Extracts from
'Report on visit to North by Conor Cruise O'Brien
23rd – 25th March, 1953'

On the above date I visited centres in the Six Counties on the Minister’s instructions in connection primarily with the scheme for the distribution of 50,000 copies of ‘Ireland’s Right to Unity’¹ to Unionist families and secondarily to explore possibilities in connection with a suggestion by the Minister that a short documentary film might be made showing the effects of discrimination in housing etc. in a typical Six County community. In the course of this visit some of the political leaders, especially Mr. Michael O’Neill, MP (mid-Ulster) and Mr. Eddie McAteer, MP, Derry City,² made a number of comments and suggestions which I have thought it well to set down here as of possible interest.

1. Pamphlet Distribution

   In this connection I attended the meeting of the Executive of the Anti-Partition League on 24th March at 17, Howard Street, Belfast. Mr. Stewart, MP³ was in the chair deputising for Mr. McSparran,⁴ the League’s Chairman who was not present and who, I understand, seldom attends. Others present included Mr. Patrick McGill (Omagh), present Honorary Secretary of the League,⁵ Mr. Cahir Healy, MP, Mr. Michael O’Neill, MP, Mr. Connellan⁶ and Mr. Gerald Annesley.⁷ The Chairman began by referring to the previous meeting of the League at which the decision had been taken that the League should handle the distribution of these pamphlets and in which individual members had taken on the responsibility for distribution in their areas. It had been hoped that distribution could be carried out on or near Easter Monday. The Chairman invited me to speak and I thanked the members of the Executive and their co-workers on behalf of the Minister for their co-operation in this scheme. I explained the importance which the Minister attached to it based on the fact that hitherto no real effort had been made to get across the case for unity to Unionists. If even a limited number of those who received the pamphlet opened it and read it, it would be likely to shake them in their convictions. I emphasised the importance of simultaneous distribution at an early date and certainly before a General Election. A discussion followed in which it soon became clear that those who had undertaken the work had as yet made no progress with it and that there would be no hope at all of distribution by Easter.

   [matter omitted]

   In the discussion, one member of the Executive, a Mr. Smith from, I think, Fermanagh, questioned the wisdom of the whole project and said that no pamphlet would ever convince an Ulster Unionist; no one explicitly supported him but I gathered that many of the others present shared his views, at least to some extent. The Chairman, however, pointed out that the decision to operate the distribution scheme had been taken at a previous meeting of the Executive, on which he (the Chairman) considered very good grounds. The Chairman then asked me to convey to the Minister the Executive’s undertaking that this work would be carried out in the week beginning 1st May and their thanks to the Minister for taking sufficient interest in their work as to send a representative to the meeting.

[matter omitted]

2. Documentary Film

   As my instructions were to raise this matter only privately with one or two reliable people I did not mention it at the Executive of the League. However, on my journey with Mr. O’Neill who travelled with me from Belfast as far as Omagh, I did raise it. Mr. O’Neill was enthusiastic about the idea and said there was ample material for any such documentary. He mentioned a small town called Fintona not far from Omagh which was a particularly striking example of housing discrimination. He said he would think the matter over further and would let me have any further ideas when he was down to Dublin around Easter. His conversation on the journey was informative. As some of the matters mentioned may be of interest to the Minister I am setting them down below. I should say, however, that when he raised political matters – as distinct from technical publicity matters – I contented myself with listening and did not contribute more than an occasional question to the discussion. He was quite clear throughout that the object of my mission was purely in connection with publicity matters.

3. The League in Britain

   Mr. O’Neill said that the improvement in the League, both in membership and in morale had been tremendous in recent months. He attributed this in part to the energy and efficiency of Mr. Tadhg Feehan and to his activity in touring provincial areas but even more than this, he stressed the great influence and popularity in Irish circles of Ambassador Boland. He said that the Ambassador’s assiduity in visiting all sorts of Irish groups in many different centres had greatly helped not only the League but the morale of the Irish in England generally.

[matter omitted]

5. The League in the Six Counties

   Mr. O’Neill seemed to consider that the League had made more progress in Britain than in the Six Counties itself. He deplored – as did everybody else who raised the matter with me – Mr. James McSparran’s ‘absentee leadership’. He said that to do him justice, Mr. McSparran did not seek the leadership and would willingly relinquish it. He gave me to understand, however, that there would be difficulty in agreeing on a new leader. He said that he himself would favour Mr. McAteer but that Mr. McAteer now ‘seemed only interested in Derry’ and ‘did not believe in the League’. I am inclined to think from subsequent and previous meetings with Mr. McAteer that this is a fair representation.

6. Abstention Policy

   Mr. O’Neill indicated that as far as Stormont was concerned, the abstention policy was no longer a live factor but that as regards Westminster, it was still very much a force. He himself believed that it was possible for an MP at Westminster to do some useful work not only in the House but among the Irish and the friends of Ireland in England. It was, however, he knew, widely held that he and Mr. Healy were ‘doing no good’. This again I found corroborated by Mr. McAteer whose view was that Mr. O’Neill and Mr. Healy were ‘too respectable’ and that they did not use Westminster for what Mr. McAteer himself referred to as ‘stunts’ – the only purpose for which in Mr. McAteer’s view representation at Westminster was of any use.

[matter omitted]

7. Effectiveness of our Propaganda

   [matter omitted]

   Mr. O’Neill praised ‘Ireland’s Right to Unity’ which he said was the best single piece of propaganda we possessed. He stressed that of course we have a very long way to go before our case gets across even to a sizeable minority of English people but he thought progress was being made. Inside the Six Counties he said that the fact that missions now existed to give instantaneous publicity to any new flagrant abuses had a very salutary effect on the Unionists whose whole tone was far less aggressive and far less overtly bigoted than it had been in the past. The morale of our own people was correspondingly raised. Nationalists in the North tended, however, to be ignorant [of] what was going on in the Twenty-Six Counties and to swallow to some extent Unionist propaganda about ‘backward Éire’. In this connection he had discussed with a number of people especially Catholic educational authorities in Tyrone and Fermanagh the possibilities of showing in schools and halls 16 mm. copies of newsreels and documentaries such as are shown in cinemas in the Twenty-Six Counties but which the commercial distributors in the Six Counties, all Unionists, will not handle. He found that there was quite an abundance of 16 mm. projectors among Catholic Clubs, schools and colleges and great keenness on the idea. I told him that there would be no difficulty in getting such films for him and that it would be possible in accordance with the recognised practice to issue such films for non-commercial exhibition through the Ambassador in London.

8. Derry Film

   In Derry, I was received hospitably by Mr. Eddie McAteer who had in to meet me two close political associates of his, Councillor O’Doherty⁸ and a teacher in St. Colum’s College, whose name, unfortunately, escapes me. After they had agreed to carry out the pamphlet distribution for both Derry City and County by the date agreed with the League Executive I broached with Mr. McAteer the question of the film. He, again, was very enthusiastic but was insistent that no small community should be taken as the subject for such a film but that Derry City itself should be the subject and that it should take in not merely housing discrimination but the situation in Derry generally. He also said that he would be in Dublin for Easter and that he would be turning the idea over in his mind. A general discussion followed in which I joined only to the extent of asking a few questions. The following points arose.

9. General Situation in Derry

   All were agreed that the situation in Derry was more explosive than it had been for many years and much more so than in any other centre in the Six Counties at present. They had feared earlier that the ‘Welfare State’ benefits would have had a demoralising effect on the Nationalist majority in Derry which mostly consisted of the poorer people. These fears proved unfounded and Catholic Derry was ‘solid as never before.’ All stressed that the line of political cleavage in Derry was exactly along the religious division. There were no Catholic Unionists and no Protestant Nationalists – at least none who dared to make their views known. A few Protestant Nationalists – they mentioned names – who had had the courage to come out had been forced by various kinds of boycotting to leave Derry. From this point of view they were sceptical about the pamphlet distribution scheme although quite ready to carry it out.

10. St. Patrick’s Day Ban

    The decision to cancel the St. Patrick’s Day demonstration this year in the face of the ban was made principally on the insistence of the Bishop of Derry, Dr. Neill Farren.⁹ Dr. Farren according to these three disapproves of Anti-Partition ‘stunts’ and is much more interested in the economic advancement of the Catholic community than in any political concern. The clergy are solidly Anti-Partitionists but are kept on a tight rein by the Bishop. At the same time, Mr. McAteer who was in favour of a demonstration admitted that it would almost certainly have led to bloodshed in view of the high tempers of the Nationalist population at the moment and the thorough measures which the Stormont Government had taken.

11. Mr. McAteer and his friends were critical of what they described as the ‘fraternization policy’¹⁰ of the Dublin Government. They believed that co-operation in such matters as transport, electricity etc. was ‘helping Partition to work’ and they were particularly critical of the ESB one of whose representatives, it appears, attended at a luncheon in Derry in connection with the Erne scheme, this luncheon having been boycotted by the Anti-Partitionists in Derry. Although they were critical along these lines it was clear that they did not expect their criticisms to have much effect and that they did not really have any alternative policy to propose. It was clear that their main interest was in the local situation in Derry and in how it could be exploited for the discomfiture of the Unionists rather than in any general strategy on Partition.
12. General Observations

    In so far as personal opinion may be of any interest, I thought that the atmosphere prevailing in Anti-Partitionist circles in the North was better than when I was last there on a similar mission (in 1951). The men who are now most prominent have, certainly, differences both between themselves and with Dublin but they do not concentrate unduly on such differences or make them an excuse for inaction on their own part. Both Mr. McAteer and Mr. O’Neill seem to be in their different ways, very energetic and sincere leaders and to command a good deal of respect in their movement. There also seems to be more optimism about the outcome of the struggle than there was a couple of years ago; indeed in the case of Derry that optimism may be excessive, even dangerously so but on the whole, the Anti-Partition movement seems solider and with a better spirit than it has been in recent years.