Minute from Brian Gallagher to Frederick H. Boland (Dublin)

Secretary,
This is a request for the intervention of Deputy Breen¹ to secure (1) the liberation of the signatories, (2) alternatively the improvement of their prison conditions, or (3) the supply of books and magazines to the signatories. No. 1² was formerly Departmental Chief of the Conseil National Breton, which is described in the memorandum of the 15 July, 1944 by M. Delaporte as separatist and pro-German. No. 2³ was former Secretary of the Parti National Breton periodical 'L'Heure Bretonne'. His party, of which M. Delaporte himself was the Director, is described by him as seeking dominion status for Brittany and as being neutral in the 'struggle between Germany and the Anglo-Americans.' Of the other three,⁴ it is stated that they belonged to the Formation J.N. Perrot.⁵ What that was is not clear. It sounds like a Breton SS Group under the Germans. The name of No. 4⁶ is mentioned in a bulletin published by the Celtic Freedom Union (in effect by Mr. Mill Arden) which Mr. MacDonald sent to us on the 29th June, 1946, and this would support the suggestion that he was a militant Breton nationalist.

M. Delaporte, the leader of the Parti National Breton and the writer of the memorandum above referred to, arrived here as a political refugee in the early part of 1947.

I quite agree with Mr. Cremin that we could hardly make representations to the French Government on behalf of these men. No attempt is made to show that they did not co-operate with the Germans, nor, indeed, would we have any standing in making such representations even if they had been guilty of nothing more than a constitutional home rule agitation. On the other hand, the request for books and magazines is quite innocuous and we might, as Mr. Cremin suggests, refer it to the Red Cross Society.