Old Believer
03-06-2004, 02:29 AM
Charles Henry Bewley was born in colonial Dublin on July 12, 1888. His mother Evelyn Pim was Church of Ireland, his father, a medical officer, a Quaker. Charles and his three brothers were reared as Quakers. They all went to Winchester College. Charles and his next brother, Kenneth, went up to New College, Oxford and Kenneth went into the Treasury. The two younger brothers, Geoffrey and Thomas, studied Medicine at Trinity College Dublin. Being non-Catholic in Castle-controlled, discriminating Ireland was a social advantage for the Bewleys but Charles could not stand the anglified middle classes. Plain people bored him, the native Irish did not count. He was ‘difficult’. His family was unionist so he became nationalist. He escaped into Celtic mythology but his speech betrayed his Celtic posturings. He shocked with his enfant terrible support for the Boers and his condemnation of the evils of Anglicization.
In 1901, from Park House (England), he won a scholarship to Winchester where he became library prefect, won prizes for English and shone in debate. When however he ridiculed the British national anthem, in seconding a motion ‘That England is not a musical nation’, ‘The Wyckamist’ accolade was sharply reversed. In 1910 he won the Newdigate prize for poetry and the Oxford literary magazine, ‘The Isis’, (18/10/1910) ‘idolized’ him for it, albeit patronizingly: ‘let the credit be given at once to Ireland.. whether he lisped in numbers as well as in brogue and where he first acquired his thirst for Irish freedom and knowledge of the classical tongues is uncertain and does not greatly matter…… On the shores of Clew Bay he is reverenced as a coming deliverer…. the only man …. who has been honoured with a biography in the Mayo News’.
The outbreak of the Great War (1914) saw him back in Ireland, where he qualified as a lawyer, espoused Home Rule politics and represented Irish prisoners at summary trials in Dublin Castle. Oliver Gogarty credited him with writing General Sean Mac Eoin’s (‘The Blacksmith of Ballinalee’) death-sentence speech. He took part in Sinn Féin court proceedings in the west of Ireland, unsuccessfully stood as a Sein Féin candidate and later, under the aegis of John A. Costello, zestfully prosecuted prisoners from the republican side. According to the late Professor Dan Binchy, Sean T. O’Kelly held that against him afterwards. Judge Cahir Davitt could recollect only that Bewley played the piano at Mass and was not much liked. His superior airs made him unpopular.
In the Dáil debates (1929) on diplomatic appointments, Sean T. O’Kelly did his best to nobble Bewley’s chances, but he was appointed nonetheless, as resident minister to the Holy See. He would have preferred the Berlin posting but a reluctant D.A. Binchy was dragooned into that fateful post.
The British had difficulty with the Rome posting but, as they advised, McGilligan’s unctuous inquiry after the King’s health smoothed matters. The King requested the Pope to give Bewley credence in his name, ‘more especially when he shall renew to Your Holiness the assurance of My sincere friendship and of unfeigned respect and esteem which I entertain for Your Holiness’s Person and Character.’
Inexplicably, Bewley’s letter of credence was held up until the eleventh hour. Bewley took umbrage and in his presentation speech confined himself to the long list of soldiers of Christ who went out from Ireland in the early middle ages to complete the work of evangelizing Europe, one of the greatest of them being St. Columbanus of Bobbio, who had a special place in the affections of the Pope. He referred to the vast expansion of the Irish race throughout the English-speaking countries and to the prominent place it had taken in spreading the Catholic faith in the great countries of the United States of America and the British Commonwealth of Nations. He recalled that it was almost 360 years since Innocent X sent Cardinal Rinuccini to Ireland as Nuncio. He made no reference to the King.
The alarmed British representative, H.J. Chilton, impressed on the Pope that Bewley’s appointment did not denote any departure from the principle of diplomatic unity. ‘Needling the Brits’ did not immediately damage Bewley in certain quarters back home. He made a good impression on de Valera during the President’s visit to Rome in 1932, getting him off the ‘top hat’ hook. Fianna Fáil had made political capital out of the previous Government members’ wearing of ‘West-British’ top hats. It boomeranged when they took office and had to dress for State occasions themselves. Bewley arranged it so that the press photographed de Valera only when he was not wearing his top hat. He cloaked his loathing of de Valera long enough to get at last the coveted Berlin posting. He was convinced that only National Socialism could save Europe from Russia. Undiplomatically, he courted controversy.
In July 1933 the British Foreign Office got annoyed when the Pope bestowed a decoration – the Order of the Grand Cross of St. Gregory the Great - on Bewley without getting the King’s agreement beforehand. Sir. R. Clive, the then British representative at the Holy See, felt that a diplomat was not entitled to wear the decoration without the King’s permission. Fianna Fáil were judged by Bewley to be unlikely to request such permission. However, Dublin too was perturbed. Bewley’s smirking answer further exasperated the Department: he had ‘no idea why he had been singled out’.
The Vatican later got into more trouble over Bewley’s transfer to Germany. The King had written to the Pope saying that he badly needed Bewley elsewhere, praising their Irish representative at a time when Bewley was the bane of the British mission’s existence. The Pope transmitted his reply through Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster. The British thought that a curious channel. The Foreign Office wrote injured minutes making fun of the Pope’s bog Latin. The King found it ‘all very complicated’. Dublin also took offence. The proper procedure was for the Vatican to have sent the letter to the Papal Nunciature in Dublin, which would have communicated it to the King through the Free State authorities. The Vatican apologized. It was relieved when Bewley finally left. He spelt trouble.
He drove from Rome to Berlin in July 1933. He stopped off at Nuremberg as he was delayed by heat rash and engine trouble. There was a further delay in presenting his credentials, due to the state of President Hindenburg’s health. When, finally, he presented them at the beginning of September, Hindenburg praised his impeccable German. In his address Bewley again deliberately refrained from making any mention of the King. He referred instead to the long association between the two countries, notably in the field of Celtic Scholarship and to the part played by German industry in fostering commercial exchanges. He took great liberties translating the official English text supplied, playing to the gallery by dragging in a reference to the ‘national rebirth of Germany’. That went down well. He disowned Binchy’s anti-Hitler articles in Studies (March 1933). He turned the conversation to horses knowing Hindenburg’s love for them. He was not amused at the President’s quip about swapping a nubile German maiden for an Irish horse.
He made no attempt to conceal his zeal for the Nazis and, awed by SS organisational expertise, reported the Nuremberg rally with relish (September 2nd and 3rd, 1937). He highlighted two important speeches made by Chancellor Hitler, the first to a small audience being more a scientific disquisition on racial problems than a popular oration. It ‘naturally’, went on Bewley, referred to the demoralizing influence of ‘a foreign race’ on Government art, literature and morals and emphasized the necessity for the Aryan principle of leadership, instead of counting heads to form a parliamentary majority. The other speech, he continued, to an audience of 10,000, was different in style, but dealt in reality with the same subject, no reference being made to current questions of those endowed by providence with the capacity to rule, whether their birth be humble or not.
He underlined that Hitler was incomparably the finest orator that he had ever heard. He had never seen, not even in Italy, such enthusiasm for one man. He further reported a review of 100,000 SA and SS men at which a number of new standards - including five to Austrian towns and one to the Memel district - were conferred.
He then confided that the Dolfuss Government would not last very long as the majority of the Austrian people wanted a National Socialist form of Government. He castigated the Irish papers, which, through Reuters, played down the occasion, reporting that no Embassy had been represented but that of Italy. (Turkey sent a Chargé d’Affaires.) Even more tendentious, he complained, was the reference in the Irish papers to Cuba and Haiti, which picked out the two least important states represented. In fact, he clarified, all the Baltic states, Switzerland, Hungary, Portugal, Mexico, China, Persia and Afghanistan were represented. He was delighted to recount that Hofer, the Austrian National Socialist, who had recently escaped from an Austrian prison to Italy, and thence flew to Nuremberg, put in a dramatic appearance at the rally.
The Irish Minister in Berlin, again undiplomatically, went on to give a series of interviews to German newspapers, ostensibly about trade. He never failed to make the point that the only question of critical importance in Ireland was ‘for or against England’, and that de Valera stood for independence from England. He did not forget to draw attention to the imbalance of trade in Germany’s favour. In the period January to June 1933 German exports to Ireland totaled £809,606 (over 12 million marks), double the sum for the corresponding period in the previous year - while imports from Ireland for the same period came to only £33,346 (over 500,000 marks).
He found time to torment the Department of External Affairs about his income tax. Since the depreciation of the pound, Bewley’s salary had been paid in gold pounds while he was in Germany, but when he went on leave it was paid in depreciated pounds. He found out that the Revenue Commissioners were also paid in depreciated pounds, whereas the amount deducted from his salary was in gold pounds. The Department rejected his claim that his salary should first be calculated in German gold currency.
The man with the ‘mean as cats meat’ reputation (per Binchy) had met his match in the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Finance. They had already refused to pay rank pay or car allowance to his predecessor, acting Chargé d’Affaires, forcing him to cadge lifts from other diplomats to get about in Berlin. These two departments had scant regard for the nascent diplomatic service.
Following his Berlin posting, Bewley increasingly made no attempt to conceal his anti-Britishness. The British kept cool initially in deference to Winchester and to his Colonial Office connections. The tone became more shrill in 1935 after Bewley had snubbed the King’s Jubilee celebrations. Sir E. Phipps of the Foreign Office then wrote to Mr. Nevile Bland, a Counsellor in the Foreign Office (later Ambassador to the Netherlands) – about Bewley’s ‘revolting piece of bad manners’. It was recommended that he be invited ‘no more to anything’, that he was ‘irreclaimable’. The Department of External Affairs would not have quarreled with the Foreign Office assessment. When the Constitution was being introduced, Bewley queried (29 September 1937) whether he should communicate officially that the name of the State was changed from ‘Saorstát’ to ‘Éire’. It took the Department until 3 December to advise him not to emphasise the Irish form, as the change in name would not have the same political or national significance if Éire were used by foreigners. He was informed that the Irish Government’s hope was that the use of “Ireland” to describe the twenty-six Counties would have a definite psychological effect in favour of the unity of the country on both Irish and foreign minds.
He then asked what further explanations he should give as to the effect of the Constitution on the relations of Éire to Great Britain? Only such as were obvious from the articles of the Constitution, was the snub retort. In the event of questions being put to him, he persisted, on the general state of relations of Éire to Great Britain, what line should he take? He got a stiff reply: the relations between the two countries were improving since the removal of Mr. Thomas. Great Britain’s new determination not to seek to interfere in Irish affairs was creating a better atmosphere for the settlement of the more outstanding questions between the two countries, though only the removal of partition could open the way for the final settlement.
He was further rebuffed when he snidely queried what attitude he should adopt in the event of inquiries as to Éire’s probable position in the case of war between Germany and Great Britain. No doubt, he was told, that type of inquirer would meet the treatment he deserved at his hands. Bewley came back pointing out that the word ‘obvious’ used in the text of the Department’s replies was a relative term. He referred to the British penal duties on Irish goods, the British occupation of Irish ports and similar matters. What instances, he hammered, should he now give, illustrating Britain’s determination not to seek to interfere in Irish affairs? He professed not to understand the meaning of the Department’s replies. The Department’s patience was wearing thin with Bewley’s presumptions. They spelt out his duties for him: as envoy, to relay, during his visit to the Secretary of State, the new position of the King and the position of the President of Ireland, which he could find out for himself by reading the Constitution. Curiously, they did not specify.
It was however stressed that, when talking on Constitutional matters with German officials, he must be careful not to exaggerate what he described as “freedom from domination by England.” He was taken to task for a report (7.10.37), (the tone of which infuriated de Valera) that the British still imposed penal duties on our goods, still occupied our ports and still maintained the country divided. These things were not being changed by the Constitution, was the snapped answer from Dublin: it represented the maximum effort of the Irish people to provide themselves with their own fundamental law and to secure for themselves complete internal sovereignty within the twenty-six county area. If he were asked by a German official or by the Secretary of State what Ireland’s position would be in the event of war between Germany and Great Britain he should naturally reply that such an event was too terrible to contemplate and he must refuse to discuss what our attitude would be. If, on the other hand, he was asked what Ireland’s position would be if England were at war with Power X, there was no reason why he should not inform them of Ireland’s absolute right to remain neutral: and that right could only be determined according to the circumstances prevailing at the time. He was told to be very careful in all he said to German officials about our political position, as they would have no scruples in repeating such statements to the British Ambassador or to his officials, if they thought the slightest advantage could be obtained thereby for Germany. The general atmosphere was better – the admonishment went on - notwithstanding the several negative factors in our relations with Great Britain, and, it was again emphasized, this had begun with the elimination of Mr. Thomas. The Department hoped that an approach to the solution of major difficulties, with the exception of partition, might be found during the next months. As the goodwill of important British officials would be a useful factor in securing a better settlement, de Valera personally desired all his diplomatic representatives to be careful to maintain relations of a relatively friendly character with the Heads of British Missions.
Bewley had treated Sir Nevill Henderson, the British ambassador in Berlin as a buffoon. It was no excuse in Dublin’s eyes that Henderson’s behaviour was, at times, odd, even peculiar. The Irish Minister’s mission was made plain to him. Perturbation was expressed that in one of his reports Bewley spoke of having seen the British Ambassador for the first and last time. He was frostily informed that, while there was no need to pay much attention to the person or opinions of the British Ambassador, he should generally be regarded as a person whose influence could be used against us, and, as realists governing a very small country, the Government desired to avoid anything which might militate in the smallest degree against securing for their people the best possible agreement with Britain.
Bewley was instructed to indicate what his precise relations with the present British Ambassador were, and whether his relationships with him or the Chargé d’Affaires were different from his relations with the British officials in Rome. What was the British Ambassador’s influence with the German Government, he was sharply asked. He was then told to prepare for the Minister a comprehensive report going back over the international aspects of the past few months in relation to Germany and also setting out the present position of the Churches there. Press reports in Ireland showed that the Christian religion, both Catholic and Protestant, continued to suffer persecution in Germany. The real danger the Department saw, was the new Nazi State eliminating formal religion, at least for the life of the present generation.
Bewley nevertheless continued to annoy Dublin, nit-picking for U-turns in the Department’s dealings with the British. In April 1935 Walsh had told him to attend only Jubilee functions at which members of the diplomatic corps other than the representatives of the British Commonwealth were present. Two years later (1937) the instruction was that the flag should not be flown in the Legation on the Coronation Day of King George VI. Then Bewley learned that the Irish Minister to France, Art O’Briain, had been disciplined when he demurred at being presented to the King and Queen, during their visit to Paris. Con Cremin (the Chargé d’Affaires) did the honours instead. Indignant, Bewley demanded explanations. He was treading on very dangerous ground with a ports settlement in the offing, a World War looming and dual office holder de Valera at the height of his powers. Bewley was living in the past. He got his knuckles severely rapped when he crowed (22.2.38) about not attending a dinner at the South African legation. He should have, was the cryptic reaction. Still he persisted, demanding an explanation for an Irish Times report that Minister MacWhite would meet Chamberlain at Rome station and attend a British Empire banquet. Boland quashed him: if he had any doubt about how to act he should, like other representatives, refer the matter to Dublin for directions. Curt instructions to MacWhite followed (3.1.39): ‘Railway accept, dinner accept’.
Prior to the change of Government in 1932 there had been no trouble about accepting invitations to occasions of an exclusively Commonwealth character. In 1934, however, in the climate of the economic war, the policy had changed. The looming war now cleared minds and reinstated the previous policy. Bewley, however, had his mind made up. He still believed that England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity. He underestimated de Valera’s determination to pursue ad hoc Irish neutrality. The British Embassy in Berlin reported that Bewley had declared (1938) his intention to resign if Mr. de Valera in the September crisis had joined Britain in the war against Germany. When, inevitably, he resigned, the Foreign Office blandly remarked that he had not agreed with his Government and would probably retire and settle down in Rome. His 1938 declaration had gone a bridge too far. Nevile Henderson reported that Bewley ‘had not seen eye-to-eye with his Government’. He got no pension for his fifteen years service. He went back to Europe on the eve of the war. His role was shadowy thereafter.
Interned (with John Amery) at the close of the war, he was spared the death penalty when Sir John Maffey, at de Valera’s request, intervened. In retirement he played bridge with Italian princesses and resumed discussions on Catholic liturgy – he loved Latin – with his friend Mgr. Hugh O’Flaherty, ‘the Vatican Pimpernel’. He had a brilliant mind: his hubris undid him. He died in Italy in 1969. May he rest in peace: something that eluded him in life.
In 1901, from Park House (England), he won a scholarship to Winchester where he became library prefect, won prizes for English and shone in debate. When however he ridiculed the British national anthem, in seconding a motion ‘That England is not a musical nation’, ‘The Wyckamist’ accolade was sharply reversed. In 1910 he won the Newdigate prize for poetry and the Oxford literary magazine, ‘The Isis’, (18/10/1910) ‘idolized’ him for it, albeit patronizingly: ‘let the credit be given at once to Ireland.. whether he lisped in numbers as well as in brogue and where he first acquired his thirst for Irish freedom and knowledge of the classical tongues is uncertain and does not greatly matter…… On the shores of Clew Bay he is reverenced as a coming deliverer…. the only man …. who has been honoured with a biography in the Mayo News’.
The outbreak of the Great War (1914) saw him back in Ireland, where he qualified as a lawyer, espoused Home Rule politics and represented Irish prisoners at summary trials in Dublin Castle. Oliver Gogarty credited him with writing General Sean Mac Eoin’s (‘The Blacksmith of Ballinalee’) death-sentence speech. He took part in Sinn Féin court proceedings in the west of Ireland, unsuccessfully stood as a Sein Féin candidate and later, under the aegis of John A. Costello, zestfully prosecuted prisoners from the republican side. According to the late Professor Dan Binchy, Sean T. O’Kelly held that against him afterwards. Judge Cahir Davitt could recollect only that Bewley played the piano at Mass and was not much liked. His superior airs made him unpopular.
In the Dáil debates (1929) on diplomatic appointments, Sean T. O’Kelly did his best to nobble Bewley’s chances, but he was appointed nonetheless, as resident minister to the Holy See. He would have preferred the Berlin posting but a reluctant D.A. Binchy was dragooned into that fateful post.
The British had difficulty with the Rome posting but, as they advised, McGilligan’s unctuous inquiry after the King’s health smoothed matters. The King requested the Pope to give Bewley credence in his name, ‘more especially when he shall renew to Your Holiness the assurance of My sincere friendship and of unfeigned respect and esteem which I entertain for Your Holiness’s Person and Character.’
Inexplicably, Bewley’s letter of credence was held up until the eleventh hour. Bewley took umbrage and in his presentation speech confined himself to the long list of soldiers of Christ who went out from Ireland in the early middle ages to complete the work of evangelizing Europe, one of the greatest of them being St. Columbanus of Bobbio, who had a special place in the affections of the Pope. He referred to the vast expansion of the Irish race throughout the English-speaking countries and to the prominent place it had taken in spreading the Catholic faith in the great countries of the United States of America and the British Commonwealth of Nations. He recalled that it was almost 360 years since Innocent X sent Cardinal Rinuccini to Ireland as Nuncio. He made no reference to the King.
The alarmed British representative, H.J. Chilton, impressed on the Pope that Bewley’s appointment did not denote any departure from the principle of diplomatic unity. ‘Needling the Brits’ did not immediately damage Bewley in certain quarters back home. He made a good impression on de Valera during the President’s visit to Rome in 1932, getting him off the ‘top hat’ hook. Fianna Fáil had made political capital out of the previous Government members’ wearing of ‘West-British’ top hats. It boomeranged when they took office and had to dress for State occasions themselves. Bewley arranged it so that the press photographed de Valera only when he was not wearing his top hat. He cloaked his loathing of de Valera long enough to get at last the coveted Berlin posting. He was convinced that only National Socialism could save Europe from Russia. Undiplomatically, he courted controversy.
In July 1933 the British Foreign Office got annoyed when the Pope bestowed a decoration – the Order of the Grand Cross of St. Gregory the Great - on Bewley without getting the King’s agreement beforehand. Sir. R. Clive, the then British representative at the Holy See, felt that a diplomat was not entitled to wear the decoration without the King’s permission. Fianna Fáil were judged by Bewley to be unlikely to request such permission. However, Dublin too was perturbed. Bewley’s smirking answer further exasperated the Department: he had ‘no idea why he had been singled out’.
The Vatican later got into more trouble over Bewley’s transfer to Germany. The King had written to the Pope saying that he badly needed Bewley elsewhere, praising their Irish representative at a time when Bewley was the bane of the British mission’s existence. The Pope transmitted his reply through Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster. The British thought that a curious channel. The Foreign Office wrote injured minutes making fun of the Pope’s bog Latin. The King found it ‘all very complicated’. Dublin also took offence. The proper procedure was for the Vatican to have sent the letter to the Papal Nunciature in Dublin, which would have communicated it to the King through the Free State authorities. The Vatican apologized. It was relieved when Bewley finally left. He spelt trouble.
He drove from Rome to Berlin in July 1933. He stopped off at Nuremberg as he was delayed by heat rash and engine trouble. There was a further delay in presenting his credentials, due to the state of President Hindenburg’s health. When, finally, he presented them at the beginning of September, Hindenburg praised his impeccable German. In his address Bewley again deliberately refrained from making any mention of the King. He referred instead to the long association between the two countries, notably in the field of Celtic Scholarship and to the part played by German industry in fostering commercial exchanges. He took great liberties translating the official English text supplied, playing to the gallery by dragging in a reference to the ‘national rebirth of Germany’. That went down well. He disowned Binchy’s anti-Hitler articles in Studies (March 1933). He turned the conversation to horses knowing Hindenburg’s love for them. He was not amused at the President’s quip about swapping a nubile German maiden for an Irish horse.
He made no attempt to conceal his zeal for the Nazis and, awed by SS organisational expertise, reported the Nuremberg rally with relish (September 2nd and 3rd, 1937). He highlighted two important speeches made by Chancellor Hitler, the first to a small audience being more a scientific disquisition on racial problems than a popular oration. It ‘naturally’, went on Bewley, referred to the demoralizing influence of ‘a foreign race’ on Government art, literature and morals and emphasized the necessity for the Aryan principle of leadership, instead of counting heads to form a parliamentary majority. The other speech, he continued, to an audience of 10,000, was different in style, but dealt in reality with the same subject, no reference being made to current questions of those endowed by providence with the capacity to rule, whether their birth be humble or not.
He underlined that Hitler was incomparably the finest orator that he had ever heard. He had never seen, not even in Italy, such enthusiasm for one man. He further reported a review of 100,000 SA and SS men at which a number of new standards - including five to Austrian towns and one to the Memel district - were conferred.
He then confided that the Dolfuss Government would not last very long as the majority of the Austrian people wanted a National Socialist form of Government. He castigated the Irish papers, which, through Reuters, played down the occasion, reporting that no Embassy had been represented but that of Italy. (Turkey sent a Chargé d’Affaires.) Even more tendentious, he complained, was the reference in the Irish papers to Cuba and Haiti, which picked out the two least important states represented. In fact, he clarified, all the Baltic states, Switzerland, Hungary, Portugal, Mexico, China, Persia and Afghanistan were represented. He was delighted to recount that Hofer, the Austrian National Socialist, who had recently escaped from an Austrian prison to Italy, and thence flew to Nuremberg, put in a dramatic appearance at the rally.
The Irish Minister in Berlin, again undiplomatically, went on to give a series of interviews to German newspapers, ostensibly about trade. He never failed to make the point that the only question of critical importance in Ireland was ‘for or against England’, and that de Valera stood for independence from England. He did not forget to draw attention to the imbalance of trade in Germany’s favour. In the period January to June 1933 German exports to Ireland totaled £809,606 (over 12 million marks), double the sum for the corresponding period in the previous year - while imports from Ireland for the same period came to only £33,346 (over 500,000 marks).
He found time to torment the Department of External Affairs about his income tax. Since the depreciation of the pound, Bewley’s salary had been paid in gold pounds while he was in Germany, but when he went on leave it was paid in depreciated pounds. He found out that the Revenue Commissioners were also paid in depreciated pounds, whereas the amount deducted from his salary was in gold pounds. The Department rejected his claim that his salary should first be calculated in German gold currency.
The man with the ‘mean as cats meat’ reputation (per Binchy) had met his match in the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Finance. They had already refused to pay rank pay or car allowance to his predecessor, acting Chargé d’Affaires, forcing him to cadge lifts from other diplomats to get about in Berlin. These two departments had scant regard for the nascent diplomatic service.
Following his Berlin posting, Bewley increasingly made no attempt to conceal his anti-Britishness. The British kept cool initially in deference to Winchester and to his Colonial Office connections. The tone became more shrill in 1935 after Bewley had snubbed the King’s Jubilee celebrations. Sir E. Phipps of the Foreign Office then wrote to Mr. Nevile Bland, a Counsellor in the Foreign Office (later Ambassador to the Netherlands) – about Bewley’s ‘revolting piece of bad manners’. It was recommended that he be invited ‘no more to anything’, that he was ‘irreclaimable’. The Department of External Affairs would not have quarreled with the Foreign Office assessment. When the Constitution was being introduced, Bewley queried (29 September 1937) whether he should communicate officially that the name of the State was changed from ‘Saorstát’ to ‘Éire’. It took the Department until 3 December to advise him not to emphasise the Irish form, as the change in name would not have the same political or national significance if Éire were used by foreigners. He was informed that the Irish Government’s hope was that the use of “Ireland” to describe the twenty-six Counties would have a definite psychological effect in favour of the unity of the country on both Irish and foreign minds.
He then asked what further explanations he should give as to the effect of the Constitution on the relations of Éire to Great Britain? Only such as were obvious from the articles of the Constitution, was the snub retort. In the event of questions being put to him, he persisted, on the general state of relations of Éire to Great Britain, what line should he take? He got a stiff reply: the relations between the two countries were improving since the removal of Mr. Thomas. Great Britain’s new determination not to seek to interfere in Irish affairs was creating a better atmosphere for the settlement of the more outstanding questions between the two countries, though only the removal of partition could open the way for the final settlement.
He was further rebuffed when he snidely queried what attitude he should adopt in the event of inquiries as to Éire’s probable position in the case of war between Germany and Great Britain. No doubt, he was told, that type of inquirer would meet the treatment he deserved at his hands. Bewley came back pointing out that the word ‘obvious’ used in the text of the Department’s replies was a relative term. He referred to the British penal duties on Irish goods, the British occupation of Irish ports and similar matters. What instances, he hammered, should he now give, illustrating Britain’s determination not to seek to interfere in Irish affairs? He professed not to understand the meaning of the Department’s replies. The Department’s patience was wearing thin with Bewley’s presumptions. They spelt out his duties for him: as envoy, to relay, during his visit to the Secretary of State, the new position of the King and the position of the President of Ireland, which he could find out for himself by reading the Constitution. Curiously, they did not specify.
It was however stressed that, when talking on Constitutional matters with German officials, he must be careful not to exaggerate what he described as “freedom from domination by England.” He was taken to task for a report (7.10.37), (the tone of which infuriated de Valera) that the British still imposed penal duties on our goods, still occupied our ports and still maintained the country divided. These things were not being changed by the Constitution, was the snapped answer from Dublin: it represented the maximum effort of the Irish people to provide themselves with their own fundamental law and to secure for themselves complete internal sovereignty within the twenty-six county area. If he were asked by a German official or by the Secretary of State what Ireland’s position would be in the event of war between Germany and Great Britain he should naturally reply that such an event was too terrible to contemplate and he must refuse to discuss what our attitude would be. If, on the other hand, he was asked what Ireland’s position would be if England were at war with Power X, there was no reason why he should not inform them of Ireland’s absolute right to remain neutral: and that right could only be determined according to the circumstances prevailing at the time. He was told to be very careful in all he said to German officials about our political position, as they would have no scruples in repeating such statements to the British Ambassador or to his officials, if they thought the slightest advantage could be obtained thereby for Germany. The general atmosphere was better – the admonishment went on - notwithstanding the several negative factors in our relations with Great Britain, and, it was again emphasized, this had begun with the elimination of Mr. Thomas. The Department hoped that an approach to the solution of major difficulties, with the exception of partition, might be found during the next months. As the goodwill of important British officials would be a useful factor in securing a better settlement, de Valera personally desired all his diplomatic representatives to be careful to maintain relations of a relatively friendly character with the Heads of British Missions.
Bewley had treated Sir Nevill Henderson, the British ambassador in Berlin as a buffoon. It was no excuse in Dublin’s eyes that Henderson’s behaviour was, at times, odd, even peculiar. The Irish Minister’s mission was made plain to him. Perturbation was expressed that in one of his reports Bewley spoke of having seen the British Ambassador for the first and last time. He was frostily informed that, while there was no need to pay much attention to the person or opinions of the British Ambassador, he should generally be regarded as a person whose influence could be used against us, and, as realists governing a very small country, the Government desired to avoid anything which might militate in the smallest degree against securing for their people the best possible agreement with Britain.
Bewley was instructed to indicate what his precise relations with the present British Ambassador were, and whether his relationships with him or the Chargé d’Affaires were different from his relations with the British officials in Rome. What was the British Ambassador’s influence with the German Government, he was sharply asked. He was then told to prepare for the Minister a comprehensive report going back over the international aspects of the past few months in relation to Germany and also setting out the present position of the Churches there. Press reports in Ireland showed that the Christian religion, both Catholic and Protestant, continued to suffer persecution in Germany. The real danger the Department saw, was the new Nazi State eliminating formal religion, at least for the life of the present generation.
Bewley nevertheless continued to annoy Dublin, nit-picking for U-turns in the Department’s dealings with the British. In April 1935 Walsh had told him to attend only Jubilee functions at which members of the diplomatic corps other than the representatives of the British Commonwealth were present. Two years later (1937) the instruction was that the flag should not be flown in the Legation on the Coronation Day of King George VI. Then Bewley learned that the Irish Minister to France, Art O’Briain, had been disciplined when he demurred at being presented to the King and Queen, during their visit to Paris. Con Cremin (the Chargé d’Affaires) did the honours instead. Indignant, Bewley demanded explanations. He was treading on very dangerous ground with a ports settlement in the offing, a World War looming and dual office holder de Valera at the height of his powers. Bewley was living in the past. He got his knuckles severely rapped when he crowed (22.2.38) about not attending a dinner at the South African legation. He should have, was the cryptic reaction. Still he persisted, demanding an explanation for an Irish Times report that Minister MacWhite would meet Chamberlain at Rome station and attend a British Empire banquet. Boland quashed him: if he had any doubt about how to act he should, like other representatives, refer the matter to Dublin for directions. Curt instructions to MacWhite followed (3.1.39): ‘Railway accept, dinner accept’.
Prior to the change of Government in 1932 there had been no trouble about accepting invitations to occasions of an exclusively Commonwealth character. In 1934, however, in the climate of the economic war, the policy had changed. The looming war now cleared minds and reinstated the previous policy. Bewley, however, had his mind made up. He still believed that England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity. He underestimated de Valera’s determination to pursue ad hoc Irish neutrality. The British Embassy in Berlin reported that Bewley had declared (1938) his intention to resign if Mr. de Valera in the September crisis had joined Britain in the war against Germany. When, inevitably, he resigned, the Foreign Office blandly remarked that he had not agreed with his Government and would probably retire and settle down in Rome. His 1938 declaration had gone a bridge too far. Nevile Henderson reported that Bewley ‘had not seen eye-to-eye with his Government’. He got no pension for his fifteen years service. He went back to Europe on the eve of the war. His role was shadowy thereafter.
Interned (with John Amery) at the close of the war, he was spared the death penalty when Sir John Maffey, at de Valera’s request, intervened. In retirement he played bridge with Italian princesses and resumed discussions on Catholic liturgy – he loved Latin – with his friend Mgr. Hugh O’Flaherty, ‘the Vatican Pimpernel’. He had a brilliant mind: his hubris undid him. He died in Italy in 1969. May he rest in peace: something that eluded him in life.