Boundary Commission

Boundary Commission, set up under the Anglo‐Irish treaty of 1921 to delineate the, boundary of Northern Ireland. During discussions with the cabinet in December 1919, James Craig had suggested a commission to hold a vote along the six‐county border, but the idea did not form part of the subsequent government of Ireland bill. At a critical point in the treaty negotiations Griffith accepted a formula for a boundary commission to ‘make the Boundary conform as closely as possible to the wishes of the population’. Griffith and Collins maintained that this would transfer significant territory, including Co. Fermanagh, Co. Tyrone, and Derry city, to the new Irish Free State. But in the final draft of the treaty the wording stipulated that the wishes of the inhabitants had to be compatible with economic and geographical considerations. The commission did not begin work until late 1924, chaired by the South African jurist Richard Feetham, with Eoin MacNeill and J. R. Fisher representing the Free State and Northern Ireland. Arguing that the terms of the treaty prevented him from reconstituting Northern Ireland de novo, Feetham refused to transfer Fermanagh and Tyrone. The economic clause of the treaty also meant the retention of Derry and Newry. When these recommendations were leaked to the Morning Post in November 1925 MacNeill resigned in protest. The commission was abandoned in favour of a tripartite agreement confirming the existing border while releasing the Free State (and Northern Ireland) from certain financial obligations arising from the treaty.

T. G. Fraser