Letter from Frederick H. Boland to Seán Nunan (Dublin)¹

Lord Rugby’s intervention on the National Art Collections Bill in the House of Lords yesterday was a complete, and for us, an unpleasant surprise. It was the first time that Lord Rugby had spoken in the House of Lords, which indeed he very rarely attends. He told me a few weeks ago that he had not attended a House of Lords debate for over eighteen months. It was an unfortunate coincidence that he happened to be there yesterday when Lord Moyne² raised the question of the Lane pictures³ and it is even more unfortunate that Lord Rugby felt impelled by what Lord Moyne said to speak so strongly, and indeed bitterly, against the proposal that the pictures should be returned to Dublin. As he made clear at the beginning of his remarks, Lord Rugby spoke entirely impromptu. He apparently had no idea when he entered the House that Lord Moyne intended to raise the question of the Lane Collection at all. But the tone of antagonism and hostility towards Ireland in which Lord Rugby spoke was obviously not impromptu. It was clearly the reflection of strong pent-up feelings which he has had for some time.

There is no doubt but that Lord Rugby felt keenly the repeal of the External Relations Act and the enactment of the Republic of Ireland Act, 1948. The change represented an unhappy termination of his mission in Ireland. He always regarded the attacks made on the External Relations Act as unreasonable and unfair and no doubt he felt that the decision to repeal the Act, and the circumstances in which it was made public, reflected somewhat on his discharge of his task as British Representative in Ireland. I know that Lord Rugby was somewhat emotionally upset by developments at the time and some of the statements which he made on his departure from Dublin and later gave some inkling of his personal feelings. The bitterness of his reference to ‘Republican Dublin’ in his speech yesterday is, however, something of which we have had no previous indication.