the political spectrum were perceiving even more issues
with adhering to it.
In his address to the Dail on the Republic of
Ireland Bill in early December 1948, Costello alluded to the continuing
restiveness on the part of old IRA men who had never reconciled themselves
either to the Anglo-Irish Treaty or to remaining restrictions on the nation’s
self-determination, noting that the new legislation would be in “the interests
of peace, order and the end of bitterness between Irishmen.”
And, in a phrase that would echo even louder when used
more than 40 years later by Ulster nationalist leader Gerry Adams in calling
for IRA disarmament, he hoped to “take the guns out of Irish politics.”
Yet a further motive lurked beneath the surface for Costello.
De Valera and his Fianna Fail party had reaped political capital by pushing back against the limits set by Britain. As leader of the rival Fine
Gael party that formed part of Ireland’s first coalition government, Costello
now saw the movement toward a republic as a political opportunity.
Or, as J.J. Lee put the matter in his magisterial
history, Ireland, 1912-1985: Politics and Society, Costello “stole
Fianna Fail’ s Sunday suit of constitutional clothes. Who were the real
republicans now?”
Whether expressed or not, Fine Gael’s rationale for
moving ahead was rational. What the media, political insiders, and many
ordinary citizens could not understand was why Costello didn’t undertake this
sea change in Irish politics while on Irish soil, but instead did so while on a
foreign trip originally expected to be inconsequential.
Several explanations have been offered—one easily
dismissible, the rest not mutually exclusive. But all of them hark back to the
phrase made famous in the 1999 film South Park: Bigger,
Longer, and Uncut: i.e., “Blame Canada.”
That other country emerging from British imperial rule
had played host to Costello in late summer 1948. One rumor of the time, almost certainly an urban legend, had it
that, while drunk, Costello had blurted out his plans to declare a republic.
Another theory has more credence, simply because Costello himself told
others at the time and later that he had been “stung”: i.e., subjected to dissing of his
country and himself as its representative.
According to Tristin Hopper in Canada’s
National Post and Philip Currie’s 2020 history Canada and Ireland, Governor General Earl Alexander of Tunis possessed
Ulster unionist roots. Not surprisingly given that background, at a dinner party he’d hosted, the Crown had been
toasted but not Costello.
An even worse affront occurred at the party when
Costello caught sight of a flower arrangement at Alexander’s table featuring “Roaring
Meg,” a replica of a cannon used in defending Derry against Catholics in 1689--the ultimate red flag for Irish nationalists.
Nevertheless, Costello’s September 8 announcement in
Canada of a planned change in Ireland’s status more likely resulted from the
fact that the Taoiseach was confronting a sudden press leak while in a foreign
country—and, in those pre-satellite days, not enough time to convene his
Cabinet and assemble a careful response.
Events then took on a momentum of their own, with
Costello deciding it was easiest to answer the question honestly at the Ottawa press conference and ram the required enabling legislation through the Dail.
But in reacting on the spot, Costello surprised and annoyed
the British government, which had been prematurely celebrating more cordial
relations with Ireland than had existed under de Valera.
It bided its time through the fall, even as the Taoiseach
guided the legislation into unanimous approval by the Dail, with the republic
officially coming into being in April of the following year, on the anniversary
of the Easter Rebellion.
Then, in January 1949, the British sprang their own surprise:
Northern premier Sir Basil Brook’s call for a general election to be held in
Ulster in February. Five days after Brook’s announcement, Costello and his Cabinet
decided to fund anti-partition candidates in the Ulster polling.
The decision proved counter-productive, driving Ulster
Protestants to circle the wagons against what they saw as absorption by the republic.
Ulster’s Unionist Party reaped the same lopsided majority it had achieved at
the time of partition in 1921: 40 seats to 12.
The final indignity—and the crushing of any early hope
that reunification would occur any time soon—came via British Prime Minister
Clement Attlee, who, to appease the Unionists, introduced the following provision
into the Ireland Act in early May:
“It is hereby declared that Northern Ireland remains
part of His Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom and it is hereby
affirmed that in no event will Northern Ireland or any part thereof cease to be
part of His Majesty's dominions and of the United Kingdom without the consent
of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.”
For the next 50 years, that provision only hardened unionist opposition to any concessions by the British government giving Ireland more of a voice in Ulster.
As during so much of its recent history, the most
fervent believers in a free, self-governing 32-county Ireland had to settle for
a half-measure. However overstated, Lee’s scathing assessment of the process is, given the circumstances
and outcome, entirely understandable:
“Whatever the merits of proclaiming a republic at that
stage, the whole performance of the government, from Costello's Ottawa
announcement to the inaugural Easter Sunday parade, seems to have been a
shambles from start to finish, perhaps the most inept diplomatic exhibition in
the history of the state.”
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