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Volume 8 1945~1948

Doc No.
Date
Subject

No. 429 NAI DFA 408/68

Memorandum from Leo T. McCauley to Norman Archer (Dublin)
'Observations of the Irish government on draft British Nationality Bill'

Dublin, 24 October 1947

  1. The Irish Government has examined the text of the draft British Nationality Bill which has been sent to it for its observations.
  2. Earlier this year, in the course of the Aide-Mémoire of 23rd January,1 the Irish Government set forth for the information of the British Government the matters which the Irish Government regards as fundamental to the consideration of the question of citizenship as it affects the Irish people.
  3. The draft Bill proposes in the first place to make Irish citizens in the six partitioned north-eastern counties of Ireland British subjects and citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies. The Irish Government must enter its earnest protest against that proposal. As the Irish Government emphasised in its Aide Mémoire, the national territory is, for the Irish people, the whole of Ireland, and the Irish Government cannot recognise the moral validity of Partition nor accept the imposition on Irish citizens of the partitioned area of any outside allegiance.
  4. (a) Secondly, the Irish Government must protest against the terms and implications of clause 2 of the Draft bill. Irish citizens are not British subjects and they owe no allegiance to Great Britain. There can therefore be no question of Irish citizens 'remaining' British subjects.
    (b) Moreover, a proposal that Irish citizens by expressing a mere wish could become British subjects is altogether objectionable. It is recognised by the Irish Government that some Irishmen and Irishwomen have undertaken the duties of British subjects and embraced British allegiance, and in respect of such persons the Irish Government does not claim that they should be regarded as Irish citizens.
  5. (a) Thirdly, the Bill purports to provide that Irish citizens everywhere shall be bound by statutes and statutory instruments affecting British subjects in force at the date of the passing of the Bill. Whatever the intention, that is the effect of the Bill as drafted, and the Irish Government must challenge any enactment of that character as an infringement of the sovereignty of the Irish legislature.
    (b) The Irish Government must also protest even if the intention should be that the proposal should apply only to Irish citizens in Great Britain.
  6. Under Irish law obligations which are appropriate to Irish citizens are not imposed on British subjects living in Ireland. The Irish Government repeats that in its view the position of Irish citizens in Great Britain and of British subjects in Ireland should be dealt with on the basis of the enjoyment of rights while acknowledging the existence in both countries of a deeply-felt separate national allegiance.
  7. There are in addition several other provisions in the draft Bill which are also objectionable, e.g., the proviso to section 18 (1), section 20 and paragraph 2 (a) of First Schedule. It suffices now, however, to state the respects in which the draft Bill in its main features conflicts with the principles which the Irish Government has indicated it regards as fundamental.

1 See above No. 275.

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