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In May 1922, James Craig described the Boundary Commission as the ‘root of all evil’ for Ulster unionists. Conversely, it ultimately bolstered the unionist cause, leaving the border unchanged and abandoning swathes of Northern nationalists who had assumed that large tracts of land would be transferred to the Free State.
Offered to Sinn Féin plenipotentiaries during the 1921 Treaty negotiations, the Boundary Commission was viewed as a major concession by David Lloyd George, but the vague wording of the clause agreed to by the Irish delegation would prove disastrous. Delayed by the civil war and Unionist non-cooperation, the Boundary Commission finally convened in 1924, hampered from the get-go by Sinn Féin’s naivety, the intransigence of Ulster unionists and the duplicity of successive British governments. It disbanded less than a year later without an inch gained for the twenty-six counties.
After 1925, the nationalist community in the North had to accept that ‘whether they liked it or not, that they were citizens of Northern Ireland’, their trust in both British and Free State governments irrevocably damaged. One hundred years on, Cormac Moore illuminates the fascinating and infuriating story behind the Boundary Commission’s momentous failure.
BRAND NEW - MERRION PRESS, MAY 2025
