Volume 3 1926~1932


Doc No.
Date
Subject

No. 450 NAI DT S6009/4

Letter from Patrick McGilligan to William T. Cosgrave (Dublin)

London, 15 October 1930

Dear President,1

I realise the difficulties you mention about issuing invitations to the Dominion Premiers.2 Scullin is going to Ireland anyhow after the Conference, and so is Brennan, his Attorney General, and perhaps Moloney. Granard3 is inviting them to his place, I understand. Hertzog is keen to go if he can get a long week-end during the sittings of the Conference. He cannot remain over after it concludes. Bennett, I am fairly certain, would not come, and probably Forbes of New Zealand would also decline.

I feel we must ask Scullin and Hertzog, and that we should sound Bennett and Forbes who will, I think, decline. We4 need not do anything about it until the Governor General returns, but we should have to move at once then. Your objections to the military escort proposal are, I think, unanswerable.

Once5 the Governor General returns, I should like to be in a position to offer Hertzog and Scullin a definite invitation, and, while I feel sure they won't come, to sound Bennett and Forbes.

I am sorry to hear you have been confined to bed again. Hegarty6 tells me it was a bad cold. I hope you are completely recovered by now.

Yours sincerely,
[signed] P. McGilligan

1 Handwritten note by Michael McDunphy: 'Seen by President, await further. MMcD'.

2 See No. 449.

3 Lord Granard.

4 This sentence has been underlined by hand.

5 This sentence has been underlined by hand.

6 Diarmuid O'Hegarty.