Partition a Disaster – US Priest
Posted By: June 19, 2015
On This Day. June 19, 1946
Eamon Phoenix. Irish News. June 19, 2015
Fr Flanagan of Boys’ Town delivered one of the most inspiring addresses that has been made in Ireland within living memory when he spoke at Corrigan Park, Belfast last night – his final speech to the Gaels of the North.
Referring to the problem of Partition, Fr Flanigan said he did not come to Ireland as a politician and he hoped he would say nothing that would hurt the feelings of any Irishman, but as a lover of his country, as one anxious to see her play her part in the world of today, he could not – and he spoke for millions of Irish-Americans – look upon Partition as anything but a disaster. In spite of plausible attempts to make a case for it during the war, Partition raises far more problems than it solves. It saddles a small and comparatively poor country with two expensive legislatures and civil services. It tears in two an economic entity which nature obviously intended to be a unit. Worse still, it violates the elementary principles of democracy and fair play.
