Minute by Nicholas G. Nolan on the name of the state and the use of the term 'Northern Ireland'

The Secretary spoke to the Taoiseach on the 5th inst. regarding the minute of the 5th June last from the Secretary of the Dept. of External Affairs (which neither the Secretary nor myself had seen at the time our circular minute of the 19th June to all Departments was issued), & the Taoiseach agreed that there would be no point in issuing two sets of instructions on the subject & that our draft Confidential Circular of the 19th June might, subject to one point, be treated as replacing & superseding the External Affairs' draft of the 5th June.

The point which the Taoiseach would like to see covered by our draft was the desirability of avoiding the use of the expression 'Northern Ireland', which is liable to give rise to misapprehension. The Secretary subsequently discussed this point with me, & I suggested, & he agreed, that the Taoiseach's point would probably best be met by the insertion of the following sentence in brackets at the end of par. 1(b):- '(In general, however, the expression "the Six Counties" should be used instead of the expression "Northern Ireland")'.

The Secretary availed himself of the opportunity of mentioning to the Taoiseach the two respects in which we had already decided that our draft of the 19th June should be amended in the light of the observations received from other Departments, viz.,

1.  to cover the cases of indications of origin fixed by statutory Regulation, &
2.  to substitute the harp for 'Éire' on envelopes.

The Taoiseach approved our proposals on both points.