Letter from Seán Nunan to Thomas J. Coyne (Dublin)
(Copy)

I much regret that your letter of the 25th July about the naturalisation of political refugees has remained so long without a reply. Unfortunately it got submerged under the mass of material we have been receiving about the Breton – André Geoffroy – and I fear that it has been overlooked. The interval, however, has enabled us to form a better opinion than we might have given earlier and that precisely because of the Geoffroy case itself, as I will show hereafter.

The question you raise is one of considerable difficulty and delicacy to which we have given considerable thought. As a result of our consideration we have come to the same view as that originally held by you, namely, that, as a general rule, we ought not to grant naturalisation to political refugees to whom we have given asylum in this country. I think this general rule can be justified on a number of grounds. Amongst others, the following occur to me:-

1. Like you, I agree in thinking that we should suffer considerable embarrassment if a political refugee, e.g. a Breton nationalist or a Flemish nationalist, were to return to France or Belgium respectively and there claim Irish protection on the basis of his Irish passport. It would, I fear, be no use, from a practical point of view, to restrict the passport in its validity, so as to exclude the country of origin of the refugee, or to inform him in advance that he would not get protection in his own country. If the police were after him, we might even find him seeking asylum in the local Irish mission, or, if in prison, seeking to communicate with the Irish mission, and, in either case, the embarrassment would be caused, whatever precautions we had taken.
2. It is to be assumed that the political refugees in question are still actively interested in furthering their particular nationalist policies. If so, it is, we consider, an unfriendly act to countries with which we are in friendly relations to give the protection of Irish citizenship to persons who are engaged in activities against the security of these countries. While he remains an alien, a political refugee can be restricted in his political activities; but as a naturalised citizen, no such restriction could be imposed.
3. On the foregoing assumption, moreover, there would be little meaning in giving naturalisation to a political refugee who is actively engaged in nationalist activities abroad, since the loyalty to the State and fidelity to the Nation to which he would be pledged by our Constitution, would clearly take second place to the activities which are obviously nearest his heart.
4. Refusal of naturalisation in such cases is, in no sense, a hardship, since refugees of this kind can obtain a Nansen passport for all normal and legitimate travel purposes and as persons granted permission to reside permanently in this country, they will not be disturbed as long as they behave themselves within the ambit of our laws.

While I have enunciated a general principle, it seems clear that the principle might give a way to exceptions where your Minister is satisfied that none of the dangers to which I have adverted are liable to arise. I am thinking in particular of a case where your Minister was satisfied that the person in question had ceased all foreign political activities and had decided to become a good citizen of Ireland, having his principal and overriding loyalty here. It might be difficult in any particular case to be satisfied on this point, but it would be well, I think, to recognise that the exception could validly exist. I must, nevertheless, remark that the difficulty mentioned at (a) above would still remain. If we give a passport to such a person it would be impossible to accord him protection in the country of his origin, and it would, at the same time, be very difficult to make this exclusion of protection effective in practice. This is particularly so in the case of Breton Nationalists, since geographically considered alone, France is the high road for all continental travel and if, for instance, one of them wished to travel to Switzerland for the winter sports or to Rome for a pilgrimage, he would find it difficult not to travel through France, in which event he might be apprehended by the French police and we would, willy nilly, be faced with a problem, whether or no, we had informed him in advance of the fact that he would get no Irish protection in France. We have only to think of the multiplicity of resolutions from County Councils in the case of Geoffroy, who is not even an Irish citizen, to see how impossible it would be for the Government not to intervene in such a case; and, at the same time, to see how impossible it would be for them to intervene effectively or appropriately.