Confidential Report from William J. B. Macaulay to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)
(49/100/32) (Secret)

The meeting at the Mecca Temple on the 24th instant, arranged as a protest against the operation of the Public Safety Act, got very little publicity here. It was attended by about 2,500 people which was a good deal less than the number expected. I understand that India occupied a great deal of the time of the Speakers, to the annoyance of certain elements who wanted to confine the programme to the Irish situation. Mr. Frank P. Walsh¹ did not attend.

The A.A.R.I.R.² is almost extinct and its members are joining the Saor Eire. A man called Price who, I understand, recently arrived here from Ireland was the principal organizer of this meeting and it was he, accompanied by two other I.R.A. men, who went to every Irish County Society trying to induce them to pass resolutions denouncing the Public Safety Act.

I am informed that a man named Delaney, Chairman of the old Irish Counties Association (now in process of reorganization), attempted to get that Association to adopt a stereotyped protest handed in by the I.R.A. Deputation, but that the resolution was defeated. This Delaney is a minor employee of the Hamburg-American Line and it was he who formally introduced Mr. MacWhite to Mayor Walker at the City Hall in 1929. Delaney holds his job only because his employers believe him capable of influencing Irish traffic towards their ships.

I understand that when the Act was first passed there was a certain amount of uneasiness in the Irish Associations here, but since it has become apparent that our Government is not going to use it harshly, this feeling has died down and the dreadful apprehensions which the professional agitators endeavoured to arouse have, in fact, been found to be unwarranted. The panic has been over-done and very few now take any interest in this agitation.