The part which American friendship played in helping us to win the freedom we enjoy in this part of Ireland has been gratefully recognized and acknowledged by our people.

Partition is after all only an old fortress of crumbled masonry - held together with the plaster of fiction.

The economic and social problems would tend to become, like the military situation, more and more difficult as time went on and we became more and more isolated.

Of course I wrote most of the Constitution myself. I remember hesitating for a long time over the US presidential system. But it wouldn't have done - we were too trained in English democracy to sit down under a dictatorship which is what the American system really is.

We cannot afford idleness, waste or inefficiency.

It is the duty of our men to enroll themselves in the national services. We need all our manpower for defence. For the military and... we need a quarter of a million men.

By keeping the annuities, we could build up a national industry every years as big as the Shannon Scheme.