Harry Boland by Jim Maher

Author:Jim Maher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History
Publisher: Mercier Press
Published: 2020-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

19

Gairloch and Kitty Kiernan

When President Éamon de Valera opened the first session of the Second Dáil on 16 August, he welcomed home the representatives from abroad. Harry was not in the Dáil to hear de Valera as he was still on board the ship, but he was close to Ireland. Dev greeted the envoys as ‘apostles of liberty’. Though they hadn’t succeeded in getting the Irish Republic officially recognised abroad, he said that ‘in the hearts of the people of the countries’ which they had traversed ‘the Republic was recognised’.1

The Department of Foreign Affairs had received reports from all the representatives and the following day they submitted the reports to Dáil Éireann. Harry, who by then had arrived in the Dáil, said that Senator La Follette had introduced new senate resolutions on recognition which had now been referred to the Committee of foreign affairs and that many American political friends of the Irish mission were agreed that this time there was more hope of recognition. One loyal supporter of Ireland’s cause, Congressman Billy Mason, of Mason Bill fame, had died of a heart attack in his apartment in a Washington hotel in June. However, before his death he had been instrumental in getting the Illinois state legislature to pass a resolution urging President Harding to recognise the Irish Republic. Harry’s report confirmed the other state legislatures which had passed similar motions: New Jersey, Montana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.2

The report received from Patrick McCartan, the represen­tative in Russia, said ‘that the Russian foreign office had got the impression that Ireland would compromise and that this affected their readiness to recognise’.3

Harry was in the Dáil on 25 August when de Valera proposed that a grand committee of deputies be formed in case war was resumed and the whole body of Dáil Éireann could not meet for four or five months. This smaller committee could come together in times of emergency (they could keep a check on the cabinet’s work) and could temporarily halt any measure that they did not favour. After further discussion, de Valera’s proposal was adopted with a few changes to his original idea. The committee would be elected from present Dáil deputies on a provincial basis, and of the thirty-one members to be elected, seven were to come from Connacht.4 Harry was third in his province in order of votes and he was selected.5

Harry had spent the previous evening with de Valera and they discussed American affairs and the lack of progress in negotiations with the British.6 Dev said that the British government were not going to agree to an Irish Republic.7 He discussed his ideas for External Association with Harry and drew a large circle on paper representing the British Commonwealth. Inside this circle he drew five smaller circles representing the five self-governing countries within the Commonwealth. Then he drew a circle representing Ireland and put it outside the large circle containing the five small circles but touching its border. This explained the idea that Ireland could be associated with the Commonwealth but not a member of it.

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