Letter from Joseph P. Walshe to Seán MacBride (Dublin)
(Most Secret)

My dear Minister,
Following my letter of yesterday's date¹ concerning my interview with Monsignor Montini relating to the new Nuncio, I have now to report on my conversations with the latter this morning.

I had most carefully avoided seeing Mgr. Felici during the year which has just elapsed, so I was really meeting him for the first time in his acknowledged capacity as Nuncio to Ireland. I was agreeably surprised. In appearance and manner, rather like the good type of Irish Parish Priest, most affable and kindly, he at once started to tell me all about his reading of Irish history and the deep sympathy he felt with our country and his admiration for the work accomplished by our people in the world. He emphasized again and again that he was coming to Ireland to work for Ireland and for the Catholic faith and for 'no other interest whatever'. You need have no fear, he said, that I shall ever think of anything or of doing anything, as Nuncio in Ireland, which you would not completely approve of as an Irishman. He has read a book about Ireland in French, which he is going to show me when he comes up to lunch on MONDAY, when we are going to have a long tête-à-tête. It seems to give an excellent picture of the Cromwellian massacres in Ireland for he was really very well informed on that terrible period and he was genuinely horrified to realize for the first time that the British set all the precedents for the Russians, with the aggravating factor that they claimed to be doing it for Almighty God. Mgr. Felici had read Cromwell's message to Parliament after the DROGHEDA horrors. Our warnings have turned into fertile seed and have fallen on good ground. We were absolutely right to be completely frank in the expression of our fears of getting an Italian politician. There is nothing clearer than that MONTINI and FELICI have had long talks about relations between the Vatican and IRELAND, and that they have come to the conclusion that there must be a considerable advance towards us, as well, of course, as a complete abandonment of the whole policy of using us as a pawn in their relations with BRITAIN. I can see that the historical references in my letter of September 1947² have been carefully studied with great profit to M. and F. And with conclusions completely justifying in their minds our attitude of caution and suspicion. Indeed, I believe that their ad hoc historian produced material infinitely worse than I had at hand, because their incredible amiability and their attitude of apology exceeded anything I could have hoped for.

Mgr. FELICI inquired about the whole SIX COUNTY question, the position of the Bishops there, the views held by them etc. I was rather disappointed at his assuming that the Bishops in that area could think differently from those in the rest of Ireland, and still more so at the fact that he did not know that, of the nine dioceses in the province of ARMAGH, only two, DOWN and CONNOR and Dromore, are entirely within the territory of the Six COUNTIES. It is a factor in the UNITY argument which should have been made known to him by Mgr. Paro.

In the course of our chat about the reception he expressed complete willingness to make a speech of the right kind, but he said that Paro had told him that the DIPLOMATIC Corps would be present, including the British Representative. I told him that the presence of the DIPLOMATS was a factor of no importance whatever, if it was true that the members of the CORPS would be present. The occasion was one interesting pre-eminently the Irish Government and the Bishops and he need not be in the least deterred from speaking his whole mind about Ireland before the British Representative who was a Catholic and IRISH on his mother's side. It is a pity that the D.C. have to be there. Could it not be made plain to them that it was a purely Irish occasion intended to emphasize the intimacy of the relations between our country and the Holy SEE. There could be a second meal after ten days or so to introduce him to the D.C. Their presence on this first occasion may well make a hash of what could be a magnificent statement about Ireland made on behalf of the HOLY FATHER. I hope we have not become slaves of protocol in DUBLIN just when the rest of the world is beginning to treat its excesses as the nasty remnants of an insincere age of so called diplomacy.

Mgr. Felici is very grateful to you for your kind telegram, and for the preparations you are making for his reception.