page_title: Joseph R. Fisher
section_title: Irish Boundary Commission
hierarchical_section_title: Joseph R. Fisher / Irish Boundary Commission
caption_attribution_description: English: Group taken after the arrival of the members of the Boundary Commission, with Secretaries, The Mall, Armagh. - Left to right - Mr. Francis Bernard Bourdillon, C.B.E., M.A. (Secretary to Commission); Mr. J. R. Fisher (Northern Ireland), Mr. Justice Feetham (Chairman), Dr. Eoin MacNeill (Free State representative), and Mr. C. Beerstacher (private secretary to Mr. Justice Feetham). - Photo, Hogan.
context_page_description: Joseph Robert Fisher was a barrister, a newspaper editor, and an author from Ulster. Fisher alternated his career between working as a journalist at London daily newspapers, legal practice at the English Bar, editing Belfast's liberal unionist daily newspaper, and authoring books on subjects such as Irish and European politics and press law. Fisher's most prominent role was his appointment as the Unionist commissioner on the Irish Boundary Commission, the body established under the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty to decide on the delineation of the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland.
context_section_description: The Government of Ireland Act 1920 was intended to produce a lasting solution to the demands of Irish nationalist leaders for political autonomy, known as "Home Rule", by giving Ireland limited regional self-government within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The Act provided for separate self-governing parliaments for Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland, with both remaining within the United Kingdom and both parliaments being subordinate to the Westminster parliament. The parliament and governmental institutions for Northern Ireland were soon established, but the overwhelming majority of MPs returned in the election in the 26 counties gave their allegiance to Dáil Éireann, unrecognised by the British government, thus rendering "Southern Ireland" moot as a political entity and leading to an intensification of the Irish War of Independence.
  The Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the war in January 1922 and the laws that implemented the treaty established a new Irish Free State in place of "Southern Ireland" and allowed Northern Ireland to opt out of the new Free State. The Houses of the Parliament of Northern Ireland duly did so on 7 December 1922, the day after the establishment of the Irish Free State, thus partitioning Ireland.
  The Anglo-Irish Treaty stated that if Northern Ireland elected not to join the Free State, the interim border between the two states would be the existing boundary between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland: the county boundaries between the six North-Eastern counties and the rest of the island. Article 12 of the Treaty contained a provision establishing a boundary commission that would determine the permanent boundary. The Treaty further stipulated that the commission was to have three members. The governments of the United Kingdom, of the Irish Free State and of Northern Ireland were to nominate one member each to the commission.
  The leaders in the Free State, both supporting and opposing the treaty, assumed that the commission would award largely-nationalist areas such as County Fermanagh, County Tyrone, South Londonderry, South Armagh and South Down, and the City of Derry to the Free State and that the remnant of Northern Ireland would not be economically viable and would eventually opt for union with the rest of the island. The Ulster Unionist government of Northern Ireland, however, refused to appoint the commissioner required of it, wishing to concede "not one inch" of the territory of the six parliamentary counties that had seceded.
  The Labour government in Great Britain and the Irish Free State government legislated to allow the British government to impose a representative on behalf of the Unionists. Fisher had a reputation of being a staunch but liberal unionist, and Ramsay MacDonald announced Fisher's appointment on 18 October 1924. He was to work with two other commissioners, Richard Feetham and Eoin MacNeill.
caption: Joseph R. Fisher (second from left) at the Irish Boundary Commission's first sitting in Ireland, 11 December 1924.
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