The negotiations were most delicate and difficult, and above all secrecy is hard to maintain when a body of over seventy men, each keenly concerned for the view of his constituents, comes to be consulted.

Yet I think it a pity that the party never thrashed this question out.

Once the principle of option was admitted, a great deal had to be considered.

Voting must be a referendum either to the province as a whole, to the constituencies separately, or to local units of administration.

A referendum by constituencies was as impossible as one by parishes: for instance, Mr.Devlin's West Belfast, out of the city's four divisions, would certainly have voted to remain under the Irish Parliament, and an absurd situation would have resulted.
The choice lay between a vote by counties or by the province as a whole.
In the province, three counties out of nine were as predominantly Nationalist as any part of Leinster.