AIKEN, Frank. Towards Unity and Peace. A Speech by Frank Aiken on the Partition Problem with an Open Letter to Sir Basil Brooke (Signed copy)

Dublin: Published for Fianna Fáil, by The Irish Press Ltd., n.d. [May, 1949]. Octavo. pp. 24. Original blue printed wrappers, stapled. Signed by Frank Aiken in Irish on titlepage. Loosely inserted is an invoice from P. Bennett, Printer & Bookbinder, Newry, to Phelim Magennis, Hill Street, Newry, for the printing cost for 750 copies of this work ‘May 19, 1949, with a receipt. A fine copy. €575
Frank Aiken (1898–1983), Chief of Staff of the IRA during the Civil War, later served as a senior Fianna Fáil minister, Tánaiste, and Minister for External Affairs. In this pamphlet, issued at the height of post-war debate over the constitutional future of Northern Ireland, Aiken appeals for reconciliation and the ending of partition. He argues that unity, rather than division, is the only sustainable basis for peace and stability in Ireland.
The work includes his open letter to Sir Basil Brooke, then Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, in which Aiken challenges the Unionist leader to recognise the rights of nationalists and to acknowledge that partition served only to entrench bitterness and inequality. The pamphlet reflects the official Fianna Fáil line of the period, seeking to mobilise opinion both domestically and internationally against the partition settlement.
Copies are rarely found in commerce, and this is an important survival of Fianna Fáil’s printed propaganda campaign on the most intractable issue in twentieth-century Irish politics.
Phelim Magennis was a Stockbroker, listed as a member of the Provincial Brokers’ Stock Exchange with business address 38 Hill Street, Newry in official government notices for 1947-1948. Frank Aiken’s sister Nano Aiken was married to Phelim Magennis.

[Cat 162]