BRITAIN'S Second World War leader Winston Churchill wanted a united Ireland, archives in the Republic have revealed.
Churchill, who clashed with Éamon de Valera over the Republic's neutrality during the war, approached then Irish ambassador to England, John W Dulanty, in 1946.
In a confidential report to the secretary of the department of affairs, Mr Dulanty recounted how Churchill had spoken to him after an annual Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph in London.
After the Irish diplomat laid a wreath in memory of those killed in the two world wars, Churchill approached Mr Dulanty and said he was glad to see him at the ceremony.
Churchill added: "I said a few words in parliament the other day about your country because I still hope for a united Ireland. You must get those fellows in the North in, though; you can't do it by force."
Before Churchill said goodbye, he told Mr Dulanty: "There is not, and never was, any bitterness in my heart towards your country."
The exchange is revealed in a selection of documents from archives to be published this week in the latest volume of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy 1948-1951.
In May 1951, Churchill told Frederick Boland, who succeeded Mr Dulanty as ambassador to Britain, that he had wanted to come to Ireland to see one of his horses run in the Irish Derby, but that the animal had died of heart failure.
"You know I have had many invitations to visit Ulster but I have refused them all," he said.
"I don't want to go there at all, I would much rather go to southern Ireland.
"Maybe I'll buy another horse with an entry in the Irish Derby".
As a child, Churchill spent several years living in the Vice Regal Lodge, now the Áras an Úachtarán, in Dublin's Phoenix Park.
The lodge was used by the Lord Lieutenants of Ireland, one of which, the Duke of Marlborough, was Churchill's father.