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Pete Hodson
Both polities were caught up in the problematic ‘national question’
which the 1925 Boundary Commission sought to solve. Unexpectedly,
the Boundary Commission’s report offered Cosgrave a timely source of
economic relief. In exchange for maintaining the territorial status quo,
London agreed to underwrite the Irish Free State’s war damage payments
and thus relieved the Irish Free State Treasury of a hefty financial burden
(Staunton 2001: 98). The suppression of the Commission’s recommendations was jubilantly received by the UUP, relieved to have dispensed
with a potential threat to Northern Ireland’s viability as a separate polity.
Although both States averted bankruptcy, neither managed to achieve
the economic prosperity – nor in the Irish Free State’s case territorial
configuration – envisaged by their respective ideologues prior to 1920.
Conclusion
Elements of policy similarity between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free
State diminished dramatically after Cumann na nGaedheal lost the 1932
election to the more overtly republican (rhetorically at least) Fianna Fáil.
The 1920s, however, represented something of a hiatus in the long-running and bitter exchange between Irish nationalism and unionism. Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State were baptised in blood. In response to
the substantial threat posed by dissidents, the two nascent States developed a centralised, authoritarian and distinctly partisan approach to law
and order. Both new polities also encountered daunting socio-economic
problems after the once free-flowing Westminster grants were sharply
curtailed or ceased altogether. Administratively, largely deriving from
that fact that partition failed to solve the national question, the Oireachtas
and the Parliament of Northern Ireland struggled to achieve legitimacy
across parts of their respective jurisdictions.
Comparative analysis reveals that the policies devised by the respective
Governments to address these problems differed in subtle, yet important ways. Majoritarian governance of the Irish Free State proved less