Frederick Boland

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Frederick Henry Boland (January 16, 1904 - December 4, 1985) was the first Irish ambassador to Britain and to the United Nations.

Boland was born in Dublin on January 16, 1904. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College, 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.

He was Assistant Secretary of the Department of External Affairs from 1939-1946, before becoming the Secretary, a post 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 served as his country’s Ambassador in London from 1950 to 1956. In 1956 he became Ireland's Ambassador to the United Nations. Boland was married to the painter the late Frances Kelly. Their daughter Eavan Boland is a leading Irish poet.

Boland was the president of the General Assembly of the United Nations on October 12, 1960, when Nikita Khrushchev took off his shoe and pounded it on his desk (not the lectern, as has been asserted). Boland became so irritated that he broke his gavel trying to restore order.

Boland served as the twenty first Chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin between 1963 and 1982.