Centenary of the Boundary Commission

A century ago in the summer of 1925 the Boundary Commission established under the Anglo-Irish Treaty was hearing evidence on the ground in the Six Counties as it prepared its report and considered what changes if any should be made to the border that divided Ireland. 

Article 12 of the Treaty signed in London on 6 December 1921 dealt with Partition and stated that if the Northern Ireland parliament did not vote to join the Free State then a Boundary Commission “shall determine in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions, the boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland, and for the purposes of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and of this instrument, the boundary of Northern Ireland shall be such as may be determined by such Commission”.

It was widely stated later that Michael Collins and Arthur Griffith would never have signed the Treaty without Article 12 as they believed it would undermine Partition and hasten Irish unity. Collins, in particular, promoted the Boundary Commission as the way in which unity would be brought about, Northern Ireland would be rendered economically unviable and nationalists in the Six Counties would be rescued from the prospect of being trapped in an Orange state. 

British Prime Minister Lloyd George had provided Collins and Griffith with assurances which bolstered their belief that the Commission would work in their favour. But at the same time, members of Lloyd George’s Tory-Liberal Coalition government were assuring Ulster Unionists, led by Northern Ireland Prime Minister James Craig, that their statelet would be secure and that any changes to the Border that might come out of the Commission would be minor adjustments. 

In 1923 the Free State government, now led by WT Cosgrave following the death of Collins and Griffith, demanded the establishment of the Commission. Under Article 12 the Chairman was to be appointed by the British government and the Free State and Northern Ireland governments were to appoint a member each. Craig refused to nominate, thus vetoing the Commission. It was not until late 1924 that the Boundary Commission was finally appointed after the British and Free State governments agreed to allow the British to appoint the Northern Ireland representative. 

• The Boundary Commission (left to right) JR Fisher (Northern Ireland), Richard Feetham (British-appointed Chairman), Eoin Mac Néill (Free State)

The British government appointed South African based judge Richard Feetham as Chairman. He was an ardent British imperialist. The Northern Ireland representative was JR Fisher, a staunch Unionist. The Free State appointed its Minister for Education Eoin Mac Néill who was to prove singularly ineffective. 

Right from its conception in 1921 to its functioning in 1925 the Commission was stacked against Irish interests. The wording of Article 12 was vague and there were no detailed terms of reference or method of working set out for the Commission. The British government took full advantage of this and Feetham gave the narrowest possible interpretation to Article 12, giving priority to “economic and geographic conditions” at the expense of the “wishes of the inhabitants”. The deliberations of the Commissioners were supposedly confidential but Fisher ensured that Craig was fully briefed while Mac Néill failed to keep the Free State cabinet informed. 

In the summer of 1925 the Commission met nationalists and unionists, including in those areas which nationalists argued should be allowed to join the Free State. Counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, South Armagh and South Down and the towns of Derry and Newry were majority nationalist as shown in successive elections. Nationalist representatives made their case at local meetings with the Commissioners, but Republicans refused to recognise the Commission, regarding it as a British government set-up and maintaining that no border of any kind was acceptable. 

As the consultation proceeded in May and June of that year there was foreboding among nationalists in the Six Counties that their hopes for the Commission had been very ill-founded. That was to prove all too correct. 

(To be continued).