Chapter 8  

MR COSTELLO WAS RARIN’ TO GO

“Jack Costello had about as much notion of diplomacy as I have of astrology.”¹

FREDDIE BOLAND

“Mr Costello was rarin’ to go and, almost like a child with a secret, could not hold it …”²

JOSEPH CHAPDELAINE, CANADIAN EMBASSY, 1950

For more than a quarter of a century, a large statue of Britain’s Queen Victoria dominated the entrance to the parliament of independent Ireland. The Queen remained undisturbed on her plinth on the Kildare Street side of Leinster House during the decade of W.T. Cosgrave’s government, and the 16 years of de Valera’s first administration. It was significant that it was the government of John A. Costello which finally moved her.³

The statute of the Famine Queen had considerable symbolic importance, but little artistic merit. Tom O’Higgins described it as a “work of intense, although no doubt unintentional ugliness … popularly known as ‘Ireland’s revenge’”.⁴ Even the British Representative in Dublin, Lord Rugby, admitted that the statue “is in itself not a beautiful object”.⁵

At the end of June 1948, Costello informed the Dáil that the statue was to be removed to provide more car parking spaces.⁶ Rugby admitted that there may have been something in this, but that the Government was probably glad to find an excuse.⁷ Sir Eric Machtig of the Commonwealth Relations Office said it was “difficult to repress one’s feelings of indignation at this step”. But he thought there was little London could do about it—a view shared by King George vi, who agreed that “for the present, it would be better to take no action”.⁸ An attempt to purchase the statue by the Northern Ireland-based National Union of Protestants was rejected on the basis that MacBride didn’t want it re-erected “on Irish soil”.⁹ The statue eventually ended up outside the Queen Victoria Building, a shopping centre in Sydney, Australia.¹⁰

The removal of the statue was symbolic—it showed that Costello, for whatever reason, was prepared to do things which de Valera had considered, but hadn’t quite got round to. That symbolism was marked in a cartoon in Dublin Opinion (used by Ronan Fanning on the cover of his seminal book Independent Ireland). The cartoon showed Victoria saying to a startled looking de Valera, “Begob, Eamon, there’s great changes around here!”¹¹ The move outflanked de Valera and annoyed the British—and so was a perfect portent of what was about to happen to the External Relations Act.

As we saw in Chapter 5, Costello had expressed doubts about the External Relations Act when it was brought in at the time of the abdication crisis, and his view hadn’t changed in the meantime. De Valera himself had had enough of the Act; he told Lord Rugby in October 1947 that “it had done no good and had involved him and his Government in difficulties and humiliation”.¹² A Bill had in fact been drafted to transfer to the President the powers exercised under the Act by the King.¹³ During the 1948 election campaign, Rugby noted similar sentiments from MacBride and from Fine Gael deputy leader T.F. O’Higgins, and reported to London that “it is quite plain that the annulment of the External Relations Act will not be long delayed. No party has left the door open for any other course.”¹⁴

However, the situation was complicated by lingering pro-Commonwealth sentiment within Fine Gael. The day after the despatch quoted above, the newspapers reported a speech by Mulcahy saying his party “would not alter the present position which has been accepted by all members of the British Commonwealth as being in consonance with membership”. Rugby noted that Mulcahy’s speech, coming so soon after O’Higgins had taken the opposite line, was “indicative of the way in which the Fine Gael party mismanage their affairs”.¹⁵

Most Fine Gael supporters would presumably have taken Mulcahy’s views as definitive. Garret FitzGerald later recalled reassuring the inhabitants of Waterloo Road that the party supported Commonwealth membership.¹⁶ But of course, Mulcahy did not become Taoiseach; and Fine Gael was not in government on its own. Costello, however, had a long record of involvement in the Commonwealth, and in his election address he told the voters of Dublin South-East that if Fine Gael were in government, “it will not propose any alteration in the present constitution in relation to external affairs”.¹⁷ After his election, Rugby reported to London that he had learned “from a wholly reliable source that Mr Costello takes the line that though he does not like the Act he does not propose to interfere with it”.¹⁸ And the Taoiseach told journalists that the Government was “not making any change in the political structure of the State”.¹⁹

As we saw in the previous chapter, MacBride said on the day the new Government was elected that he wouldn’t be pushing for the repeal of the Act. In his memoirs, he said it would have been “grossly unfair” to do so, given the problems it would cause for Fine Gael (and also for Clann na Talmhan—MacBride said Joe Blowick was “extremely conservative himself and was always terrified of anything that might possibly injure … our cattle trade”). As a result, by his own account, MacBride “decided not to bring it up at cabinet meetings”.²⁰

However, he did push out the boundaries of Ireland’s constitutional position, with Costello’s full agreement. This was most marked in the case of the presentation of credentials by the new Argentinian Minister in Dublin. These were addressed not to King George, as was the practice under the External Relations Act, but to President O’Kelly. Both Costello and Cecil Lavery, the Attorney General, approved this new procedure,²¹ which amounted to a significant undermining of the External Relations Act. This undermining would presumably have continued even if the Act was not repealed, thereby making it a dead letter.

On the related issue of partition, the summer of 1948 saw considerable speculation about a possible breakthrough. For this, Costello must take some responsibility, as he was prone to loose and unrealistic talk on the subject. In July, he told the Dáil that “for the first time since 1922, this Cabinet will, by its policy and its actions, give some hope of bringing back to this country the six north-eastern counties of Ulster. I must speak on that subject … with restraint and responsibility, but I do make that assertion with all the confidence that I have in me.”²²

Although there appears to have been absolutely no basis for his confidence, journalists and diplomats naturally thought there must be something behind it. Vinton Chapin, the Counsellor in the US Legation, said to Costello’s son-in-law Alexis FitzGerald that he presumed the comments “are uttered because he knows they are to be followed by deeds”. FitzGerald, knowing that this was not the case, advised his father-in-law to stress “the inevitable gradualness of any possible solution”.²³

The British and Americans believed Costello was forced to adopt a robust position on partition as a result of de Valera’s stridency on the issue during a world tour which took in the US, India and Australia.²⁴ This seems to be borne out by Costello’s assertion in a private letter that he believed de Valera “is doing great damage by his Partition speeches but, of course, they serve as the one method by which he can now publicise himself”.²⁵ However, some of those who knew the Taoiseach believed he was “very bitter about the North”, and therefore needed little encouragement to adopt a strong line on partition. Risteárd Mulcahy accompanied Costello on a trip to Donegal, during which their car became stranded on a flooded road near Omagh. They were rescued by the RUC, to whom Costello was “very rude” as a result of his hostility to the regime they represented.²⁶

But while his government pursued a “sore thumb” policy on partition—raising it at every opportunity in every international forum, no matter how inappropriate—it also co-operated with Stormont. The two governments reached agreements resolving difficulties over the Foyle fisheries, the drainage of the Erne, and the financial problems of the Great Northern Railway. At the 1951 Fine Gael Ard Fheis, Costello said these agreements “have given some grounds for the belief that friendly relations can do much to achieve eventual unity more certainly than threats of bloody warfare”.²⁷ In this he was absolutely right. But Northern Unionists were to perceive his government as more likely to break connections than to build them, thanks to the repeal of the External Relations Act.

Unionists were certainly concerned at talk in the summer of 1948 about moves on Irish unity. This talk was given added impetus by the “remarkable” number of visits to Ireland by leading British politicians, including Prime Minister Clement Attlee, Lord Chancellor William Jowitt, and Commonwealth Secretary Philip Noel-Baker.²⁸ In advance of his visit, Jowitt wrote to Costello that his visit to London for the trade talks had left “a host of friends behind you”, and that what had been done “may prove to be the foundation of a happier relationship more advantageous to both of us”.²⁹ MacBride played the main role in pushing discussions with the various visitors, to no apparent avail. However, the contacts led to a sensational story in the London Observer that Attlee was involved in talks to end partition.

When he arrived at the Border the next day, Attlee was presented with a copy of the story, which he hadn’t seen, by the young journalist John Cole. “He took a suck at his pipe, and enquired in his usual staccato tone: ‘Got y’ notebook?’ He then proceeded to dictate a statement of about 400 words, without hesitation or amendment, contradicting the Observer story, point by point.”³⁰ The story was also dismissed by officials at External Affairs, who told the American Minister, George Garrett, that they knew nothing about any talks, and that the story was “journalistic whimsy”. However, Garrett concluded that while it was unlikely that partition was in fact being discussed seriously, “one must not disregard the fact that in recent weeks the attitude of Prime Minister Costello has been one of calm assurance that progress was being made along this line”.³¹

To return to the question of the State’s constitutional status, we have a perfect indication of Costello’s view in June 1948, thanks to the ever meticulous Nicholas Nolan, Assistant Secretary of the Department of the Taoiseach. He pointed out to his boss, Maurice Moynihan, that various Yearbooks asked them for information on Ireland, including its constitutional status. In January 1947, the then Minister for External Affairs (de Valera) had agreed that the description should be “an independent Republic associated with the States of the British Commonwealth”. But what was the new Taoiseach’s view? It turned out that Costello favoured a different designation: “Ireland is a sovereign, independent, democratic State, associated with the States of the British Commonwealth.”³²These conflicting definitions were utterly consistent with the views each man had taken of the External Relations Act and the Constitution—de Valera believed the Constitution had in effect created a republic; Costello insisted that a republic could not exist while the Act was in force. But if Ireland was not quite a republic, was she a member of the Commonwealth? Costello’s definition suggests not—like de Valera, he said Ireland was merely “associated” with the Commonwealth.

Costello believed that Ireland had left when she stopped attending Commonwealth meetings.³³ He put his view on the public record in answering Dáil questions from Captain Peadar Cowan, by then a former member of Clann na Poblachta.³⁴ “The process by which Ireland ceased formally to be a member of that Commonwealth has been one of gradual development … It has ceased to be formally a member, but is associated with the other members …”³⁵ Cowan continued to ask awkward questions—was Ireland a republic? Costello said this question was “purely one of nomenclature” which he wasn’t prepared to discuss. How did Ireland become associated with the Commonwealth? “Matters of history”, according to the Taoiseach, which it would serve no useful purpose to deal with.

Cowan also wanted the Taoiseach to define the precise nature of the association. Precision, of course, was something de Valera had avoided, but Costello was not one for evasions, and on 5 August he gave the Dáil the following definition: “Ireland’s association with the Commonwealth of Nations depends on the factual position. This factual relationship … depends on the reciprocal exchange of concrete benefits in such matters as trade and citizenship rights, the principle of consultation and cooperation in matters of common concern and on the many ties of blood and friendship that exist … Our association with the nations of the Commonwealth is a free association, which, by virtue of its very freedom, could be determined by unilateral action.”³⁶

In other words, Ireland was, in Costello’s opinion, already outside the Commonwealth, although it retained an association with it. That association was governed by practical links, not by legislation, and in particular not by the External Relations Act. However, the Canadian High Commissioner in Dublin was not impressed with Costello’s idea of “association”. “Since he made this statement I have been trying to ascertain what particular association might be said to subsist between Éire and the British nations now that the Commonwealth link has been broken. I have not found any … It takes at least two to form an association and its nature and objects, its mutual rights and obligations, must be ascertained and defined. There may be good reasons why such an association should be formed, but its formation has not yet taken place …”³⁷

So did Ireland enjoy trade and citizenship rights in Britain and the other Commonwealth countries because of her association with the Commonwealth, or was she “associated” with the Commonwealth because she enjoyed trade and citizenship rights? On this point, which of course was crucial to any move to make changes in the formal relationship between Ireland and the Commonwealth, Costello appeared to be slightly confused. In the Dáil debate on the Anglo-Irish trade agreement, he stated that Ireland’s right to preferential treatment in trade with Britain and the other members of the Commonwealth would remain “so long as we are associated with the league of nations known as the British Commonwealth of Nations”.³⁸ But in fact, the Agreement gave Ireland trade advantages which were not specifically dependent on membership of, or even association with, the Commonwealth. The same was true of the British Nationality Act of 1948, which said Irish citizens who were not British subjects would be treated in the same manner as British subjects. Ironically, then, by concluding these agreements the British had already cut the ground out from under the position they would later adopt to try to prevent the repeal of the External Relations Act.

Three developments brought matters to a head in the summer of 1948: repeated difficulties on the question of official toasts; the prospect of an invitation to the Commonwealth Conference in October; and further awkward questions in the Dáil.

The question of after-dinner toasts may seem arcane, but it had a bearing on the developments which led to the repeal of the External Relations Act, and was one of the issues which annoyed Jack Costello when he was in Canada. The point was that the British did not recognise the President of Ireland as a head of state, holding that King George VI was still Head of State of Ireland by virtue of his position as head of the Commonwealth. At a lunch in Downing Street for the Irish delegation to the trade talks, Costello noted that Attlee “proposed one Toast and one Toast only, namely, The King”. The Taoiseach had expected that he would propose the toast to the King, and that Attlee would reciprocate by toasting the President. “That this protocol was not followed by the British Prime Minister was significant as demonstrating the attitude of the British … [and was] a striking confirmation of the views we held as to the confusion and difficulty created in our international relations by the External Relations Act.”³⁹

The British were aware of the Irish sensitivity on this point—Rugby told London that Lord Chancellor Jowitt had been inveigled into proposing a toast to the President of Ireland at a dinner in his honour in Dublin in August. It was the first time he had heard such a toast, and he put the new development down to Irish resentment at what he called “the London contretemps”.⁴⁰ His Canadian counterpart, William Turgeon, felt it was “part and parcel of the general scheme to substitute the President for the King in Ireland’s External Affairs”.⁴¹

While Rugby was inclined to fall in with the new Irish practice, the Commonwealth Relations Office held that it would be impossible to toast the President “without an admission that Éire was in relation to the United Kingdom a foreign country and the President of Éire in the same position as the Head of a foreign State”.⁴² With Attlee’s approval, the CRO advised the High Commissioner in Canada about the potential difficulties in advance of Costello’s visit, asking him to informally draw the attention of the Canadians to the issue.⁴³ As we shall see below, the resulting confusion over toasts strengthened Costello’s determination to clear away the ambiguities surrounding Ireland’s constitutional status, and was another British contribution to the repeal of the External Relations Act.

The second factor leading to a reappraisal of links with Britain was the forthcoming Commonwealth Conference, to be held in London in October. Ireland had not attended a Conference since the change of government in 1932; the British felt that this might change now that a new administration was in place, particularly given the important role Costello (and McGilligan) had played on the Commonwealth stage. Attlee raised possible Irish attendance with Costello during the trade talks in London in June. However, the British Prime Minister’s roundabout way of raising the subject was obviously a bit too roundabout for the Taoiseach, who did not interpret it as a definite invitation.⁴⁴ When no response arrived from Dublin, Lord Rugby was asked to raise the matter with MacBride.⁴⁵

The Clann leader duly submitted a memorandum to Government, arguing that there were matters which they might want to discuss at the Conference—such as partition, eliminating Ireland from the King’s title, and replacing High Commissioners with Ambassadors. However, it would have to be made clear that Ireland was not a member of the Commonwealth—and MacBride concluded that it would be better not to be represented.⁴⁶ On 19 August the Cabinet agreed that Ireland should not be represented as a member of the Commonwealth, but left open the possibility of attendance “otherwise than as a member of the Commonwealth, for the purpose of discussing any particular subject”, pending the receipt of further information by MacBride.⁴⁷ As Patrick Lynch pointed out, this wording “suggests that, on the day before the Taoiseach left Dublin for Canada, the government did not consider Ireland a member of the Commonwealth”.⁴⁸ This did not, though, necessarily imply any immediate repeal of the External Relations Act, which referred to Ireland being “associated” with the Commonwealth.

This Cabinet meeting—which also approved the text of Costello’s speech to the Canadian Bar Association—may have been the one recalled by MacBride in his memoirs. He claimed to have suggested that the time had come to say “straight out that we are not members of the Commonwealth”. He said his suggestion was backed by Dillon and Norton.⁴⁹ Whether this is an accurate report of the discussion will never be known. But it does appear that, as with the question of toasts, the British query about the conference had pushed Costello’s government towards clarifying Ireland’s position and removing ambiguity.

Curiously, possible Irish attendance at the October conference was still being discussed even after Costello’s Canadian press conference confirming that the External Relations Act was to go and that Ireland was no longer a member of the Commonwealth. On 6 September (the day after the Sunday Independent reported that the Act was to go), Rugby phoned MacBride to see if Ireland would be represented, and if so, by whom.⁵⁰ On the morning of the seventh (before Costello’s news conference) the two men met to discuss the Conference. Rugby reported that MacBride “stated specifically that the Éire government intended to do away with the External Relations Act”. Despite this, Rugby expected Ireland to be represented at the Conference.⁵¹ The government in Dublin took a similar view, deciding that “subject to Ireland’s position in relation to the British Commonwealth being made clear, a representative of Ireland should attend for the purpose of taking part in the discussion of certain items”.⁵² But after Costello’s Canadian announcement, the British had other ideas. Commonwealth Secretary Philip Noel-Baker told the Irish High Commissioner in London that the meeting was “exclusively one of Commonwealth Prime Ministers, and I don’t see how in these circumstances we could possibly have issued an invitation to your Prime Minister”.⁵³

The third factor pushing the Government towards making a decision was the continuing pressure in the Dáil on the External Relations Act. Following a “pretty stormy debate” on the estimates for the Department of the Taoiseach, Bill Norton suggested that he could take the Adjournment Debate before the Dáil rose for the summer to give the Taoiseach a break. Costello was more than happy to agree. However, “before anybody knew what had happened, the whole thing, the Republic and the External Relations Act and whether we were in or out of the Commonwealth was being debated all round the place”.⁵⁴

Norton told the Dáil that “it would do our national self-respect good both at home and abroad if we were to proceed without delay to abolish the External Relations Act”. De Valera responded, “You will get no opposition from us.”⁵⁵ According to Costello’s later account, these exchanges led him to raise the matter with his Government colleagues. “My clear view was that a decision to repeal it should be taken by the government before they might appear to be forced to do so by, for example, the introduction of a private member’s Bill in the Dáil to repeal the Act. I had myself arrived firmly at the conviction that it was nationally desirable that the Act should be repealed.”⁵⁶

The Government viewed Captain Peadar Cowan as the most likely source of a private member’s bill to repeal the Act. They would no doubt have been surprised to learn that de Valera, the architect of the Act, was presented with a draft Bill to repeal it on the day after the Adjournment Debate. The draft Bill was sent by his former Attorney General, Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, who said it was more complete than the one he had prepared some time before (i.e. at the end of 1947—see above), and there might be a need for it “if what you say comes to pass”.⁵⁷ It is not clear if the initiative came from the former Taoiseach or the former Attorney General. What is clear is that if de Valera had introduced this Bill in the Dáil in the autumn, it would have been politically devastating for the Government, seizing the initiative from Costello and his colleagues and possibly provoking a split with Clann na Poblachta.

In any case, according to Costello’s account, he felt it was better for the Government to act before it was forced to, and “an express decision was taken by the government that the External Relations Act should be repealed and the necessary legislation introduced immediately the Dáil reassembled”.⁵⁸ The only problem with this account is that there is absolutely no evidence in the Government archives to back it up. We saw in the previous chapter that civil servants were excluded from Cabinet meetings at this time, so it is perhaps believable that a decision would not have been recorded; but as Noël Browne pointed out, it was usual before a decision was taken to prepare a memorandum and circulate it to all other Departments for consideration and observations. This clearly didn’t happen in this instance, which left Costello open to the accusation that his announcement in Canada that the Government was to repeal the Act was taken on a whim and without proper authorisation.

Eithne MacDermott, author of a history of Clann na Poblachta, counted five sources where Costello admitted he wasn’t sure if the decision was properly minuted. These were Brian Farrell’s Chairman or Chief, Ireland Since the Famine by F.S.L. Lyons, an interview with Vincent Browne in The Citizen, the John A. Costello Remembers series in the Irish Times, and Costello’s own memorandum on the repeal of the External Relations Act. To this might be added his “Seven Days” interview with David Thornley. She concludes that “such guilty hints imply that Costello seems to have known perfectly well that this decision was never actually committed to writing”.⁵⁹ The number of repetitions may appear significant, but probably isn’t—he used his own memorandum as a brief for all of the other interviews, and like the good barrister he was, he stuck to his brief doggedly. Rather than five separate sources, there was one source repeated several times. It may also be significant that in 1959, responding to Fianna Fáil taunts in the Dáil, Costello said that if they looked up the Government records, they “will find there that the decision of the Government to repeal the External Relations Act was taken in August, before I left for Canada at all”.⁶⁰

Freddie Boland, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, told Nicholas Mansergh that “the Cabinet itself while it had discussed the desirability of repealing the External Relations Act had reached no conclusions when Mr Costello went to Canada. His announcement … came as a ‘bomb shell’ to his colleagues …”⁶¹ In an interview with journalist Bruce Arnold, later broadcast in a radio documentary, Boland said the issue had been discussed twice in Cabinet and there was a consensus that the Act would go, “but there was no decision as to when and how the job would be done”.⁶²

This view was backed by James Dillon. In his memoir, he accepted that proper procedures were not followed—there had been informal discussion and agreement round the Cabinet table, but no formal decision.⁶³ However, as noted above, MacBride told Rugby some hours before Costello’s news conference that the Government intended to do away with the Act,⁶⁴ which implies a rather more definite decision had been taken. The Minister later told Rugby that he hadn’t brought the matter up in Cabinet—it had in fact been raised by Fine Gael, “who had had such a grim time in the period of the Cosgrave government defending what they did not really believe in that they had decided this time not to find themselves in that position against a virulent Opposition”.⁶⁵

This seems to be a fair assessment of the situation—the matter had clearly been discussed at Cabinet and consensus reached, but without a full consideration of the implications, and without consulting other interested parties, most notably the British. It is significant that the Cabinet approved the drafting of a Bill to repeal the External Relations Act on 9 September—just two days after Costello’s press conference. On the form seeking urgent consideration of the matter, MacBride said that “recent developments have made it imperative that a decision should be arrived at immediately”.⁶⁶

The British were later to make much of the failure to consult them; but here Costello’s unorthodox approach arguably paid off. The British knew that the External Relations Act was to be repealed soon after the Dáil returned in the autumn. They had considered warning Dublin that repeal “would be regarded by the older members of the Commonwealth as ending her membership of the club”, but accepted that such a warning “would probably have no effect” and that “unilateral action by Éire will force the issue whatever the argument may be”.⁶⁷ Rugby later complained that Costello had crashed “the delicate fabric” of the Act, with “not one word to me as to the desirability of re-examining the difficult procedure of the External Relations Act, no suggestion of any discussion in London”.⁶⁸ However, it is clear that if Costello had broached the subject with London, he would have been confronted with endless warnings about the difficulties involved; presenting a fait accompli had its advantages.

Here the story moves across the Atlantic to Canada. Costello had been invited to Montreal to speak at a meeting of the Canadian Bar Association. The Taoiseach told his friend Michael MacWhite, the Irish Minister to Rome, that all his colleagues thought he should accept the invitation; in fact, Richard Mulcahy had earlier told MacWhite that “both our national and international affairs will … be better served by his being at home”.⁶⁹ Despite Mulcahy’s reservations, the invitation was accepted; once it was, the Canadian Government offered Costello hospitality, including the use of a Government railway carriage.⁷⁰ The Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, was less than enthralled at the prospect of the visit, which was one of many official visits at around this time, as he prepared for his retirement. He complained in his diary, “It is just appalling the number of engagements connected with this visit and other social events next week … All involving more preparation of speeches, days in the city etc and this at a moment when the last hours of the summer are flying so swiftly by.”⁷¹

In advance of the visit, the Canadians worried that Costello might say something which would cause controversy. William Turgeon, the High Commissioner in Dublin, on his own initiative suggested to the Taoiseach that “he should consider his mission to Canada as one of a lawyer speaking to lawyers and speaking only of subjects in which members of the profession are interested”. He also informed him that “the Irish Catholic people in Canada are not at all anti-British, that the great majority of them hold about the same views on Empire and Commonwealth questions as other English-speaking Canadians. I think he was surprised to hear this.” Lester Pearson, the undersecretary of state for External Affairs, welcomed Turgeon’s “gentle warning” to Costello, saying it “should prevent him from making statements which might cause embarrassing controversies in Canada”.⁷²

The Irish Department of External Affairs was also concerned about what Costello might say, with Secretary Freddie Boland writing a personal letter to the Irish High Commissioner in Ottawa, John Hearne, setting out in detail MacBride’s views. He said it was generally recognised that the “days of the External Relations Act are numbered” and that they should proceed on the assumption that it would be repealed in the near future. “In the meantime, it is very important that any statement made about our relations with the Commonwealth should emphasise the undesirability and inappropriateness in our case of any constitutional arrangements of the kind which Britain and the overseas dominions maintain between themselves as symbols of their association in the Commonwealth …” Boland advised that Costello should avoid “any public statement which had too ‘Commonwealthish’ a flavour”.⁷³ Which, as it turned out, was not to be a problem.

Costello left Government Buildings for Cork on the afternoon of 20 August, embarked on the Mauritania from Cobh on the twenty-second, and arrived in New York five days later. He was accompanied by his wife, Ida, by Patrick Lynch, and by his ADC Mick Byrne (who received permission from the Canadians to bring his revolver with him).⁷⁴ They travelled in some style—first class on the Mauritania on the outward leg, and the Britannic on the return; staying in the landmark Château Frontenac in Quebec and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. The weather in New York was extremely warm, with temperatures of 104 degrees (40 degrees Celsius),⁷⁵ and the party had to buy extra summer clothes in New York at their own expense.⁷⁶

On his arrival in Montreal on 30 August, Costello was met by Hearne and John T. Hackett, President of the Canadian Bar Association (he was at this point still a guest of the Association rather than the Canadian Government). At a press conference, he told journalists that as he was a guest of the Bar Association, he did not “propose to express any views at present on controversial political matters”.

On Wednesday 1 September, he delivered his lunchtime address to around one thousand lawyers at the Bar Association lunch. His theme was “Ireland in International Affairs”. The text of this speech had been considered and approved by Cabinet before Costello left Dublin—the only time a speech was so approved, according to MacBride.⁷⁷ Despite his injunction to Hearne about avoiding Commonwealth themes, Boland drafted a speech which concentrated on the development of the Commonwealth, and was in line with Costello’s views as expressed at various Imperial conferences which Boland had attended. He avoided references to the External Relations Act (in line with MacBride’s wishes). But when he showed it to Costello, the Taoiseach remarked, “It’s fine, but there’s too much of the smell of Empire about this.”⁷⁸

Whether or not Costello made many changes to Boland’s original draft, the final speech traced the well-trodden path of the constitutional development of the Commonwealth under Irish, South African and Canadian prompting. He explained why Ireland in the 1920s could not accept the Crown as enthusiastically as the other members of the Commonwealth (except South Africa). “The harp without the Crown symbolised the ideal of Irish independence and nationhood. The harp beneath the Crown was the symbol of conquest.”

In dealing with the External Relations Act, he repeated many of his criticisms of 1936, pointing out, as he had then in the Dáil, that according to the Statute of Westminster the Crown was the symbol of free association, not the symbol of co-operation as de Valera’s text had it. He said the Act ignored the formalities of the issue of full powers to negotiate or sign treaties; and it dealt with the appointment, but not the reception, of diplomatic representatives. The most quoted sentence of his speech said, “The inaccuracies and infirmities of these provisions are apparent.” However, he then went on to ask, “is it fruitful … to enquire too legalistically into the nature of Ireland’s association with the Commonwealth?”⁷⁹ The implicit answer was no—so his audience could be forgiven for thinking that the speech signalled no new departure. Certainly the British High Commissioner in Canada didn’t think much of the address, saying it “lasted an hour and a half and went into details of Irish politics with which most of the audience were unfamiliar and considerably bored”.⁸⁰

Whatever about the speech, the next few days saw a series of events that formed a controversial backdrop to Costello’s confirmation at a news conference that the External Relations Act was to be repealed. He later wrote that he was subject to “the most extraordinary, fantastic and completely unfounded” allegations as to why he had said what he had. These stories suggested that “in a fit of pique … I on my own responsibility ‘declared the Republic in Canada’ … [that] I got annoyed, summoned the representatives of the press, and on my own initiative proceeded to declare the intention of my colleagues and myself to repeal the External Relations Act”.⁸¹ Costello’s indignation was obvious, but misplaced. While he had very good reasons for what he said at the press conference, as we will see below, he was also the main source of suggestions that he had been annoyed at his treatment at the hands of the Governor General of Canada, Lord Harold Alexander, a distinguished British soldier with family connections to Northern Ireland.

The first point of friction occurred the day after Costello’s speech to the Bar Association, when the Taoiseach and his wife attended a garden party in the grounds of McGill University in Montreal. In his official diary of the trip, Patrick Lynch noted, “Atmosphere rather chilly … Governor General … very cool and reserved. Suspect he was displeased by some passages in Taoiseach’s address to the Bar Association. In general he appears to be either anti-social or somewhat hostile.” Costello later complained to President Seán T. O’Kelly that while he and his wife had been asked by an aide to join the Governor General’s party for tea in a special marquee, Lord Alexander did not greet them or speak to them when they were there.⁸² The Canadian chargé d’affaires in Dublin commented that while Costello “is a very genial person usually … there is a touch of sourness about him … He would pass lightly on the fact that the Governor General had sought him to come and have tea under his tent, a gesture of great courtesy, and would brood over the fact that there was no conversation between the two …”⁸³

On Saturday 4 September, the Taoiseach’s party left Montreal for Ottawa. He was met on his arrival by Prime Minister Mackenzie King, who recorded the Taoiseach’s gratitude in his diary: “He was so appreciative of my being at the station and I felt happy that I had given up the morning to this end.”⁸⁴ After his visit, Costello “spoke feelingly of his meetings with Mr Mackenzie King and of the honour done him in Mr King … having met him personally on his arrival in Ottawa”.⁸⁵ But his satisfaction at his treatment was not to last.

That evening, the Costellos attended a dinner hosted by the Governor General and Lady Alexander. As guests of honour, Jack and Ida Costello were seated on the right of Lady and Lord Alexander respectively.⁸⁶ Two problems arose—the question of toasts and, bizarrely, the table decorations. Hearne believed he had received a promise from W.H. Measures, the Head of Protocol of the Canadian Department of External Affairs, that both the King and the President of Ireland would be toasted. But the latter toast was not given.⁸⁷ Measures later claimed that while Hearne had raised the issue with him, he had advised him to contact Government House about it.⁸⁸ (It may be significant that Measures did agree to have a toast to the President on the menu card for a later dinner given by Mackenzie King, much to the annoyance of the Prime Minister, as we shall see below. Hearne may have gained the impression that Measures had agreed to a toast on both occasions.) Officials at Government House denied hearing anything about the toast, so Lord Alexander certainly didn’t know about it.

More famously, on the table in front of Costello was a replica of Roaring Meg, one of the cannon used in the defence of the Siege of Derry. This ornament had been presented to Alexander when he was made a Freeman of the City of Londonderry some six months previously. When questions were later raised about its use, Canadian officials pointed out that it was “constantly used by the Governor General as a centrepiece on the dining room table at formal functions at Government House … the placing of this ornament on the table at the time of the Costello visit was quite a routine proceeding and … it did not occur to anyone that it should not be used”.⁸⁹ Costello “considered the matter as being in very bad taste”, but decided not to make any comment so as not to embarrass Mackenzie King, who was seated on the other side of Lady Alexander. The Canadian Prime Minister evidently didn’t notice any awkwardness, writing in his diary that it was “a very pleasant party. I much enjoyed the talks with the different guests present.”⁹⁰

In his memorandum, Costello admitted that he thought at first that the failure to honour the toast was a deliberate action on the part of Alexander, but that he had later come to the conclusion that he would not have been guilty of such conduct. “It would certainly have been an extraordinary action for the Governor General to take on his own initiative … It seems to me to be inconceivable that Lord Alexander would deliberately take a step which would be an insult to this country … I therefore acquit Lord Alexander of any complicity in omitting to propose the Toast of The President of Ireland, as had been arranged with the Chief of Protocol of the Canadian Department of External Affairs.”

However, this considered account was written in the 1960s—the significant point is that at the time, Costello believed he, and Ireland, had been deliberately snubbed. And on his return to Dublin he relayed his indignation—both at the omission of the toast and the presence of Roaring Meg—to at least two independent witnesses, President Seán T. O’Kelly and Frank MacDermott, who gleefully passed it on.

MacDermott, the former Centre Party leader and founding Vice-President of Fine Gael, was then living in Paris, where he was the Sunday Times correspondent. He interviewed Costello about the repeal of the External Relations Act, and was given a full (and, no doubt, vivid) account of the “insults” he had received from the Governor General. This part of the interview was off the record, which didn’t stop MacDermott telling Lord Rugby, who in turn informed the Canadian High Commissioner, Turgeon.⁹¹ MacDermott also relayed the story directly to Lester Pearson, Canada’s new Minister of External Affairs, when the latter was in Paris.⁹²

The second source was President O’Kelly, who told Rugby in December that he had asked Costello why he had made his announcement in Canada, and that the Taoiseach replied, “Because I was stung into it,” then relating his complaints about the garden party, the toasts, and Roaring Meg.⁹³ O’Kelly was so taken with the story that he was still repeating it a year later, this time to the new Canadian Ambassador, David Johnson.⁹⁴ After receiving all these reports, the Canadians looked into the matter, but concluded that while the alleged incidents may have prompted an earlier than anticipated announcement, they certainly did not cause the decision to repeal the Act and to leave the Commonwealth. As the chargé d’affaires in Dublin, Joseph Chapdelaine, commented, “Mr Costello was rarin’ to go and, almost like a child with a secret, could not hold it …”⁹⁵

Costello also repeated the same story to Senators William Bedell Stanford and William Fearon, both representatives of Trinity College, who had raised questions about the timing and location of the announcement during the Seanad debate on the Republic of Ireland Bill. They were called to the Taoiseach’s room in Leinster House, a call Stanford compared to “being summoned to the Headmaster’s study”. Costello again went through the way he was treated—the absence of the toast, Roaring Meg, and so on—leaving the two Senators with the clear impression that “the immediate cause of his precipitate announcement in Canada had been indignation rather than calculation—and, as we know, he was by nature rather irascible—understandable indignation in the light of what looked like insults”.⁹⁶

While Stanford and Fearon didn’t spread the story to diplomats as MacDermott and O’Kelly did, they presumably weren’t the only people Costello told the story to. He was later to complain about the “legend” that he “declared the Republic” because he was insulted. But the legend originated with Jack Costello, who only had himself to blame for the widespread belief that his press conference performance was prompted by these incidents. As his assistant Patrick Lynch pointed out, the Taoiseach, as an experienced constitutional lawyer, was unlikely to have been influenced on such an important issue by perceived insults, “whatever their later utility as conversational material”. However, by repeatedly making use of this conversational material, Costello had “gradually … created a mythology that grew with repetition and, for some people served as a substitute explanation for the reality of the press conference”.⁹⁷

One other incident should be mentioned, a typical example of Costello’s rather careless choice of words on occasion. On the evening after the Government House dinner, he recorded a broadcast for the CBC National Network. In it, he claimed that “the virus of atheistic Communism is poisoning the bloodstream of nations and peoples. The Irish nation is anxious to cooperate with all nations in creating the conditions of a just and permanent peace … We cannot but feel that Canada and Ireland might fruitfully share the task of laying the foundations of a citadel of freedom which may shelter all free democracies in this threatened world.”⁹⁸

These sentiments, while admirably anti-communist, were also admirably vague and non-committal. However, in an interview with journalists after the broadcast, Costello was reported to have become considerably more bellicose, saying that Ireland would come to Canada’s aid if she were ever threatened by war from communists. This promise, given Ireland’s military strength, did not overly impress the journalists, one of whom “asked the rather pointed question whether Ireland was spending much money on defence. Mr Costello replied that not much money was being spent since the government was trying to improve its system of social security.”⁹⁹

Costello denied making the comments attributed to him—the Irish Independent incorrectly reported that he had made the comments during the radio broadcast rather than after,¹⁰⁰ so he was able to point to his script, which of course didn’t mention the promise of aid. The Taoiseach told Bill Norton that “some of the Canadian papers are really beyond everything. It was impossible to read into anything I said what they said I said.”¹⁰¹ But MacBride evidently agreed with the Taoiseach’s reported comments, rather bizarrely telling the American Minister, George Garrett, “If any country is attacked by Communists, we’re in it.”¹⁰² The report of Costello’s promise of aid was also accepted as accurate by the Canadians (who were not overly impressed by it). Fianna Fáil would make great play of his comments, with Seán Lemass even claiming his press conference announcement was an attempt to distract attention from them.

But while conspiracy theories about Roaring Meg or threats of war are entertaining, they are entirely irrelevant. For as Costello told Norton in his letter, “it was really the article in the Sunday Independent that decided me … to state publicly that we intended to repeal the External Relations Act”.¹⁰³

On 5 September, the Sunday Independent splashed on its front page the news that the Government had decided to repeal the Act, quoting various statements by Cabinet members and declaring that “it must be taken for granted that the change that honour demands will be made”. In particular, it pointed to Costello’s “very important” speech to the Canadian Bar Association; Norton’s statement in the Adjournment Debate in the Dáil; MacBride’s speech on the External Affairs estimate; and Dillon’s statements in opposition. It also quoted an article by Nicholas Mansergh predicting the demise of the Act. The paper’s editor, Hector Legge, wrote the story, and always denied claims that it was based on a leak from a Cabinet Minister. It is certainly believable that the repeal of the External Relations Act could be predicted on the basis of “journalistic intuition” as he claimed. However, he went further, pointing out that both Costello and MacBride had said Ireland was no longer in the Commonwealth. The story continued, “honesty of purpose may soon find the present Government declaring that we are a Republic”.¹⁰⁴ Legge’s certainty suggests that he had been given a clear steer on the story—the question is by whom. Legge was friendly with both Dillon and MacBride, either of whom might have had a motive for wanting this particular kite given a test flight.

Two decades later, Costello told Michael McInerney of the Irish Times that the story “worried and surprised me. It seemed to me to be quite obvious that the story was not just ‘intelligent anticipation’ but was the result of a ‘leak’ from some person with inside knowledge.” He refused to tell McInerney which minister he believed was responsible “although he seemed to have a shrewd idea who it was”.¹⁰⁵ In fact, he indicated to Nicholas Mansergh that he believed MacBride to be responsible for a deliberate leak.¹⁰⁶

However, on the day after the story appeared, MacBride sent a telegram urging the Taoiseach not to comment on the Sunday Independent story.¹⁰⁷ As MacBride’s biographer points out, this was “a strange response if Seán had been the leak”.¹⁰⁸ But what is on the written record may not have been the only advice offered by MacBride. Louie O’Brien, his personal secretary (who also believed he was responsible for the leak), claimed that he phoned Costello and said the easiest thing to do was to confirm the story, even offering to consult other members of the Cabinet to secure their approval.¹⁰⁹

The only other supporting evidence for this story comes from Patrick Lynch, who along with John Hearne was trying to persuade Costello to avoid commenting. The Taoiseach said he was expecting a telephone call from Dublin. “I have no record of that call, but I do remember his referring later to a telephone conversation he had with Seán MacBride before his press conference.”¹¹⁰ It may also be significant that on the morning of the news conference, MacBride met Rugby and “stated specifically that the Éire government intended to do away with the External Relations Act”.¹¹¹ It is possible that he may have done so because he was anticipating that Costello would confirm the Sunday Independent story later in the day. The evidence is far from conclusive, but if there was a telephone conversation between the two men, it might explain why Costello suspected MacBride of leaking the story in the first place.

The question became more urgent on the Sunday evening, with a phone call from a Canadian journalist looking for a comment from the Taoiseach on the Sunday Independent story. Costello’s reply, delivered by Hearne, was a simple “no comment”. However, he had already agreed to a request from the press gallery of the Canadian parliament to hold a news conference on the Tuesday morning.¹¹² Clearly he would be asked about the External Relations Act. Costello felt he had four options—decline to make any comment (which would have been “at least a qualified admission of the truth of the report”); deny the story; confirm it; or say that the matter would be dealt with on the return of the Dáil (which would also be seen as “an implied admission”). Costello concluded that as the report was in fact true, “there was nothing in honesty and decency open to me but to admit the truth”.¹¹³

A “no comment” might have been seen as an implicit admission that the story was true, as Costello surmised; but it would have saved him a lot of criticism, then and later. The slights he believed he had received at the hands of Lord Alexander didn’t lead to the decision to repeal the External Relations Act; but they may well have influenced Costello’s choice to confirm this decision to the media. He decided to do so despite the strong urgings of Hearne and Lynch. “He said that if I’m asked the question I’m not going to prevaricate … if I’m asked a direct question I’ll say yes.” This he did, confirming that it was his government’s intention to repeal the External Relations Act. But he also answered in the affirmative when asked if this meant Ireland was leaving the Commonwealth. Lynch was surprised at this, asking the Taoiseach later if it was wise to have done so. Characteristically, Costello replied, “No qualification.”¹¹⁴

After the news conference, he rang his son Declan, asking him to tell both MacBride and Mulcahy what had transpired. MacBride, who didn’t seem surprised, said, “That’s very good news.” Mulcahy also thanked Declan for informing him.¹¹⁵ This appeared to be the first either had heard about it, which undermines Freddie Boland’s claim that MacBride was “knocked out” by the news when he told him about it while he was having dinner with Rugby.¹¹⁶ Rugby’s impression was that MacBride was “not a little surprised—indeed perturbed—by this sudden unconventional development”.¹¹⁷ When this account appeared, MacBride claimed he was only surprised because anyone was surprised at what Costello had said, “in view of the speeches made for some months and of the banner headlines which had appeared in one of our leading newspapers only four days before. I certainly was not ‘perturbed’ in any sense that could be construed as indicating disapproval …”¹¹⁸

However, two days after the press conference, Rugby reported to London that MacBride had told him “as a personal confidence that neither he nor any member of the Cabinet here had any idea that Mr Costello was likely to make any statement in Canada on the subject of the External Relations Act … I am sure that Mr MacBride is sincere in this.”¹¹⁹ Boland, meanwhile, was telling anyone who rang him up to inquire about the news that “our Prime Minister has simply made an awful gaffe”.¹²⁰ It seems clear from all these accounts that nobody disputed the accuracy of Costello’s statement that the Government intended to repeal the External Relations Act. The surprise was caused by the fact that he actually admitted this when asked. Clearly, it was felt that the more diplomatic approach would have been to evade the question.

Costello’s announcement also came as a surprise to Mackenzie King. “I had known that this question was coming up at the meeting of Prime Ministers but had not anticipated anything of the kind would be announced in Ottawa, and certainly not on the day of the government giving the Prime Minister a dinner.” At that dinner—in the Ottawa Country Club—Costello explained what he had said at the press conference, and regretted that the newspapers “always make heavy headlines”. Mackenzie King, meanwhile, was more concerned about the printed menu cards, which contained two toasts—to the King, and to the President of Ireland. Mackenzie King was appalled, as he realized that this “was equivalent to regarding Ireland as an entirely separate country with a President as head of state. A state as much independent of the British Crown as the USA.” He held Measures, the head of protocol in the (Canadian) Department of External Affairs, responsible.

With a certain amount of hyperbole, the Prime Minister claimed in his diary that this situation was “filled with dynamite which might have occasioned an explosion which would have been far reaching indeed”. However, when he raised his problem with Costello, the Taoiseach said he didn’t want to embarrass him in any way. The compromise was that while Costello would propose the toast to the King, the Canadian would respond by toasting the President of Éire, as opposed to Ireland. The change of name avoided upsetting those at the function with links to Northern Ireland, including Lady Alexander. But Costello would have been well pleased, as the toast to the President, however he was described, confirmed independent Irish status. Mackenzie King was happy too, noting that in his “very pleasing and helpful” speech, Costello “spoke of the Commonwealth of Nations as if he was still a member of it” and “did not go into any controversy”.¹²¹

On 9 September Costello and Hearne went for lunch to Mackenzie King’s home at Kingsmere outside Ottawa. During the three hours he was there, Costello outlined (at what was obviously considerable length) his position on the repeal of the External Relations Act. John Hearne recorded the conversation, although he pointed out that “no summary could adequately record the Taoiseach’s objective and masterly presentation of the historic Irish case against the Crown. He was superb.”¹²²

In his diary, Mackenzie King was less fulsome: “It seemed to me that Costello was quite sincere in his whole argument and that his statement was logical enough.” King recorded Costello as saying that Ireland would like to continue as a nation associated with the Commonwealth, but not on the basis of allegiance to the Crown. He also said Costello “wanted to bring about a situation where Irishmen wherever they were, would be prepared to fight to maintain a Christian civilization”.¹²³ This latter statement didn’t appear in other records of the conversation.

Costello believed he had persuaded Mackenzie King of the validity of the Irish position, which would lead to Canadian support in the future. Specifically, he told Norton that the Prime Minister was “a very good friend … who will advocate us when he is in London next month”.¹²⁴ In fact, Mackenzie King had already discussed the matter with his Cabinet, where a number of Ministers including St Laurent were “pretty strong on the idea of no severance, with allegiance part of the Crown”. But after discussion they came round to his view that “it might perhaps be better for peace loving nations of the world to hold together on some kind of basis that would not, for the present, be too clearly defined”.¹²⁵

Given the invaluable support the Irish received from St Laurent during the Paris and Chequers talks, Costello’s discussions with Mackenzie King were not without value. The Taoiseach was also clearly impressed to be presented with a copy of the Prime Minister’s book, Industry and Humanity, noting that Mackenzie King inscribed a message on it “in his own writing”.¹²⁶ Luckily, he didn’t appear to notice that, as the Canadian Prime Minister recorded in his diary, “it was not the latest edition”.¹²⁷

On Friday the tenth, Mackenzie King attended a lunch at the Canadian Club, where Costello made a speech praising him. While the Prime Minister affected to find the compliments a bit over the top, he made sure to record them all in his diary anyway.¹²⁸ That afternoon, the Irish party left for Quebec, later travelling to Toronto (where a side trip took them to Niagara Falls), before visiting Boston and New York. They sailed home on the Britannic, which flew the Tricolour in honour of the Taoiseach, the Captain having explained that “his grandfather was a Fenian”. According to Costello, the party were so tired after their busy schedule that they slept through a hurricane.¹²⁹ A storm of a different kind was waiting for them at home.

The Britannic arrived in Cobh at 6 a.m. on Friday 1 October,¹³⁰ and a number of ministers went out by ferry to greet the Taoiseach and have breakfast with him, after his eventful month away. Mulcahy commented to Patrick Lynch that “the Taoiseach has been drinking some very heady wine in Canada”. But if this was an indication of irritation at Costello’s performance abroad, no such irritation was displayed by MacBride. Lynch drove back to Dublin with him, stopping off at Abbeyleix for lunch, where they discussed events thoroughly. According to Lynch, the Minister for External Affairs “queried nothing, he just began commenting on the favourable impression that Costello had given in Canada”.¹³¹

On his return to Dublin, the Taoiseach addressed an enthusiastic crowd of several thousand, who gathered in the rain outside the Mansion House to hear him. He told them that the repeal of the External Relations Act would lead to the end of bitterness and the removal of “all causes of strife between every section of the people”. His ministers were reported to have greeted him warmly¹³²—but was this merely a public show of affection masking irritation at his Canadian adventure? The acting Canadian High Commissioner, Priestman, noted the absence of Dillon from the Mansion House, and drew the conclusion that “all is not well in the pro-Commonwealth wing of the Government … I have seen Mr Dillon in town recently and there would not therefore appear to be any substantial reason for his absence … particularly as he is known to be fond of the public platform …”¹³³

This, however, showed a misunderstanding of the position of the Minister for Agriculture, who had been one of those pushing for repeal, believing the External Relations Act amounted to “living a lie”.¹³⁴ If any minister had qualms about Costello’s comments, they evidently decided that jettisoning the Commonwealth was preferable to jettisoning the Taoiseach, which it quickly became obvious were the only alternatives on offer.

Here we come to yet another controversy—this time over a claim by Noël Browne that at a caucus meeting of ministers held shortly after Costello’s return, the Taoiseach offered to resign because “he deeply regretted his unconstitutional action” in announcing a decision which the Cabinet had not yet authorised.¹³⁵ Browne claimed the meeting was held in Costello’s house. All surviving members of the Cabinet (Costello was dead by the time the claim was made) denied that any such meeting took place and that any such resignation offer was made. Declan Costello and Patrick Lynch also denied all knowledge of such a meeting. Given Browne’s tendency to exaggerate, and his sometimes casual approach to the facts (particularly evident in his autobiography), his account was treated with some scepticism.

However, Government records contain conclusive proof that a meeting was in fact held in Costello’s house at around the time Browne claimed it was, and that the Taoiseach’s actions in Canada were discussed. A note by the Assistant Secretary in the Department of the Taoiseach, Nicholas Nolan, on Thursday 7 October said that a meeting was to be held in the Taoiseach’s house that evening,¹³⁶ as does an entry in Costello’s appointments diary.¹³⁷ A further note by Nolan on a Cabinet decision, approving Costello’s actions while in Canada and the United States, asked if it is to be dated 7 October (the day of the meeting in Herbert Park) or the eleventh (the date of the next formal Cabinet meeting).¹³⁸

So Browne was right about the meeting. Was he also right about the offer of resignation? In an interview for an RTÉ Radio documentary, Browne said that Costello “blurted out this thing, if you want I’ll resign”. He said Seán MacEoin dismissed the idea out of hand, saying there was no need for Costello to resign, a position backed by Browne himself.¹³⁹ This suggests the idea of resignation had not been fully thought through—and a slightly defensive, emotional and ill-considered remark like this would not have been out of character for Jack Costello, particularly given the fact that he had just hours before received a rather disturbing communication from the British Government (a factor which was not highlighted by Browne, but which would explain why Costello might have thought it proper to at least offer his colleagues a way out of a potentially sticky situation).

The message from London (undated, unsigned, and on un-headed notepaper) was handed to him by Lord Rugby in Government Buildings on Thursday 7 October at ten past one. It warned that if the repeal of the Act meant that Éire became a foreign country, there would be “important consequences, particularly in the field of preferences and nationality”. The UK had treaty obligations to offer Most Favoured Nation treatment to a number of foreign countries “which would preclude us from according to Éire that special treatment which on other grounds we would wish to accord her”. The note suggested talks on these issues before Dublin took further action. Rugby reported to London that Costello “was rather on the defensive in regard to his recent pronouncement and repeatedly stressed the firm intention to strengthen the friendship underlying the steps he was about to take. I said that we had been and still were rather in the dark about it all …”¹⁴⁰

This British approach may well have brought home to Costello the potential difficulties he had created for himself, and if he did in fact talk about resignation this was probably the reason, rather than a guilty conscience over acting without Cabinet sanction. But the meeting of ministers in Herbert Park backed him, and the formal Cabinet minutes record that “the action taken by the Taoiseach during his visit to Canada and the United States was approved”.¹⁴¹

However, it appears his colleagues kept a close eye on Costello’s public statements from then on. When MacBride found out that the Taoiseach was planning a press conference, he intervened to make sure there would be no questions. Rugby observed that here “on a smaller scale we see reproduced the Marshall-Truman pattern in the management of affairs of state”.¹⁴² And while most of his 3-hour speech on the second stage of the Republic of Ireland Bill was delivered off the cuff, the section relating to trade and citizenship rights was read from a text supplied by External Affairs.¹⁴³

It is clear from Rugby’s reports to London that he held Costello personally responsible for developments, saying the Taoiseach had “conducted this business in a slapdash and amateur fashion”. He later added that Fine Gael “had a sudden brainwave that they could steal the ‘Long Man’s’ clothes … They are all somewhat bewildered by their own sudden illogical iconoclasm and must now find high sounding phrases to justify it.”¹⁴⁴

This resentment was returned with interest by Costello, who by the end of October had developed “a curiously truculent bitterness towards the British”, according to Vinton Chapin of the American legation. Costello told Chapin that the External Relations Act was “a humbug arrangement”, adding that if the British wanted to treat them as aliens “that’s all right with us, we’ve been trying to establish that status for seven hundred years”. He appeared confident that the trade and nationality questions could be resolved—the British had already given commitments on both these matters, and trying to escape from them would risk their relationship with India. Chapin observed that Costello’s attitude “may result from emotional reaction as well as from stress of official responsibilities, plus advice received on grounds of political expediency”.¹⁴⁵

A similar assessment of Costello’s attitude was made by the British, after the Irish suggested a conference involving the main Commonwealth countries to discuss the implications of repeal¹⁴⁶ (involving Canada, Australia and New Zealand was smart politics, as they acted as a restraining influence on the British). A memorandum for Attlee suggested that Costello should be “pressed to come himself. But should he be asked to bring Mr MacBride as well? My information is that Mr Costello is very emotional on this question and cannot easily be made to look at the facts. There is apparently some reason to believe that Mr MacBride would be more calm …”¹⁴⁷

The irony of the British looking to the former Chief of Staff of the IRA to restrain the former delegate to Commonwealth conferences is striking. But Costello did not take part in the discussion. MacBride and McGilligan met the British and Commonwealth representatives, first at Chequers and then in Paris. The Taoiseach’s absence is curious. While not on a par with that of de Valera from the Treaty negotiations in 1921, it does suggest that either he or his colleagues agreed with the American and British assessment of his emotional state.

McGilligan and MacBride, with the strong and crucial support of the Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders, reached agreement with the British that neither side would say anything to make it more difficult to maintain that they were not foreign countries; Ireland and the Commonwealth countries would exchange reciprocal citizenship rights; and the Irish would co-operate with the British to fight claims based on Most Favoured Nation status.¹⁴⁸

While his political judgement when speaking in public may have been suspect, there was no doubt about Costello’s legal skills. MacBride’s draft of the bill to repeal the External Relations Act was titled “The Executive Powers of the State (International Relations) Bill”, and included the following as Section 1(2): “In any instrument relating to the executive power of the state in or in connection with its external relations, the state may be referred to as the Republic of Ireland (or the Irish Republic).”¹⁴⁹ As well as being extraordinarily wordy, it was rather unclear and unduly permissive (“may be referred to …”). On his copy of the Bill, Costello redrafted the section to the far simpler and more direct “The description of the State shall be the Republic of Ireland.” He also changed the title to “The Republic of Ireland Bill”.¹⁵⁰

Ronan Fanning suggests that these changes “bear out the interpretation that it was Costello’s … impatience with the ambiguities of the External Relations Act and a determination that there be an end to ambiguity which gave the legislation its shape and substance”.¹⁵¹ MacBride’s version would have added ambiguity; Costello’s removed it. Costello also showed his determination to assert ownership of the legislation by deciding to bring it through the Oireachtas. His officials had assumed MacBride would do so.¹⁵²

This decision was interpreted by Noël Browne as a slight to MacBride—in fact, it was urged on Costello by his son-in-law, Alexis FitzGerald, as a way of explaining to Fine Gael supporters how and why he decided on repeal. FitzGerald admitted that “my own reaction to the announcement … was one of unhappiness, until I grasped what had been done and what the possibilities of the situation were”. However, he pointed out, “there are serious Unionists who seriously support Fine Gael on the grounds that the party could be relied on more than the others to support the British connection … I think these people deserve the attention of a well thought out argument.”¹⁵³

Well thought out arguments were not going to restore Costello’s relationship with the Irish Times, though—the paper claimed, “the standard of political honesty in Ireland has been lowered grievously by the action of Mr Costello and his Fine Gael colleagues”.¹⁵⁴During the 1951 election campaign, the paper badly misquoted the Taoiseach in a headline, which read, “Fine Gael Glories in break with Commonwealth—Mr Costello”. In fact, as the body of the story made clear, Costello said Fine Gael “gloried in the fact that the severance of the link with the British Commonwealth brought peace to the country and took the gunplay out of Irish politics”. His son-in-law wrote to the paper the following day to point out the distortion, adding that “fair accounts” were given in both the Irish Independent and—more surprisingly—the Irish Press.¹⁵⁵

Despite the attitude of the Irish Times, Costello always denied that the declaration of the Republic lost the Protestant vote for Fine Gael. He insisted to John Kelly (later a Fine Gael Attorney General) that that vote had been lost in 1932—Protestants had all expected to be murdered in their beds when de Valera got into power, and had been voting for him since out of gratitude that they weren’t!¹⁵⁶ And of course, while the pro-Commonwealth vote may have been alienated, Costello’s move had widened his party’s appeal, as his son-in-law observed: “By one stroke of genius politically, you have placed Fine Gael back in the centre of the national tradition right where Mick Collins had it. No longer will young Fine Gael politicians have to engage in the hopeless task of defending the Commonwealth association.”¹⁵⁷

Fianna Fáil—particularly Frank Aiken—made a point of highlighting Costello’s unlikely credentials as a Republican, particularly as he had for years described himself as a King’s Counsel. As the Taoiseach admitted to Aiken in the Dáil, those called to the Inner Bar since 1924 were called Senior Counsel. Aiken pointed out Costello was described in the telephone book and in various directories as a K.C. and said that “some people have grave doubts as to whether he is a Republican masquerading as a King’s man or a King’s man masquerading as a Republican”.¹⁵⁸ In Aiken’s papers is a copy of a ballad lampooning “Jay Cee the S.C. from Dublin Town [who] described himself as K.C. to win favour for the Crown”.¹⁵⁹ Aiken raised the issue a number of times in the Dáil—Costello eventually suggested in exasperation that he should see a psychiatrist.¹⁶⁰

Costello’s speech introducing the second stage of the Republic of Ireland Bill was a marathon, lasting three hours. He said the Bill would “end forever, in a simple, clear and unequivocal way this country’s long and tragic association with the institution of the British Crown and will make it manifest beyond equivocation or subtlety that the national and international status of this country is that of an independent republic”. He claimed the measure would be “an instrument of domestic peace, of national unity and of international concord and goodwill”. The Taoiseach added, with more than a hint of self-deprecation, that over the previous quarter century, we “have had rather too much … of constitutional law and constitutional lawyers”.

But how could he explain the apparent change in Fine Gael’s approach to the Commonwealth? Ingeniously, he blamed the British. His party had attempted to honour the Treaty; but once the British tamely accepted de Valera’s undermining of the settlement of 1921, “those who were under an obligation to maintain that Treaty were released”.

He admitted that when answering questions from Peadar Cowan in July and August he had “walked very warily” and hadn’t expressed his personal opinion; but now he did—Ireland had not been a member of the Commonwealth since 1936. But while clearing up ambiguities was important, it was not the Government’s main reason for introducing the measure. The most important factor in the decision was, he insisted, to “put an end to the bitterness and conflict between sections of our people”.

“It has been my lot to assist at the birth of two Constitutions of this State. It has been my misfortune, if I may put it that way, during the six years when I was Attorney-General, to devise and put into operation here measures which were and which were admitted to be oppressive in order to try to combat acts of violence of one kind or another … I took no pleasure in carrying out the functions thrust upon me at that time. But the experience that I had then left its mark upon me … I was determined that never again would I take any part in a Government that had to enforce order by extra-judicial processes. I never will … I ask for a verdict on this measure which will put an end to violence, bring into being domestic peace and concord amongst Irishmen so that never again will an Irish Government have to execute an Irishman because he wants a republic … We are going to put an end to that here once and for all.”¹⁶¹

Many thought the speech a tour de force; not surprisingly, Lord Rugby was not one of them. He felt that Costello’s “painfully prolonged exposition did not ring at all true … Not being altogether happy in his own soul, Mr Costello abandoned the quiet tone which suits him best, and frequently broke into the traditional style of the flamboyant Irish orator. Since the substance was not convincing these efforts did not produce a ringing echo … there was too much humbug about it all for supporters as well as opponents.”¹⁶²

As the new year dawned, Jack Costello had cause for satisfaction—preparations for the declaration of the Republic were well under way, and none of the dire consequences threatened by the British were going to transpire. It appeared he and his government would be none the worse for his adventure in diplomacy. His daughter Eavan, in a post-Christmas letter, noted that “Daddy is not quite so busy now that we are all safely Republicans!”¹⁶³ But the repeal of the External Relations Act was to have unwelcome effects north of the Border.

In November, Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister, Sir Basil Brooke, met Attlee at Chequers to seek ways to compensate for the change in Dublin’s status.¹⁶⁴ Officials from London and Belfast got to work, but the British were intent on introducing “minimal” legislative changes. Brooke’s priority was to strengthen Northern Ireland’s constitutional position to head off pressure from Dublin on partition, as well as “to eliminate the possibility of interference by any government in Whitehall now or in the future”.¹⁶⁵ The latter desire, which reflected Unionist distrust of Labour, was achieved all too well—the absence of “interference” from London was a contributory factor in the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969.

Feeling themselves under threat, Unionists rallied round Brooke. A meeting of the standing committee of the Ulster Unionist Council in December passed a vote of confidence in the Prime Minister (and concluded by singing “For he’s a jolly good fellow”). “The proceedings throughout were most enthusiastic, reminiscent of the old days when the Ulster Volunteer Force was formed.”¹⁶⁶ Sensing the mood, Brooke told the following month’s meeting that he was “perfectly satisfied” with the negotiations in London on the constitutional position, and believed the time was right for a general election “so that it may be made clear beyond doubt that the decision of Northern Ireland is to remain part of the United Kingdom”.¹⁶⁷

In response, Costello invited the leaders of all parties in the Dáil to a meeting in the Mansion House to consider how to help anti-partition candidates in the election.¹⁶⁸ MacBride may have been the original source of the idea—he had proposed an all-party committee on partition in April 1948, to avoid the issue being used “for party purposes, which is manifestly undesirable”.¹⁶⁹ The committee agreed to take up a collection to raise funds for anti-partition candidates the following Sunday—in line with tradition, the collection was taken up outside Catholic churches as people left Mass.

Demonstrating his lack of understanding of the North, Costello told an American diplomat that the parish had been selected as a matter of convenience, and that the Church “would remain strictly on sidelines avoiding possible … secular controversy”.¹⁷⁰ In fact, a more efficient way of raising Unionist indignation could scarcely have been found; and what became known as the “Chapel Gate Election” proved a triumph for Brooke. The collection was of no use to sitting nationalists, as none of them were in marginal constituencies. But it was a disaster for the Northern Ireland Labour Party, which was wiped out by the Unionists as Protestant voters concentrated on constitutional questions rather than social policy.

The interference from Dublin also gave Brooke greater leverage with London. Attlee told him that a formal protest against the propaganda campaign would be counterproductive. But he reminded him that forthcoming British legislation, the Ireland Bill, would affirm Northern Ireland’s constitutional position and territorial integrity. “I feel that the most effective action that we can take is to make a clear and firm statement on the subject of partition in the proceedings on this Bill.” But this statement would have to wait until after Easter, as the British “consider that it would be inexpedient to introduce the Ireland Bill until the Republic of Ireland Act has been brought into force by the Éire government.”¹⁷¹ Dublin had to be seen to be responsible.

Costello was anxious that the coming into force of the Republic of Ireland Act on Easter Monday “should be marked by fitting national celebrations”. But de Valera was dismissive, writing to the Taoiseach that “public demonstrations and rejoicings are out of place” while partition lasted.¹⁷² Fianna Fáil boycotted the celebrations, which centred on the General Post Office. In a radio broadcast, Costello said they had “put ourselves apart but not cut ourselves adrift from our former associations with the great nations of the Commonwealth … We hope for a closer and more harmonious association based on community of interests and common ideals than could ever have existed from formal ties.”¹⁷³ Two weeks later, the British published the Ireland Bill.

While the Bill recognised the Republic, and stated that it and its citizens were not to be treated as “foreign” under the terms of British legislation, it also gave a guarantee to the North: “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.” Brooke was delighted, writing in his diary, “We have got what we wanted … Ulster is safe.”¹⁷⁴ This—entirely predictable—gesture to Unionism was seen in London as an equitable balance to what the British thought was generous treatment of the new Republic. Irish nationalists regarded it as a base betrayal.

De Valera pushed Costello for an immediate statement against “the British Bill intended to confirm Partition”; Costello replied that he wanted to wait until MacBride reported back on his discussions with Attlee.¹⁷⁵ The Taoiseach suggested another reason for delay to US Minister George Garrett—“he wanted to cool off before issuing statement”.¹⁷⁶ On Saturday 7 May, the Cabinet met to agree the terms of an aide-memoire to be sent to the British. It recorded the Government’s “emphatic and solemn protest against the re-enactment by the British Parliament of legislation purporting to confirm the unjust partition of Ireland … the Government of Ireland can only regard the enactment … as an unnecessary, provocative and gratuitous reassertion of the claim of the British Parliament to intervene in Irish affairs”.¹⁷⁷ This was, MacBride told the British Representative, Sir Gilbert Laithwaite, “much milder and more restrained in tone than had at one time seemed likely”. Laithwaite said he was “astonished that there should be so much disturbance over the reaffirmation in a statute of a declaration which has stood on record since last October”¹⁷⁸—a reference to Attlee’s statement in the House of Commons, in similar terms to the proposed legislation.

Costello now led the political response, opening a Dáil debate on a motion criticising the British with a “vigorous and bitter” speech which lasted for an hour and a half. There was an “air of crisis” about the meeting of the Dáil, with packed public galleries and a full attendance of TDS. The Canadian diplomat David Johnson thought the Taoiseach “probably feels that he has to speak in this way to maintain the leadership of the nation”.¹⁷⁹

Costello stressed the united response of the Dáil, as the motion was to be seconded by de Valera. He accused the Labour Government of “purporting to annex permanently portion of our country, to fasten and to clamp down upon our people the wrong of Partition which was initiated 29 years ago …” He said it was important that members of the Dáil should speak “calmly and coolly”. This sentiment was rather undermined when he went on to say that while he didn’t believe Attlee and his colleagues were being vindictive, he did think they were “guilty of stupidity”. Ironically, in view of his own Canadian pronouncement, he complained bitterly of the lack of advance warning given by the British, which he claimed was due to their desire “to get it into the House of Commons so that it would be too late for the protest and too late for examination …” Finally, to applause, he said that while Ireland had no great strength as a nation, “we can hit the British Government in their prestige and in their pride and in their pocket”.¹⁸⁰

The outrage continued at a large public meeting in O’Connell Street on the evening of the following Friday, addressed by all the party leaders. Laithwaite complained that Costello’s speeches “were intemperate in tone and designed to work up feeling through the country … His petulance, his refusal to see the arguments for the other side, his readiness to appeal to prejudice, his disposition to labour a weak point, his anxiety to play on the feelings of his audience, are all, it is said, part of his normal Court manner.”¹⁸¹ One of those in the crowd, the young Fine Gael activist Richie Ryan, was equally biased, if in the other direction. He thought the speech demonstrated Costello’s ability as an orator. He remembered that it “evoked repeated enthusiastic applause but de Valera’s whining voice bored the crowd”.¹⁸²

So why was Costello so put out? George Garrett observed that the Taoiseach had claimed repeal of the External Relations Act would improve relations with Britain, and had also predicted a solution to partition. Now he and his colleagues found the “carpet … pulled out from under them”.¹⁸³ David Johnson asked him privately why the terms of the Ireland Bill had caused such a commotion, when Attlee’s verbal commitment in the House of Commons in October had not. “He treated in an airy manner a declaration of policy by a Prime Minister. He was of course right in saying that a declaration of policy by a Minister is more easily changed than a declaration enshrined in a statute.” But there were other factors at play—Johnson pointed to Costello’s “sense of betrayal” at the British failure to inform him in advance.¹⁸⁴ The irony, given his own behaviour over the External Relations Act, is breathtaking.

Johnson believed another reason for the intemperate language used by Costello and others was the fear that a more restrained approach would leave an opening for those who believed in the use of force. Johnson perceptively observed that this vigorous leadership could “boomerang” after the Taoiseach told him there was a real danger of violence. “What are their followers to say and think if all the brave words used over the last two or three weeks produce nothing tangible?”¹⁸⁵ This, of course, was exactly what happened. “Combined with the heady rhetoric of 1948–49, what the Ireland Act … did was convince a number of young men that the only way to make progress against British arrogance and unionist intransigence was through violence.”¹⁸⁶

Far from taking the gun out of Irish politics, Costello’s actions had arguably helped plant the seeds for the Border Campaign of the 1950s. In claiming that the declaration of the Republic would reduce violence, Costello was demonstrating the formative experience of the Civil War. Having lived through that conflict, which was mainly caused by the dispute over constitutional status rather than partition, it was natural for people of his generation to view the demand for “the Republic” as the cause of IRA violence. Now that he had helped close that question, it brought into sharp focus the remaining, and more intractable, issue of the Border.

In October 1949, at a function in Áras an Uachtaráin, Costello spoke to the British Ambassador about the tensions that had arisen over the Ireland Act. Referring to the “very close and friendly relations that had been maintained at a personal level”, he said his government had no choice but to take the line they had. Had they done otherwise, “there would have been acute internal difficulties”. The situation had now eased, he said, and things were quieter. Ambassador Laithwaite added, however, that “despite this somewhat surprising statement, there was nothing in the remainder of our conversation to suggest the slightest weakening on the part of the Taoiseach on the partition issue”.¹⁸⁷

Costello’s approach to the other main foreign policy challenge in his first administration—the formation of NATO—was also heavily influenced by partition. Just two months after the formation of the Government, heavy hints were received from the Canadians that Ireland would soon be asked what her attitude would be to a regional defence agreement.¹⁸⁸ The anticommunism of the Government was not in doubt; but even at this stage Washington anticipated that Dublin might try to link the question of partition to that of defence. The overriding strategic importance of bases in Northern Ireland meant that there was no prospect of American encouragement for a united Ireland. In May, John Hickerson of the State Department wrote to George Garrett in Dublin contrasting British help during the war with Irish neutrality. “We do not propose at this point to take up the battle for Ireland against a valuable friend and partner. Furthermore, if the Dublin Government were to gain control of Northern Ireland, facilities in that area might be denied us in the future.”¹⁸⁹

A CIA assessment in April 1949 noted that denial of Ireland to an enemy was “an inescapable principle of United States security”, because of the danger it could pose to the UK. As an ally, Ireland would be a “positive asset” as a potential site for naval and air bases. Neutrality “would probably be tolerable” because of the availability of bases in Northern Ireland, but the CIA believed Dublin was unlikely to remain neutral “in spite of military weakness and the Partition issue”. And it added that the end of partition would only be conceivable if Ireland joined NATO¹⁹⁰—turning Costello and MacBride’s strategy on its head. The significance of Ireland in Washington’s eyes is indicated by a 1950 list of outstanding serious and lesser problems between the United States and Britain—which doesn’t contain a single mention of Ireland.¹⁹¹ MacBride’s strategy—backed by Costello—of seeking concessions on partition in return for joining NATO was thus dead in the water before it had even been tried.

In December 1948, Garrett was advised by Hickerson that it had been agreed at the Washington Security Talks (involving Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Britain and the US) to invite a number of countries to join the proposed Atlantic Pact if they were willing—Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Ireland and Portugal.¹⁹² On 7 January, an aide-memoire from the United States government asked what Ireland’s view would be of an invitation to join the pact. Washington assured the British that they would treat any mention of partition as an indication that “the Irish were not seriously interested in the Pact and that they would not be consulted further about it”.¹⁹³

Freddie Boland, Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, told Neil Pritchard of the Commonwealth Relations Office that he was doing his best to keep as many doors open as possible. The Government were bound by many statements ruling out commitments as long as partition existed, but he would “try to get the Éire Government round the table with the other participants. It would in any case be some time before any Éire Government could enter into a Defence Pact entirely without reservation, but participation in the discussions would be a long step in the right direction.” While Ireland would not take on commitments that would automatically involve her in hostilities, Boland suggested she might take on lesser commitments. Rugby observed that even if this did not happen, “we need shed no tears. If and when the Soviet menace becomes immediate, this country will not be able to stand out.”¹⁹⁴

The Irish reply, agreed by Cabinet on 8 February, was more definite than Boland had hoped. While Ireland agreed with the general aim of the proposed treaty, “any military alliance with, or commitment involving military action jointly with, the State that is responsible for the unnatural division of Ireland … would be entirely repugnant and unacceptable to the Irish people”.¹⁹⁵ As anticipated, this was taken by the Americans as “an impossible condition as the price for its signing the North Atlantic Treaty … all the signatory powers are agreed that the issue of partition was irrelevant to the organisation and the intention of the Pact”.¹⁹⁶

Professional Irish diplomats disapproved of the Government’s approach. Michael MacWhite privately advised Costello that a mistake had been made. “Had we adhered to the Pact we would be in a position to achieve far more … Outside, nobody will listen to our pleas for the ending of Partition.”¹⁹⁷ Boland thought MacBride’s attempt to secure progress on the Border through NATO was “rubbish”, and later received reports that Ireland’s friends in Congress believed the Irish were making fools of themselves. He fell out with his minister after MacBride implied he had been keeping Dillon informed about opinion in Washington. MacBride backed off when Boland vehemently denied this,¹⁹⁸ but their relationship was clearly coming to the end of the road, and shortly afterwards he was transferred to the London Embassy.

The Government, then, clung to formal neutrality. But this didn’t prevent some secret defence co-operation with the British and Americans, just as had happened during the Second World War. At the end of 1948, the US Legation reported to Washington that a British-sponsored survey of beaches between Dundalk and Dublin was to be carried out, to assess their suitability for landing craft. The survey had been arranged by Sir Reginald Denning, the British GOC in the North, and Liam Archer, the Irish Army Chief of Staff, and cleared with the Minister for Defence, T.F. O’Higgins. In order to avoid “embarrassing questions”, the project was to “be given the largest measure Irish front possible”, with the British to be described as acting in an advisory capacity.¹⁹⁹

There were limited talks with the British about actions in the event of hostilities, under the rather unhelpful title of “War Book matters”. MacBride was concerned about any leak of the talks, which he said would be “very embarrassing”. Boland told the British that the Cabinet was divided on the issue. But he said the British “should be wrong to think that Mr MacBride was the strongest advocate of neutrality. The strongest advocate of neutrality was, in fact, Mr Norton.” Boland added that he had no doubt that if war broke out, Costello, O’Higgins, Dillon and McGilligan would be in favour of implementing whatever understandings were reached with the British.²⁰⁰ Denning and Archer appear to have had reasonably regular meetings to discuss defence—in May 1951 the British general said he had read the Dáil debates on defence and had not been impressed. He said he “failed to understand why we were not making a stronger effort to strengthen our defences” and asked about the extent of communist influence and the dangers of sabotage. Archer replied that communist influence was negligible and that “no fifth column could be said to exist”.²⁰¹

But despite such secret moves, Ireland remained to all intents and purposes isolated. A State Department policy statement on Ireland in August 1950 said it was “desirable that Ireland should be integrated into the defense planning of the North Atlantic area … but this cannot be done upon the terms at present advanced by the Irish Government … The Irish Government should concentrate its attention upon better Anglo-Irish relations and should not be allowed to believe that it can play off the United States against Great Britain.”²⁰²

Chafing at this situation, Dillon wrote to Costello in January 1951, strongly urging the signing of a bilateral defence pact with the Americans. He accepted that the policy of not joining NATO while partition lasted was “politically inescapable”, but suggested that since Spain had managed to join the pact, Ireland’s isolation “is more marked and more incongruous in a world situation of Communism versus the Rest”. He suggested that the Americans would welcome having an alternative to Britain as their “Atlantic Pearl Harbour”.²⁰³ There was a major problem with this approach—the Americans had never shown the slightest interest in a bilateral defence arrangement with Ireland, despite suggestions by Garrett. In fact, in March 1951, MacBride suggested such an approach directly to Truman, who gave a non-committal answer. MacBride’s meeting with the President was something of a waste of time. He stressed that Ireland wished to join NATO, but “could not do so because of political difficulties which he was sure the President knew about”. Truman brushed the issue aside, saying that while the NATO nations hoped Ireland would join, “outsiders intervening in family issues always suffered and the issue was rarely settled”.²⁰⁴

Costello appeared to adopt the same line on military alliances, and on partition. Towards the end of 1950, Laithwaite complained that while the Taoiseach was “personally very friendly and approachable, he appears to feel bound from time to time to make speeches … on the Partition issue, which are uncalled for and unhelpful”.²⁰⁵ Questioned about the Government’s policy by an American diplomat, he “‘blew his top’ … and gave … a long lecture, the effect of which was that the policy of the Irish Republic was neutrality and nothing but neutrality”.²⁰⁶

But there were limits to how belligerent he was prepared to be on the issue. On the same trip to Washington as his unproductive visit to the White House, MacBride compared what Britain was doing in Northern Ireland to what the Soviets were doing in eastern Europe. Liam Cosgrave made a speech criticising these “extravagant statements”; MacBride sent a message to Costello saying the effect of Cosgrave’s speech was “unfortunate” in the United States, and asking the Taoiseach to correct the “false impression” it had created.²⁰⁷ But Costello did nothing, suggesting rather strongly that he agreed with Cosgrave on the matter. In fact, he intimated to Cosgrave that he planned to appoint him rather than MacBride to External Affairs if returned to government (as he did in 1954). According to Cosgrave, “he accepted that the views given by me were realistic”.²⁰⁸

If Costello had come to see that the “sore thumb” policy of dragging partition into every international arena was counterproductive, he was still stuck with the consequences. As was Ireland. Staying out of NATO may have been a good thing—it certainly was as far as advocates of strict military neutrality were concerned. But it was not the result that Costello and his government aimed for. Their goal had been to use NATO membership as a bargaining chip to secure progress on partition, and by that yardstick the policy was a failure.

As for the more dramatic decision to repeal the External Relations Act and confirm that Ireland was no longer a member of the Commonwealth, the aim here had been to “take the gun out of Irish politics”, as well as to clear up ambiguities and develop a better relationship with Britain. It certainly didn’t remove violence from politics in Ireland, at least not in the long term. But Costello’s move did clarify Ireland’s status, and arguably helped in the development of a more mature relationship of equals between Dublin and London.

But the manner of his Canadian announcement, and his repeated complaints about the “slights” he had received before making it, left Costello on the defensive for years afterwards. He was accused of “declaring the Republic” in a fit of temper, without Cabinet authorisation. As we have seen, this is not fair—it was clear that a decision, at least in principle, had been taken to repeal the External Relations Act, and the British and other governments were aware of this. However, Costello did not handle the controversy well.

In the late 1960s he drew up a memorandum on the subject, which he sent to various people including Archbishop McQuaid and John Hearne, as well as journalists and academics researching the subject. He insisted the memorandum was “in no sense intended as a justification of, or apologia for, the action of the First Inter-party Government, or my own part” in repealing the Act. To justify, or to apologise, would have implied that he had done something wrong. In his own eyes, it all came down to his belief that at his press conference, “there was nothing in honesty and decency open to me but to admit the truth”.²⁰⁹ This approach to international diplomacy is not one that has caught on.