Minute from Conor Cruise O'Brien to Seán Nunan and Timothy O'Driscoll (Dublin)

It seems to me that there is a need for greater co-ordination of effort between the Departments of State as regards the unity movement and that this Department ought to take a lead in order to secure this co-ordination. The following is an example of what I mean by lack of co-ordination:-

We have in all our propaganda insisted on what is indeed the fundamental tenet of Irish republicanism, viz., that Irish nationality and religion are two quite separate things. Yet this line, the only line along which we can hope for a peaceful re-integration of the whole of Ireland, has often been startlingly belied by our actions. I do not here refer to judicial decisions like that in the Tilson case,¹ or to personal utterances like that of the Attorney General on legal adoption.² Regrettable as the repercussions of such things are, it is clear that the State can have no control over them, any more than over, say, the activities of Maria Duce.³ The same does not, however, hold good of the following events, all of which took place within the past year:-

• The President on an official visit to Rome in his official capacity, i.e. as Constitutional head of a thirty-two county nation, declared that he 'cast the homage of the free people of Ireland' at the feet of the Holy Father. He thereby automatically excluded all non-Catholics from the category of 'the free people of Ireland' and, therefore, presumably from the Irish nation.
• Radio Éireann has elected to precede its evening news with the Angelus and much publicity was given to the blessing of the bells for this purpose by the Archbishop of Dublin. Protestant listeners in the Six Counties when they listen to the Radio Éireann news, which they do often, are thereby automatically re-inforced in their conviction that 'Éire' is a Catholic State, alien to them.
• The G.P.O. issued a Holy Year stamp with a statue of St. Peter. This carries the identical message of the Radio Éireann Angelus into every Protestant home in the Six Counties which receives a letter from 'Éire'.

If the Unionist Party had been offered 'three wishes' by a kind fairy, it could hardly have done better than to obtain from us three such splendid gestures of pure partitionism. The best test of these and many other actions is: would they be possible in a Thirty-two County Republic with a Parliament containing the representatives of 800,000 Northern Protestants? The answer is quite obviously that they would not. I believe that this Department should advance the proposition that the State, in all its actions, should behave as if that 800,000 were actually voters. Unless we do this as a conscious effort, our actions will tend to widen the gulf which already separates the two parts of the Irish nation. At present we are taking one step forward - as with the Minister's Federal Solution speeches which had a really excellent effect - and then two steps back, with these sectarian gestures.

If you agree, I shall prepare a memorandum to the Government, to the general effect that in view of the over-riding importance of the anti-partition movement, this Department should be consulted about any Departmental actions likely to have repercussions outside the present borders of the State.