Details of a Government decision to commission a "Study of the Practical Problems Arising on the Reintegration of the National Territory" in 1957 have surfaced in the latest batch of State papers released through the National Archives. Although the bulk of the papers belong to 1970, this file dates from 13 years before.
During that year, the Inter-Party Government headed by Mr John A. Costello was replaced, on March 20th, by a Fianna Fail administration under Mr Eamon de Valera.
On February 2nd, the Government decided that each department should undertake an intensive study of all the practical problems associated with a united Ireland, including "the harmonisation, subject to due allowance for legitimate local and sectional interests, of policies and methods concerning agricultural and industrial development, social services, health services, education and other matters".
The Government also decided that, for the purposes of the study, it could be assumed: "(a) provisionally, that a separate legislature with powers corresponding to those at present exercised by the Six-County parliament will be created or recognised in respect of either the present Six-County area or a smaller area, such as the area in which those who are at present opposed to reintegration form a homogeneous majority, and (b) that the powers at present reserved by the British parliament will be transferred to a parliament for all Ireland."
Later that month, in a commentary addressed to the Secretary of the Department of Defence, the Chief of Staff, Maj Gen P.A. Mulcahy, pointed up some of the obstacles to achieving territorial reintegration.
"Apart from the problem of overcoming the attitude of the Six Counties government and the wishes of the majority of the population of the Six Counties, it is certain that the biggest obstacles to reintegration will derive from British strategic and defence considerations."
It was to be expected, he wrote, that the British would view proposals for reintegration in the light of their significance and implications for "(a) the security of Great Britain itself; (b) British defence relations with member-states of the Commonwealth; (c) British defence commitments and responsibilities arising from membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the United Nations Organisation".