Letter from Frederick H. Boland to Seán Nunan (Dublin)
(Confidential)

Lady Mountbatten of Burma,¹ whom I see around the place from time to time, told me the other day that she and her husband propose to go over to Ireland in the first half of October. They will be going first to the Six County area where she will be inspecting some units of the St. John Ambulance Brigade of which she is patron. They will then go on to look at their place in the West of Ireland and will arrive in Dublin on Saturday, 13th October, leaving for London by air on the evening of Sunday, 14th October. In telling me this, Lady Mountbatten referred enthusiastically to her meeting with the President and the Taoiseach a couple of years ago and hinted very strongly that nothing would give herself and her husband greater pleasure than to be invited to stay with the President for the night of the 13th.

You probably know the Mountbattens’ reputation. A lot of people here say they are Left Wing and sympathetic to the Socialists and British Imperialists accuse him of having aided and encouraged the abandonment of Burma and the ‘handing over’ of India to the Indians. From our point of view, however, they have two special points of interest. In the first place they are a potentially useful and influential element in circles in this country in which most people’s minds are strongly set against the realisation of our principal national objective. In the second place, Mountbatten is now Fourth Sea Lord and enjoys great prestige and popularity in high defence circles in this country. The Minister emphasised to me recently the great importance attaching to the shaping of opinion in these particular circles.

On these grounds I would think that it would be valuable in the national interest, if the President and Bean Uí Ceallaigh could see their way to invite the Mountbattens to stay at Áras an Uachtaráin for the night of 13th October when they are in Dublin. I don’t know whether the Taoiseach and the Minister received hospitality from the Mountbattens during their visit to India in 1948. In any case Lady Mountbatten referred to their meeting with the Taoiseach and professed great anxiety to meet him again. If the President could have a dinner party on the evening of the 13th October at which the Taoiseach and Minister would be present and would have an opportunity of talking to Lord Mountbatten, it could, I think, be most useful.

Perhaps you would be good enough to have a word about this with the Minister and, if he or the Taoiseach think well of the suggestion and decide to mention it to the President, perhaps the President would have an invitation conveyed to the Mountbattens either through me or direct. Their address is: 2 Wilton Crescent, SW1.²