The 100 Year Old Backstop by Michael Patrick and Oisín Kearney on BBC Radio 4

The true story of the three men who were tasked with redrawing the Irish Border in 1925.

• Aired on BBC Radio 4 in April 2021

• Written by Michael Patrick and Oisín Kearney

• Produced and Directed by Michael Shannon

• Cast:
  Richard Feetham: Paul Kennedy
  Joseph R Fisher: Martin Maguire
  Eoin MacNeill: Patrick FitzSymons
  Theresa: Abigail McGibbon
  Trimble: Dan Gordon
  O’Neill: Francis Mezza
  Baldwin: Richard Croxford
  Healy: Seamus O’Hara
  Reporter: Michael Patrick

In 1921 the Anglo Irish Treaty was signed, bringing an end to the Irish War of Independence and creating two states on the Island of Ireland - The Irish Free State in the South and Northern Ireland in the North.

But where was the Border to be?

It was initially the old county boundaries, but the Treaty included a mechanism for rectifying this border. Article 12 of the Treaty stated a Commission was to be set up and that:

[The Commission] shall determine in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions, the boundaries between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland

The commission was made up of Joseph R. Fisher, a Unionist newspaper editor, author and barrister (representing Northern Ireland); Eoin MacNeill, Minister for Education for the Irish Free State (representing the Free State); and chairman Justice Richard Feetham of South Africa. These three men toured the Irish border, meeting locals, getting their car stuck on mountain roads and generally trying to fix the unfixable.

The 100 Year Old Backstop is dramatisation of their story on the commission.

Further Reading

• The Irish Boundary Commission on wikipedia.

• The Irish Boundary Commission and its Origins By Paul Murray.