Authors: Noël Browne
Both Seán MacBride and Noel Hartnett were always available to me for advice when I needed to expand my knowledge of public affairs. My great regret was the tragic conflict that was to
develop between them. Once it had begun, I found it difficult to believe that Clann na Poblachta could survive.
MacBride wrote lengthy treatises on the many abstruse subjects which attracted him. In his brisk, crisp Northern accent McGilligan, who shared Hartnett’s moderate opinions about MacBride
as an intellectual and scholar, also dismissed his seeming expertise on economic or financial matters. Nevertheless MacBride worked continuously from early morning until late into the night. He
especially enjoyed the diplomatic dinners, tea parties, and soirées which he organised in the Department and which in his absence fell to my lot.
Increasingly during 1950 Seán excluded me as his deputy, as if to ensure that his authentic voice would be heard untrammelled by any ‘rehashing’ by me. He would scan the
cabinet agenda, and on those subjects in which he had a special interest, would submit a treatise to the Taoiseach. In the early days, this memorandum was carefully unfolded and conscientiously
read out by the Taoiseach to a politely attentive Cabinet. It was treated with some respect. After a time, they began to notice to my embarrassment that the contents of the memorandum were as novel
to me as they were to the rest of them. As the memoranda proliferated, it became obvious that all was not well in Clann na Poblachta; they were now treated with a tolerant amusement, and the
epistles filed somewhere.
The most simple illustration of our helplessness in Cabinet was the fact that on a number of occasions both of us argued for clemency for men under sentence of death before the civil courts. The
Cabinet was the supreme authority under the President in matters of life and death, and could commute the sentences to life imprisonment. Because of what I had heard about General Mulcahy and the
‘seventy-seven’, I watched his reaction. In his usual style on such ‘simple issues’, he was curt, brash and uncomplicated: ‘They must hang.’ The deeply religious
Blowick’s comment, in his high-pitched squeak, was, ‘Hang them, hang them.’ There was no attempt to argue or to rationalise their positions. With their majority they had no need
to.
It is important to understand the process by which decisions were arrived at in that coalition government. A Minister who required a Cabinet decision to carry out his ministerial functions would
formally submit a written request for permission to act, supported, usually, by documentary justification for such action. Occasionally a request might be agreed to without question, but it was the
usual practice for each minister or additional ministers likely to be affected by any decision taken to submit a supporting or a contesting case with documentation.
Such, without doubt, would have been the case were the government to take such an important decision as to decide formally to repeal the External Relations Act, 1936, which maintained the link
between Ireland and the Commonwealth. At the time there had been powerful opposition in the Fine Gael party to the repeal of this act, and MacBride and the Clann na Poblachta party had agreed to
put the question of repeal ‘into abeyance’ for the lifetime of the Coalition. Yet to the astonishment of politicians and public alike, on both sides of the Irish Sea, members of the
Cabinet read one September morning in 1948 in the
Sunday Independent
that according to the Taoiseach, Mr Costello, speaking at a meeting in Ottawa, we had ‘unanimously agreed in
Cabinet’ to repeal the act. This was not true. This incident and its sequel had serious political and diplomatic consequences for politicians and journalists alike.
The repeal of the External Relations Act had little significance for me. Because of the silly protocol under which ‘accreditation’ of our foreign diplomats must in the first instance
be approved by the British monarch, I was satisfied that it should be repealed. At the same time, I believed in the validity of the case made by de Valera for its retention in part. He claimed that
as the last remaining link in common between the North and ourselves, possibly leading to, or facilitating, membership of the Commonwealth, its retention might help reconciliation between both
parts of this country. However, it was a subject with which I was not deeply concerned.
With other available ministers, I was called urgently to a ‘caucus meeting’ of the Cabinet one Sunday afternoon soon after the Taoiseach’s return to Dublin following the Ottawa
meeting. Costello appeared to be visibly distressed and unhappy. He told us that he had decided to repeal the External Relations Act while attending a formal government dinner in his honour at
which the host was Lord Alexander, the Governor General of Canada. Realising that he had no authority from the Cabinet for his decision, he deeply regretted his action and had called this emergency
Cabinet meeting to explain and apologise to us for his unconstitutional action. He then went on to offer to resign as Taoiseach.
In the absence of Mr MacBride abroad, and speaking for Clann na Poblachta, I dismissed the suggestion that Costello should resign. We were glad to see the act go. With varying degrees of
enthusiasm the members of the Cabinet remaining assured Costello that he must not resign. Seán MacEoin appeared to me to be as pleased as I was that it should go; he was his usual pleasant
reassuring self in his attempt to comfort Costello.
When I gave this detailed account on radio in 1976, it was at once dismissed as untrue in a series of letters and statements to the press. I found myself accused by my former ministerial
colleagues of lying. All of them shared the same story, that no such meeting had occurred, and that no offer of resignation was submitted by the Taoiseach. The ministers concerned were James
Dillon, Dan Morrissey, Seán MacBride and Paddy McGilligan. For a number of years I was compelled to live under the cloud of having told a distasteful lie about Mr Costello. This assault on
my integrity was further supported by a letter in the
Sunday Independent
, on 22 January 1984, from Hector Legge, who had been editor of that paper at the time of the repeal of the External
Relations Act and had had close associations with the coalition government and MacBride. In an offensive suggestion that I was being consciously dishonest, Hector Legge’s letter sought to
reinforce the case against me by calling on what he described as a ‘distinguished civil servant’, now retired, Patrick Lynch. It was my understanding of civil service protocol that
senior civil servants do not repeat confidential information for publication in the public press. Mr Lynch had been secretary to the Taoiseach and had travelled with him to Canada, and he now
joined the hunt, declaring that no such meeting was ever held.
Labelled as a liar until early in 1984, I was helpless to refute these offensive slanders. My vindication occurred following my review of Ronan Fanning’s book
Independent Ireland
,
published in 1983. The Cabinet papers for 1948-1951 had become available, and Dr Fanning made puzzled references to the absence of any Cabinet papers relating to the repeal of the External
Relations Act, in spite of Costello’s claim ‘that a unanimous Cabinet decision had been taken.’ In the course of my review I reassured Dr Fanning that no Cabinet decision or
papers could exist since no formal Cabinet discussions had taken place.
Hector Legge, supported, he claimed, by Paddy Lynch, once again accused me of repeating an untruth. Within days MacBride, who as Minister for External Affairs knew better than most that there
could be no such papers and that there had been no ‘unanimous decision of the Cabinet’, repeated his charge in the
Sunday Independent
, 1 February 1984, that ‘there was no
such Cabinet meeting and Mr Costello did not offer his resignation.’
Though it took nearly ten years to do so, this sordid episode ended happily for me. Proof of the accuracy of my account of what had happened came from a casual conversation which I had with the
political journalist Bruce Arnold. Arnold told me that in the course of his professional work, he had had a long interview with the former head of the Department of External Affairs, Frederick
Boland. Fortunately he had taped the interview. Mr Boland, now retired, had been departmental secretary to both Mr de Valera and Mr MacBride, and later Chairman of the United Nations. He was
well-known internationally as a distinguished and experienced civil servant.
How deeply relieved and gratified I was to hear Mr Boland say on that tape, in a reply to a question by Bruce Arnold about the unexplained ‘out of the blue’ repeal of the External
Relations Act, that ‘Noël Browne’s version of the repeal of the External Relations Act was correct’. Further, he confirmed that no Cabinet decision had been taken. The
versions of MacBride, Dillon, and Morrissey, according to Mr Boland, were mostly fantasy. He disclosed on further questioning that there had been no consultation with the British. As with the rest
of us, the announcement that the Irish government intended to repeal the External Relations Act had taken the British by surprise.
While greatly relieved to hear my version of the facts verified I did not refer to Boland by name, but simply as a ‘senior civil servant’, in a subsequent letter to the newspapers.
In spite of Hector Legge’s jeering invitation to me ‘to name the civil servant’ I believed it improper to mention Boland’s name in public in what was blatantly a political
matter. When I told Bruce Arnold of my dilemma, he helpfully told me of one other person who knew precisely what had happened. This was Maurice Dockrell, a member of a former Unionist Protestant
Fine Gael family and himself a former TD.
It seems that the Taoiseach had doubts about the political effects of his decision on the Unionist sector of the Fine Gael vote in his constituency. He decided to speak to Maurice Dockrell who
could be depended upon to help undo the damage by telling his co-religionists in confidence the exact story, as told to him by Costello, about what had happened in Ottawa. Apparently, at the
reception for himself and his wife given in Ottawa by the Govenor General, Lord Alexander, Costello got the impression that ‘there was a certain coolness’ to himself. He was displeased
at the placing at the banqueting table and believed that there had been some intended discourtesy to his wife. Later a silver replica of ‘Roaring Meg’ was placed in front of either
Costello or his wife. ‘Roaring Meg’ was a famous cannon used by the Protestants in their defence of Derry’s walls against the Catholics during the Siege of Derry. Costello went
on, ‘I was so insulted by these things’ that ‘I lost my temper and declared it’ (the repeal of the External Relations Act). Arnold concludes, ‘That, dear reader, is
how Ireland left the Commonwealth.’
It is most important to note that this story of the repeal of the External Relations Act is also confirmed by Mr Boland. It was Boland who first brought the surprise news of the repeal to both
MacBride and Lord Maffey, who were dining together at the Russell Hotel when the news came through from Ottawa. Maffey was later to be reported as saying that ‘no conversation had taken place
between the two governments on the issue.’ Arnold also notes, ‘Costello did offer his resignation on his return but it was refused.’ Though this story was published in the
Irish Independent
on 4 February 1984, no attempt was made by the surviving former Cabinet ministers, MacBride and Dillon, to apologise for their defamation of my character.
The process of the repeal of the External Relations Act was irresponsible, incredible and ludicrous. Indeed because it was so ridiculous, it was not surprising that my correct version was not
believed. It was surely both ill-mannered and ungracious of Fine Gael and Mr Costello to deprive Seán MacBride of his rights, as the relevant Minister, to introduce the Bill repealing the
External Relations Act. Mr Costello chose to introduce the Bill himself. MacBride, in a pitiful protest, did not appear at the Easter Sunday march-pasts and volleys from the roof of the GPO
trumpeting the celebrations of a ‘famous victory.’ In his absence, I acted as Minister for External Affairs at the circus.
Annoyed by the cavalier behaviour of the Irish government the British, in a devastating riposte, introduced the Ireland Act, 1949, without MacBride’s knowledge. Because of his absence, yet
again, I acted as Minister for External Affairs in receiving the copy of the Act in great secrecy en route to the government. This Act shocked the Irish government with its guarantees, which stand
to this day, to the Unionist population in the North. The operative phrase ran: ‘That in no event will Northern Ireland, or any part thereof cease to be part of His Majesty’s dominions,
and of the United Kingdom, without the consent of Northern Ireland.’ This provoked a solemn protest from the Irish government. In truth, Mr Costello’s Canadian capers were to cost us
dearly.
De Valera’s position on the repeal of the External Relations Act was that this last link with the Commonwealth, if repealed, would have the effect of consolidating the border and so
further delay North-South reconciliation. Events were to prove that he was correct in his analysis. The British Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, said in a statement on 12 May 1949: ‘It was the
act of the Éire Government itself, deciding to leave the Commonwealth, which made inevitable a declaration as to the position of that part of Ireland which was continuing in the
Commonwealth. The Ireland Bill merely recognised that fact.’ Further, the official reports of the House of Commons Debates for 17 May 1949 showed that no documents had passed between the
British and the Irish governments, and ‘no conversation had taken place between them’ that such a pronouncement was to take place, that the repeal of the External Relations Act had been
decided on either by the Irish Government, or Mr Costello. Indeed, they went on to declare that the decision of the Irish government ‘came as a painful surprise to the British.’
With hindsight, and access to Irish and US State papers, we may attempt to puzzle over the private workings of Seán MacBride’s mind which led to his strange nomination to the Clann
na Poblachta Senate seat of a former British Army officer, the Protestant northerner Captain Denis Ireland. Until the announcement of this name MacBride had remained secretive about his plans.