Minute by Frederick H. Boland on a planned visit to Ireland by Lord Montgomery

The High Commissioner told me on the telephone this afternoon that Lord Montgomery¹ said, in the course of a conversation at the Guildhall luncheon yesterday, that he would like very much to come to Ireland, but he would have to be invited and he would have to come, he thought, in his official capacity as Chief of the Imperial General Staff. He would like to meet our Chief of Staff² personally. The High Commissioner said that he had told Lord Montgomery at once that he thought there would be political difficulties. Lord Montgomery said he realised this, but that, if they could be surmounted, he would like to come. The High Commissioner asked what we thought of the idea.

I told Mr. Dulanty that I would have to speak to the Taoiseach before giving him a definite reply, but, to my mind, the visit was out of the question. A visit here of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff in his official capacity would revive and aggravate the rumours started by the recent statement in the Dáil that there was a secret defence agreement between ourselves and Britain.³ Secondly, Lord Montgomery was notoriously no shrinking violet; he would want to be making speeches and publicising himself, and this would make him a rallying point for all the ex-enemies of Irish neutrality in the recent war. These objections would not be so great if Lord Montgomery were to come purely privately and pay informal visits to the Taoiseach and Chief of Staff. But, to my mind, even such a visit would be highly inconvenient and inopportune.

I told the High Commissioner I would speak to him again when I had had a word with the Taoiseach.