Joseph R. Fisher (author)

[5] In early 1900, Fisher became editor of the Northern Whig, a liberal unionist daily paper, and remained in that position until the First World War.

[14]: 8  The Ulster Unionist government of Northern Ireland, however, refused to appoint the commissioner required of it, wishing to concede "not one inch" of the territory of the six parliamentary counties that had seceded.

[21][17] The three commissioners set to work and spent most of 1925 visiting communities near the six-county border, taking written statements and conducting "in camera" verbal hearings.

[16]: 330 [14] The British government's commissioner, Richard Feetham, interpreted the commission's mandate narrowly and so with Fisher's Unionist vote, there was a two-to-one majority for only minor changes to the border.

On 7 November 1925, an English conservative newspaper, The Morning Post, published leaked notes of the negotiations, including a draft map that suggested that parts of east Donegal would be transferred to Northern Ireland.

[26][23] The leak and resignation caused the boundary negotiations to be swept into a wider agreement, concluded on 3 December 1925 between the British and Irish governments.

[27] The Conservative government that had replaced Ramsay MacDonald's short Labour-Liberal coalition wanted to avoid Irish disputes.

[30] The two remaining commissioners expressed their view of the problems that would result from a failure to adjust what they saw as the border's more absurd anomalies, particularly Protestant east Donegal (for which "Derry was the market town"); Pettigo and Belleek, County Fermanagh (both of which straddled the border); and the Drummully and Clones areas of County Monaghan, parts of which were accessible by road only from Northern Ireland.

[32][33] Aged 70 at the end of the Commission's work, Fisher retired to London; his address was in barristers' chambers in Essex Court, Middle Temple.