Memorandum by Joseph P. Walshe regarding the Ardilaun Lectures¹ at Alexandra College, Dublin

Unneutral Lectures. Alexandra College – Ardilaun Lectures 1944.
Having learned for the first time that the Ardilaun Lectures this year, beginning the 28th November, were to be given by Mr. Nicholas Mansergh on the European balance of power, I asked the Minister for directions as to the course I was to take. The titles of the lectures (programme attached) clearly indicated that Germany was to be the all important subject, and it was quite impossible that a British Civil Servant, employed in the Ministry of Information, should not give a strong propagandist bias to his talks. The Minister was opposed to complete suppression of the lectures but he instructed me to see Miss Holloway² and to warn her that she should have informed us about the lectures beforehand. I was also to speak to the British Legation here so that a warning might be conveyed to Mr. Mansergh to make the lectures as objectively historical as possible.

I asked Miss Holloway to come and see me to-day at 12.30 p.m. I told her that she had put us in a real difficulty by deciding upon the lecturer and the subject, without consultation with us. She should realise that the public would naturally wonder why a school like hers should select a subject for public lectures which gave such an easy opportunity for trouble in present circumstances. There were groups in Dublin, as she well knew, who could rightly feel aggrieved if they were refused permission for lectures on aspects of Communism (and it had some very disagreeable aspects), and even on subjects which might be called pro-German. Her school was supposed to give good example and I was sorry that she had put us in this trouble. However, since she had made all the preparations, printed the programmes, and issued the invitations, we did not want to ask her to change the subject, but I had to ask her to write to Mr. Mansergh and let him know what I had said to her, so that his lectures would not give offence or give encouragement to go one better to the other side. Miss Holloway was duly repentant, especially when I reminded her of a chat we had had a year ago when her choice for the Ardilaun Lectures of 1943 was almost equally unhappy. She told me, in response to my strong advice to do so, that she would, in future, consult us about her lecturers and their subjects.