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Volume 8 1945~1948

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No. 275 NAI DT S14002A

Aide-mémoire given to Norman Archer (Dublin) by the Department of External Affairs on the proposed revision of British nationality legislation

Dublin, 23 January 1947

  1. In connection with recent informal discussions on questions of citizenship, the Irish Government thinks it right to set down a number of matters which it considers fundamental to any general consideration of the question of citizenship as it affects the Irish people.
  2. For the Irish people the national territory is the whole of Ireland, and citizens owe fidelity to the Irish nation and loyalty to the Irish State as fundamental political duties. The Irish people can acknowledge no other nationality or allegiance.
  3. The Irish national territory is at present partitioned, but the Irish Government cannot recognise the moral validity of Partition or accept it as imposing upon Irish citizens of the partitioned area the duty of allegiance to any nation or State other than Ireland.

    The Irish Government could, therefore, only view with grave concern any provision imposing upon Irish citizens in the six north-eastern counties any allegiance which they do not and could not conscientiously accept.

  4. These are all matters that differ from any questions likely to arise at the proposed conference as between Great Britain and the members of the Commonwealth, and they have their origin in the existence of an historic Irish nation and the re-emergence of a separate and independent Irish State.
  5. The Irish Government has never interfered with any of its citizens who voluntarily accepted an outside allegiance in place of allegiance to Ireland, and the Irish Government acknowledges that there are individuals who have taken that course and do not wish to alter their choice.
  6. Irish law has already provided for the position of British subjects in Ireland upon the basis of enjoyment of reciprocal rights. This, in the view of the Irish Government, is the only sound basis for dealing with the problem of British subjects in Ireland and of Irish citizens in Great Britain. The existence of deeply-felt separate national allegiance in both countries is thus acknowledged, and it is only by such acknowledgement that a true friendship will be fostered between the two peoples.
  7. The Irish Government feels that it could fruitfully be associated with the proposed London conference only on the basis of a clear recognition by the British Government of the fundamental position of the Irish Government as stated above.
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