Minute from Frederick H. Boland to Seán MacBride (Dublin)

Minister.
Mr. Pritchard called this afternoon and handed me the attached text of the new clause in the 'Ireland Bill' which the Lord Chancellor intends to propose in the House of Lords this afternoon. I told Mr. Pritchard that I would send this over to you at once and that, for the moment, I had no comment to add to what we had already said officially.

On the whole, there is very little difference between what is now proposed and what is already included in the British Nationality Act. What Lord Jowett's amendment says in effect is that everyone born in the 26 Counties who is not an Irish citizen, but who was a British subject immediately before the entry into operation of the British Nationality Act, shall remain a British subject without the necessity for having to lodge a 'claim to retain' under Section 2 of the British Nationality Act.

To this extent, Lord Jowett's amendment does not go beyond Section 12(4) of the British Nationality Act, the effect of which was that people born in the 26 Counties who are not Irish citizens remain British subjects without the necessity for lodging a 'claim to retain'.

The essential and only difference between the two positions arises in relation to people born in the 26 Counties and domiciled in the 6 Counties on the 6th December, 1922. Under our law, such persons are Irish citizens; and, as such, they do not remain British subjects by virtue of Section 12(4) of the British Nationality Act, but must, if they wish to do so, lodge a 'claim to retain' under Section 2. By the terms of (1)(b)(i) of his amendment, Lord Jowett alters the position in respect of these people and provides for their remaining British subjects under the British Nationality Act without having to claim under Section 2.

That is what the whole thing boils down to. From a practical point of view, there is very little in the thing so far as we are concerned. The new provision is far less offensive, for example, than the provisions of the British Act which make everybody born in the Six County area a citizen of the United Kingdom. Moreover, as even our own Act does not give Irish citizenship to a person born in the 26 Counties who happened to be living in England in 1922, but returned to Newry or Derry on the 7th December, 1922, and has been living there ever since, the point involved is obviously a rather narrow technicality. Indeed, reviewing the whole controversy, it is difficult to decide which are worse - the enormities of the British Nationality Act and the present amendment or the enormities of our own Act of 1935.