Frederick Boland

Frederick Henry Boland (11 January 1904 – 4 December 1985) was an Irish diplomat who served as the first Irish Ambassador to both the United Kingdom and the United Nations.[1] Boland was married to the painter Frances Kelly and had five children including their daughter, Eavan Boland, who was a leading Irish poet.

Frederick Boland
Boland, who was Ireland's Ambassador to the United Nations, in 1958
Personal details
Born
Frederick Henry Boland

(1904-01-11)11 January 1904
Dublin, Ireland
Died4 December 1985(1985-12-04) (aged 81)
Dublin, Ireland
NationalityIrish
Spouse(s)
​
(m. 1935⁠–⁠1985)​
Children5; including Eavan Boland
EducationClongowes Wood College, St Olave's Grammar School, Trinity College, and King's Inns
OccupationPresident of the General Assembly, Ambassador for Ireland to Britain and the United Nations

Early life and education

Frederick Boland was born on 11 January 1904 at 32 Eden Vale Road, Ranelagh,[2] the second son of Henry Patrick ("H.P.") Boland (1876-1956), a civil servant in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs (retiring as Senior Assistant Secretary to the Minister for Finance), and his wife Charlotte Nolan Taylor. H.P. Boland was son of the workhouse master at Clonmel.[3][4][5]

Boland was educated at Clongowes Wood College, St Olave's Grammar School, Trinity College and King's Inns, Dublin, where he received his B.A. and LL.B. degrees. In 1935, Boland married painter Frances Kelly.[6] He also did a degree in Classics at Trinity. He did graduate work at Harvard, University of Chicago and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1926 to 1928 as a Rockefeller Research Fellow. He received an Honorary LLD degree from the University of Dublin.

Career

Boland was Assistant Secretary of the Department of External Affairs from 1939 to 1946 prior becoming the Secretary, which he held until 1950. In that role, he led negotiations in 1949, which changed Ireland's status from membership of the Commonwealth to that of a Republic. He was privately critical of the manner in which the Taoiseach, John A. Costello, handled the matter, saying that "he has as much notion of diplomacy as I have of astrology."[7]

He served as the first Irish Ambassador to the Court of St James's in London from 1950 to 1956, a move generally attributed to his inability to work harmoniously with Sean MacBride, Minister for External Affairs 1948–51.[8] In 1956, he became Ireland's Ambassador to the United Nations. Boland was the president of the General Assembly of the United Nations on 12 October 1960, when Nikita Khrushchev allegedly took off his shoe and pounded it on his desk.

Boland served as the 21st Chancellor of Trinity College Dublin between 1963 and 1982.[9]

References
  1. "In Great Irish Lives: An Era in Obituaries". credoreference.com. 15 March 2011.
  2. Quirke genealogy and family history: of Clonmel, county Tipperary, Ireland; India, New Zealand, England, Australia, South Africa, and the United States, Terence T. Quirke, 2005, p. 244
  3. Quirke genealogy and family history: of Clonmel, county Tipperary, Ireland; India, New Zealand, England, Australia, South Africa, and the United States, Terence T. Quirke, 2005, pp. 139, 179, 224
  4. Eavan Boland, Jody Allen Randolph, Bucknell University Press, 2014, p. 13
  5. The Annual Obituary, 85th edition, ed. Patricia Burgess, St James Press, 1985, p. 639
  6. Current Biography Yearbook, 1961, H. W. Wilson Co., 1962, p. 64
  7. McCullagh, David The Reluctant Taoiseach Gill and Macmillan 2010 p.197
  8. McCullagh p.228
  9. "Former Chancellors". Dublin: Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by
Víctor Andrés Belaúnde		 President of the United Nations General Assembly
1960–1961		 Succeeded by
Mongi Slim
Preceded by
John Dulanty		 Ambassador of Ireland to the United Kingdom
1950–1956		 Succeeded by
Con Cremin
Academic offices
Preceded by
2nd Earl of Iveagh		 Chancellor of the University of Dublin
1963–1982		 Succeeded by
William Bedell Stanford
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