Name Frederick Boland | Children Eavan Boland | |
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Died December 4, 1985, Dublin, Republic of Ireland Education Honorable Society of Kings Inns | ||
Frederick Boland (16 January 1904 – 4 December 1985) was an Irish diplomat, who served as the first Irish Ambassador to Britain and to the United Nations. Boland was married to the painter, Frances Kelly, and had five children including their daughter, Eavan Boland, who is a leading Irish poet.
Early life and education
Frederick Henry Boland was born in Dublin on 16 January 1904. He 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. 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 1926–28 as a Rockefeller Research Fellow. He received an Honorary LLD degree from the University of Dublin.
Boland was Assistant Secretary of the Department of External Affairs from 1939 to 1946 prior becoming the Secretary which was a post that he held until 1950. In this 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 "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 twenty first Chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin between 1963 and 1982.