Memorandum by Michael Rynne
'Another Basis for Settling Titles Impasse with CRO'
(P.212)

Our request that the President be given his correct constitutional title has been met by the rejoinder:- Will you describe His Majesty by his correct title in future credentials?

I respectfully submit that we might reconsider this attitude and see if we cannot readdress ourselves to this problem with the underlying idea in our minds that we shall, if necessary, agree to use the present full Title of the King in international documents.

So long as the Six Counties remain under British control, a Royal Title referring to ‘Northern Ireland’ would appear so ‘pointed’ and so related to a genuine state of fact as to be easily taken at its face-value by the rest of the world. On the other hand, the continued use of the word ‘Ireland’ in the present title has historical parallels (‘France’ up to 1801) and is so clearly divorced from fact and law as to tend to become more and more ‘decorative’ and less and less convincing to outsiders. It is only fair to say that the introduction of the term ‘Republic’ into our official nomenclature has assisted this tendency.

That is why I have underlined the word ‘present’.

I underline the word ‘international’ in my submission above, because I think a tenable distinction may be drawn and relied upon between internal terminology and international language.

There is nothing novel in this. Although both we and the British have very definite ideas concerning our respective ways of referring to each other when dealing with our own peoples, we have, nevertheless, agreed to accept each other’s self-descriptions in international circles and transactions. Thus, it has been mutually agreed (1946) that in such international bodies as the ILO etc. our State is to be known as ‘Ireland’ while Britain is known as ‘the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’. Likewise, Irish plenipotentiaries empowered by the President, have negotiated multilateral treaties with plenipotentiaries empowered by the British King fully described as King (inter alia) of ‘Ireland’.

It could be pointed out to the CRO that their Ireland Act, 1949, does not appear to compel them to translate the word ‘Ireland’ in the President’s title but only to describe this State for British internal purposes as the ‘Republic of Ireland’.

It might then be mentioned that our Republic of Ireland Act, 1948, does not authorise us to alter the constitutional title of the President.

Should there be far-reaching consequences to Irish-British diplomatic relations due to this crux about titles, it is clear that the position of Irish Ministers vis-á-vis critics will, in view of the foregoing, be more defensible than that of British Ministers. The fact that the British Government would be prepared to cease miscalling our President if our Government agreed to use the King’s full title would not embarrass Ministers here in dealing with 90% of public opinion, because all but the Anglo-Irish ‘loyalists’ recognise that the use of ‘Ireland’ in the Royal Title is inexcusable.

As regards the desirability of deferring to our preference for the use of ‘Ireland’ in the body of Hankinson’s credentials, we might point out that this is an international document, a Message between Heads of States, and that courtesy demands that it be worded so as not to offend the recipient. For example, no Head of State would dare refer to the Netherlands as ‘Holland’ nowadays in dealings with that State, no matter what their domestic laws or customs decreed. Despite our Republic of Ireland Act, we have clearly expressed a preference for the use of the name of the State in international affairs and the British Government, at a time when their own laws called us ‘Éire’, agreed to meet us on that. Since the Ireland Act, the British policy in this regard has not been changed.

Whether a compromise could or even should be sought on the use of ‘Ireland’ in the body of Hankinson’s credentials is quite another question.

Personally, I should be very disinclined to agree to ever actually use the full name of the ‘United Kingdom’, even though we allow it to pass unchallenged at conferences abroad. Unless we succeed in obtaining, say, one reference in two or three to ‘Ireland’ as part of our bargain about the King’s title, I feel we should not press too hard for it.

We ought, of course, make every possible use of the good American and French precedents we have secured in the last few weeks.¹

In explaining their action to those who will undoubtedly criticise it strongly here, the Government (the Ambassador will state) will take their stand on the argument that the reference to Ireland in the title while highly objectionable, is devoid of legal or factual significance and so their use of it in any document addressed to the King is incapable of entailing legal or moral consequences.