Wartime

There is in JJ's papers a copy of Bulletin no 3 dated June 1941, which records these events; a meeting planned for Belfast, at which PT Somerville-Large was to speak about the Mount St Club and the Dublin unemployed, had to be postponed. Papers read to meetings of the Association were summarised: Constantia Maxwell spoke in Dublin on the Ulster Plantation; Louie Bennett spoke in Belfast on Vocational Organisation; Rev Robert Crossett spoke in Belfast on the work of Muintir na Tire; Major-General Sir George Franks KCB spoke in Dublin on Irishmen Abroad. The latter paper on military history was supplemented in the discussion by references to the arts and medicine. William A Beers is listed along with Mary McNeill as being joint secretaries.

In the Montgomery correspondence in the PRONI it is recorded on 29/12/41 that he wished the '...orange order (would) become a pacific body like the Freemasons...'.

There was correspondence with Easons regarding their pamphlet Ireland and the War (1942); they seem to have had trouble getting it into the shops.

There was a Commonwealth Irish Association conference in 1943, with a keynote paper by Prof WGS Adams, Warden of All Souls, Oxford; the theme was 'Reconciliation with Ireland'. Mary McNeill in her paper recorded this interest on the part of the Southern Committee as being post-war, so it seems to have continued up to the time of the Republic.

Major-General Sir G M Franks, who had given the 1941 paper, was then living at Rycroft, Bray, Co Wicklow; he seems to have been the Southern Secretary in 1946. There was talk of employing a 'lady' ex British Embassy for £10 per annum to assist. Franks's assessment of Clann na Poblachta in 1946 was that it was '...simply Sinn Fein under another name...'.

Post-war: JJ's Presidency

In Mary McNeill's paper, after her mention of JJ, she puts on record an attempt to associate Northern interests with a national post-war planning exhibition held in Dublin in 1946. Post-war planning was then a fashionable concept. An attempt was made to involve the NI Rural Development Council, the Ulster Planning Group, the Tourist Association, the Young Farmers Clubs and the Womens' Institute. The then vice-chancellor of Queens was Chairman of the NI Advisory Planning Board, and the Irish Association approached him, but he blocked it. JJ then being in the Senate, and in the first year of his Presidency, would have been keen to make this all-Ireland episode into a significant happening.

On 7/8/48 there was a letter to Miss MA McNeill from FH Boland in the Dept of Foreign Affairs in Dublin. There is talk of Ireland's part in the European Recovery Plan; they are seeking an opportunity to debate it publicly in the North. There is in process an attempt to get the Minister an invitation to speak at Queens. This must have been a JJ initiative, but I can find no record of this in the PRONI archive.

Lord Charlemont's letter of resignation was circa August 1946, but he remained in touch. He wrote in 1948 to ask if the IA had found another President. This was long after JJ is supposed to have become President. He referred, disparagingly, to 'Eoin someone' who had been agitating about releases from Parkhurst. This must have been Eoin (the Pope) O'Mahony who was active in the campaign for the release of 1940s IRA prisoners. Charlemont cannot have been that much in touch if he was unaware who the new President was. But there seems, overall, to be little on record in the PRONI about JJ as regards his Presidency. Was this because because he was a Southern Committee nominee, and somewhat 'non persona grata' on account of his political background as a Protestant Home Ruler?

Correspondence with the Southern Committee during the war was said to be very bad.

There is a reference circa 1949 (JJ had recently lost his seat in the Seanad) to a call for a Council of Ireland from JG Douglas and Arnold Marsh. I suspect that JJ was associated, and I find the fact that he is not mentioned again curious, though at this time he was said to be President of the IA.

Mary McNeill refers at the end of her paper to a revival of interest post-1948, associated with the names of Irene Calvert and Sir Graham Larmor in the North, and Sibyl le Broquy and Louis Bennett in the South, but again no mention of JJ, though this was in his Presidency.

I have copies of the Irish Association Bulletin, nos 9 and 10, dated February and October 1947. Number 9 is important because it gives a list of titles and authors of papers published in the Bulletin, going back to the first issue in 1941. It was produced regularly from 1941, and included summaries of papers read at meetings. I have been unable to verify whether a complete series exists in the PRONI, but some issues, including 9 and 10, exist in substantial numbers, presumably not having been distributed fully. I give this listing in full, as there are signs in it of JJ's influence, such as to give him a valid claim on the post-Charlemont Presidency.

TITLES OF ARTICLES APPEARING IN IRISH ASSOCIATION BULLETINS

The Plantation in Ulster, Dublin, 1941. By Dr. Constantia Maxwell, M.A.

An Approach to Vocational Organization, Belfast, 1941. By Miss Louie Bennett

Munitir na Tire - An Experiment in Eire, Belfast, 1941. By Rev. R. Cressett.

Irishmen Abroad, Dublin, 1941. By Major Gen. Sir George Franks, K.C.B. Bulletin, June, 1941

War Time Economic Problems in the Twenty Six Counties. By Geo. Duncan, M.A., T.C.D. Bulletin, December, 1941.

Rural Development. An Account of the Activities of the Rural Development Council in Northern Ireland, Dublin 1941. By A. S. G. Loxton, Secretary of the Council.

Carolan and His Times, Dublin, 1941. By Donal O'Sullivan. Bulletin, December, 1941.

The Primary Educational System in Northern Ireland. By Rt. Hon. Viscount Charlemont, D.L., Minister of Education, Northern Ireland 1926-27. Bulletin, July, !942.

Some Advantages and Disadvantages of the Decentralisation of Industry in Northern Ireland. By "Flax Spinner." Bulletin, July, 1942.

An Oige C.F. By C E.Trench. Bulletin, July, 1942.

Open Sesame. By Rutherford Mayne. Bulletin, July, 1942.

Toward a Better Ireland. By Very Rev. Dean of Christ Church, Dublin. Bulletin, February, 1943

The Progress of Organization for Play. By Commander B. T. Coote, Director of Recreation and Welfare to the Civics Institute of Ireland. Bulletin, February, 1943.

Henry Grattan. By T. M. O'C. Bulletin, February, 1943.

From Cork to Belfast. The Development of City Management in Ireland. By John J. Horgan. Bulletin, February, 1943.

Notes on Irish Red Cross Society. Bulletin, June, 1944.

Lay Children's Guardians. Bulletin, June, 1944.

Pamphlet With Much Purpose. By Outis - reprint from "The Times Pictorial." Bulletin, June, 1944.

Ireland After the War. By Major Gen. Hugh Montgomery, C.B., C.M.G., D.L. Bulletin, November, 1944.

Ireland After the War. By Major Gen. Sir George Franks, K.C.B. Bulletin, November, 1944.

Munitir na Tire. By M. A. McN. Bulletin, November, 1944.

Facing Facts concerning Agriculture in Ulster. By Agronomos, Bulletin, November, 1944.

Irish Association Pamphlets No. 1. Ireland and the War, 1940. No. 2. Town Planning in Ireland, 1944.

JJ would have been in a position to invoke papers from Constantia Maxwell, George Duncan, Dean Lewis-Crosby, Terry Trench, Commander Coote and the various other Southern contributors. Trench lived in digs in our house near Drogheda in 1942 when he first took up a job managing the Drogheda mill. He shared with my aunt Ann a founder-interest in an Oige, the Irish Youth Hostels Association. Duncan and Maxwell were JJ's colleague in TCD. JJ's son-in-law Dermot Carmody had recently been a Junior Clerical Vicar in Christ Church, before he moved to his parish at Ballinaclough near Nenagh. The above activity-list constitutes a good snapshot of JJ's interests during the war, as I remember them.

It is not unreasonable to conjecture that the publication of this bibliography was on JJ's initiative, seeing as it was the first issue of the Bulletin after he became President. The contact-points for the circulation of No 9 Bulletin are given as Miss MA McNeill, 22 Mount Charles, Belfast, and Miss J O'Conor, Churchill House, Kilmainham, Dublin. The latter could perhaps have been the 'Embassy lady' mentioned by General Franks. The sole contact for issue 10 is Ms McNeill.

Issue 9 editorialises on the Charlemont resignation; there is no perceptible tension. Recent developments in Ireland are noted: the NI Housing Trust and the Shield Development Association; Airports in the Free State; the Armagh-Dunsink-Harvard-Bloemfontein astrophysical collaboration; a paper in Belfast by Professor WB Stanford.

The astrophysical collaboration remains in existence to this day, and was a pioneering post-war example of international scientific collaboration, funded by several governments, including Northern Ireland and 'Eire' as the Free State became known after de Valera's 1937 Constitution was adopted, and before the Republic was declared. Its objective was, and remains, to give access for northern hemisphere astronomers to southern hemisphere sky.

There are reviews of books by Shane Leslie, WB Stanford and one Barbara Fitzgerald, the latter, entitled 'We Are Besieged', being a record of the perceptions of the Free State by Southern Protestants.

Issue 10 of the Bulletin, dated October 1947, editorialises on the Northern Ireland Act 1947 (calling for an annual review of the Special Powers Act), the Erne electrical generation scheme (highly regarded by Wilmot the then Westminster Minister of Supply), Bevin's call for a Commonwealth Customs Union (implications for all-Ireland trade and development), and on the invitation of Dublin Corporation to Belfast Corporation to visit and discuss municipal affairs; this it seems was declined.

It also contains a summary of a paper by Arnold Ussher on 'Contemporary Thought in Ireland'; this is a candidate for the IA web-site archive. Mentioned in it are Austin Clarke, Samuel Beckett, Alfred O'Rahilly, Arnold Marsh, Myles na gCopaleen, as well as the anonymous author of a neo-Berkeleyan pamphlet 'The New Querist', who in all probability was JJ.

So, by the end of the 40s the Association had accumulated some momentum which continued into the 50s under JJ's Presidency.

Some navigational notes:

Copyright Dr Roy Johnston 1999