Frederick Boland


Frederick Henry Boland was an Irish diplomat who served as the first Irish Ambassador to both the United Kingdom and the United Nations. Boland was married to the painter Frances Kelly and had five children including their daughter, Eavan Boland, who was a leading Irish poet.

Early life and education

Frederick Boland was born on 11 January 1904 at 32 Eden Vale Road, Ranelagh, the second son of Henry Patrick Boland, a civil servant in the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, and his wife Charlotte Nolan Taylor. H.P. Boland was son of the workhouse master at Clonmel.
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. 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."
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. 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.