Extracts from a letter from Frederick H. Boland to Seán Nunan (Dublin)
(Secret)

Sir Percivale Liesching rang me on the 3rd March to say that he had received a communication from the British Ambassador in Dublin² about our representation at the coronation which he ‘should be glad if I would help him to interpret’. I arranged to call on Sir Percivale yesterday afternoon.

[matter omitted]

5. I thought it better – bearing in mind the conversations I had with the Minister during my last visit – to speak to Sir Percivale quite frankly. I told him that he must regard anything in the nature of the special accreditation of an Irish representative to the coronation ceremony as being out of the question. The Irish Government were anxious to avoid anything that might be construed as a personal affront to the British Head of State at the moment of her coronation; but they were equally firmly averse to any action incompatible with their own feelings – and the feelings of the Irish people as a whole – about the continuance of Partition and the extension of the new Royal title to the Six County area. The special accreditation of a representative to the coronation ceremony would amount to action of that kind, and in my view the Government would simply not be prepared to entertain it.
6. Sir Percivale said that this seemed to bring us to somewhat of an impasse, and frankly he didn't see himself how it was going to be got over.

[matter omitted]

7. The discussion continued for an appreciable time; but I sensed from its trend that the difficulties which were being raised were not insuperable and I adhered to the position I had adopted. In the end, Sir Percivale stated that, in view of what I said, he felt there was no purpose in their sending the proposed telegram to Sir Walter Hankinson. They would have to consider the matter again and see how I could be fitted into the official scheme of things on the basis I had explained. He warned me, however, that this was not a matter on which the Commonwealth Relations Office would have the final say. The Palace and the Earl Marshal’s Office would have to agree to anything they succeeded in working out. He said they would also have to consider my position, not only at the coronation ceremony but at various other official functions which would be held during the days immediately before and after the coronation. It might be that I could not be invited to the official banquets and receptions given for the officially accredited representatives if I were not an officially accredited representative myself. I said that my position in regard to this was that, while I was anxious to avoid anything which might be construed as discourtesy in an Ambassador accredited to this Court, I was not looking for position or prominence at any of the official functions to which he referred. I asked that the Commonwealth Relations Office should send me as soon as possible a list of any functions to which I was likely to receive invitations. Sir Percivale said that this would be done.