Border-line Cases
B C. M. WOODHOUSE IF you happened to live at the village of Kesh in Co. Fermanagh, as several hundred excellent people have the wisdom to do, the chances are that sooner or later you would want to visit the famous seaside resort of Bundoran in Co. Donegal. It is only about thirty miles away to the west. A natural way to get there would be
by the Great Northern Railway of Ireland, because Kesh lies on the main line to Bundoran, whether from Dublin or Belfast. The whole of this short journey lies through the beautiful green hills and fields of the historic province of Ulster ; and there are three stops on the way, at stations which bear the characteristically lovely-names of Ulster: first Pettigo, then Belleek, then Ballyshannon.
You might think at first sight that there was nothing particularly remarkable about this journey. But that would. be because you had
not looked at the map ; for whereas Kcsh is in Co. Fermanagh, Pettigo is in Co. Donegal ; and then Belleek is back in Co. Fermanagh, and Ballyshannon in Co. Donegal again. Still you might think there was nothing remarkable about it ; roads and railways often cross county boundaries to and fro, when geography or geology makes It convenient. But again you would have forgotten the important point ; Co. Donegal and Co. Fermanagh are in two foreign countries. When you start from Kesh, you are in Northern Ireland. At Pettigo, the first stop, you arc across the border into Eire, or the Republic of Ireland or, more briefly, simply the South ; though as a matter of fact you are actually a little further north at Pettigo than when you started from Kesh. They are only six miles apart ; but the next stage of the journey, which takes you back across the border to Belleek, is rather longer—some fifteen miles, along the enchanting north shores of Lough Erne. It does not look like foreign country, whichever side you started from. It could not, for it is all Ulster. But there is still the border to cross again in the four miles from Belleek to Ballyshannon ; and then the novelty of foreign travel wears off, because the last five miles to Bundoran lie close to the sea-shore, which the border-line could not reach without heartlessly cutting Eire in two.
This leisurely oscillation to and fro across the border, interrupted at the proper moments by all the proper formalities of the harmless, necessary Customs, would always be interesting at any time. It was doubly so two years ago, when Great Britain (and therefore Northern Ireland) had Double British Summer Time, as a consequence of the great fuel crisis, and Eire, having no such crisis, was content with Single Summer Time. All through that particularly lovely summer the clocks in the North were an hour ahead of the clocks in • the
South. So if you had set out from Kesh to Bundoran in that summer, you would have arrived at the first stop, Pettigo, some fifty minutes by the clock before y6u started ; and you would have arrived at your final destination by the time-table at more or less the same time as you left Kesh..
For some travellers this might have been fun ; for others it would have been infuriating. But for the Great Northern Railway of Ireland it must always have made life hard, and it is no wonder that by now the railway company is in severe economic difficulties. For it is the only major railway left in these islacids that has not yet been taken over by the State. It was excluded from the State railway system of Eire because most of its track-length lay in the North. It could not be included in British nationalisation if only because its head office was in Eire. It remains one of the pleasantest in Europe to travel on ; but it is impossible not sympathise with problems of making it work. This is not an argument that has anything to do with the political fact of partition. It only bears on the economic consequences of
the particular line on which partition was laid down. Article 12 of the Treaty of December 6th, 1921, which recognised the independence of the southern twenty-six counties of Ireland, provided that a com- mission of three members should examine the boundary between the North and the South (which at that moment simply followed de facto the county boundaries), and should -"determine in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions, the boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland." For reasons too unhappy to be recalled, that commission never started its work until more than three years later ; it never made a report ; and no changes were made in the boundaries from that day to this. But whether this accorded with the economic and geographic conditions, or with the wishes of the inhabitants, is more than an Englishman dare speculate.
Yet the men who drafted that phrase about compatibility with economic conditions would have a right to be surprised at some of the consequences entailed by partition today. Some of the geographic conditions which still prevail might surprise them even more ; even to the point of wondering whether or not " accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants " has proved the final test. Where Co. Monaghan in Eire joins Co. Fermanagh, to take another instance, they would find today a tiny enclave of Republican territory, just about four square miles, almost entirely surrounded by the North. It is attached to the main body of Eire by an isthmus of land a few hundred yards wide at most, without any artificial barrier or demarca- tion to distinguish it. If you happened to live at Clones, which is the frontier-town on the Southern side, you would wish from time to time to visit Cavan, the neighbouring county-town, if only because it lies on the best route to Dublin. The distance is less than twenty miles by road ; the road is reasonably straight and the scenery most beautiful ; and on the way you would cross the border four times in ten miles.
Probably you would not notice the border even once. There is almost nothing but four unpretentious signposts and a few Custorni-. huts to draw attention to it, and the huts arc unoccupied most cif the day. You might happen upon a herd of cattle crossing clut isthmus of Republican territory from a farmer's fields on one side the same farmer's fields on the other side ; they might be accorn.; panied by a couple of good-humourcd policemen to make sure that they did not lose the way. You would probably not notice, unlesis you were specially looking out for it, the handsome gate-lodge on the tight-hand side (which is in Northern Ireland) at the entrance to a historic and still inhabited castle (which is in Eire). Why should you notice all this, unless you happened to be an inquisitive English- man ?
Being an inquisitive Englishman, however, you might easily think there was some sort of moral in the whole story. But if you though% that, almost certainly you would be 'wrong.
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