William T. Cosgrave to Eoin MacNeill

My Dear Professor,

I wished to write you during the past few weeks to convey my own personal thanks & acknowledgments for the many services you rendered to the State & to me for many years. I think I ought to have done so earlier - but perhaps it is better that the immediate circumstances of the past month should have passed before I wrote.

I wish to repeat what I said in the Dáil that the task set the Boundary Commission was to secure a Divine Solution by human agency. I have not much inside information about the work of the Boundary Commission - most of what I have being Mr Feetham's contribution to the discussion which took place in the Prime Minister's Room in the House of Commons when the P.M. Sir James Craig & myself met Messrs Feetham & Fisher.¹

I am personally satisfied that you did what was possible in most difficult circumstances. If it be not irrelevant I should say that the best thing possible was done in our negotiations which ended by the Treaty Amendment Agreement. In the end it will I believe & hope be the best solution - but time must be allowed to enable its full benefit to be derived.

I regret your loss to the Ex[ecutive] Council. I believe that regret is shared by the other members. I am grateful for the help which you always afforded us in Council - & I shall always treasure the memory of our long association during most difficult times - and the heroic fortitude you displayed when called upon to make a big sacrifice for the decision you took in supporting the Treaty.