IRISH NEUTRALITY DURING WORLD WAR II

Irish Neutrality during World War II

– an Unusual Interpretation of a

Unilateral International Security

Model

Aleksander Dańda

Tischner European University

Krakow

ADanda@wse.krakow.pl

Aleksander Dańda received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Jagiellonian University (the

Faculty of International and Political Studies). During his doctoral studies Mr. Dańda was a

visiting scholar at the University of London (Institute of Commonwealth Studies and Institute

of Advanced Legal Studies). Presently, Dr. Dańda is a member of the faculty at the Tischner

European University in Krakow – lecturer in International Relations and Security Studies. He

is also a project consultant for Peace and Development Studies at the TEU. Since September

2009 Dr. Dańda has been Dean of the Department of Applied Social Sciences at the Tischner

European University. He has authored many publications including a monograph entitled

Dominion – A Form of Political Regime in Anglo-Saxon Countries (TEU Press). He was

Editor of Current Challenges to Peacekeeping Efforts and Development Assistance (TEU

Press). His main research areas include: history of colonialism, political systems of Anglo-

Saxon countries, geopolitics, problems of contemporary international security and conflict

resolution.

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Abstract

Neutrality is often linked in the field of international relations with negative connotations.

States that engage in the war effort tend to perceive other international actors with a certain

amount of distrust, especially those actors that do not decide to engage in a similar way, but

that actually seem to profit from the war that does not concern them directly. In the history of

World War II there were also cases of neutrality which were assessed negatively. Out of the

group of countries which do not take pride in the fact that they remained neutral during World

War II, there comes a very distinctive actor of international relations – the Irish Free State.

This particular country, although it declared neutrality already in the very first days of the

conflict, does not feel ashamed of the decision taken by the then leaders of Irish society –

Éamon de Valera and his Fianna Fáil party.

In order to understand why the Republic of Ireland still maintains its policy of neutrality,

even in the wider framework of EU cooperation, it is essential to understand how did the Irish

came to accept this position in the first place. This paper provides the answers to the question

why are the Irish so proud of their wartime neutrality? It begins with definitional problems

connected with the notion of “neutrality” – the term which is quite different in meaning for

each century of modern era that it was used in. Then the paper moves on to the examination of

consecutive events from Irish interwar and wartime history. This historical analysis provides

the material which can be used to describe the peculiarities of Irish neutrality. The main

argument in this article is that Irish wartime neutrality wasn’t – as it is often being presented

in the language of Anglo-Saxon politics – an act aimed against the United Kingdom. The

author attempts to prove that only in the reality of this policy of neutrality, neutrality quite

unusually interpreted by the Irish elites (and even more unusually enacted), was it possible to

act with respect to the Irish raison d’etat.

Keywords:

neutrality, Ireland, World War II, Irish Free State, Éamon de Valera, Great Britain, USA, The

Emergency, Éire

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The etymological meaning of the notion of “neutrality” (from Latin “neuter” meaning

“none of the two”, “indifferent”) points at the possibility of interpreting this term negatively

in the categories of moral evaluation. Indeed, negative connotations have been and still are

being linked with this notion. Indeed, it is true that states engaging all their political,

economic and social systems in the realization of warfare military effort, perceive other actors

of international relations, those that did not decide to engage similarly, with a substantial

amount of suspicion. Even more suspicion and antipathy is being felt towards those states,

which seem to gain substantial political and economic benefits from the war, which does not

concern them in a direct way. It is that very mechanism of negative evaluation of neutrality

that was revealed in the situation of some NATO member states (Poland included) declaring

lack of interest in contemporary Libyan crisis. In turn, the very same antipathy could have

been felt in Poland towards the states which did not support war effort in Iraq in 2003,

however, it did not disturb them in any way to gain profits from the process of the

reconstruction of Iraq (those states being France and Germany). Similar suspicion and relative

antipathy was felt towards the stance of neutrality taken and declared by some states in the

times of World War II.

The states that declared neutrality during the last great armed conflict of global scale

(1939-1945), usually do not express pride of this fact in their respective historiographies. It is

rather futile to search for scientific or journalistic works which would positively assess neutral

stance of Sweden or Switzerland in this respect. Those countries benefited from this course of

their foreign policy as their territories were not damaged directly by the war. It is even more

futile then to search for a positive assessment of neutrality being declared by countries like

Holland or Belgium – countries whose declarations of neutrality were simply not taken into

consideration by their adversary. Historians from those countries do not talk about the

decision of their respective political elites (to accept neutral stance) in superlatives. From this

general landscape of European states, which do not take pride in the fact that they proclaimed

neutrality, one actor of international relations – the Irish Free State – stands apart. This state,

although it declared neutrality already in the very first days of the conflict, does not feel

ashamed of such a decision taken by its leaders – Éamon de Valera and his political party

Fianna Fáil. What’s more, in Irish historical writings one can find, in the whole post-war

period to the present day, clear examples of unequivocal positive assessment which is given

for the neutrality policy by Irish historians, journalists and analysts of various generations and

of various political background (Smyllie, 1946; Duggan, 1975; Dwyer, 2010). Such an

unequivocal positive assessment of Irish neutrality in the years of World War II by the Irish

themselves remains in dire contrast with an equally clearly expressed negative assessment of

the same stance, which is being presented by British – or more widely – Anglo-Saxon

historiography. One of the explanations for that fact may be that in the end, although there

were some inclinations in the Union of South Africa towards neutrality (Gwynn, 1940, 306;

Mazurczak, 1999, 141), all the parts of the British Empire, all the dominions joined the fight

on the side of the United Kingdom. All except Ireland.

Why are the Irish so proud of their neutrality as opposed to the other neutral countries in

the times of World War II? One of the possible answers to this question is the fact that

because of applying neutrality model in its international relations Ireland managed not only to

survive the war without any serious damage done to its independence and economy. Irish state

also managed – by accepting neutrality policy – to gain substantial profits for its independent

political existence. The outcome of this in the post-war period was the transformation of the

Irish Free State (formally still linked by imperial ties with Great Britain) into the Republic of

Ireland – a state totally independent from the United Kingdom, with an elected president

(Uachtarán) as the head of state.

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It is important to remember that on 11th December 1936 – by taking advantage of the

political crisis in Great Britain connected with the abdication of king Edward VIII – two

amendments for the text of the Constitution of Irish Free State were accepted. The first

amendment removed all the regulations connected with the Monarch and Governor-General

from the constitution. All the former prerogatives of the head of state were transferred either

to the chairman of the lower house of parliament – Dáil Éireann – or to the government. The

second amendment was concerned with regulations of executive power in foreign relations. It

is this amendment that retained some formal links between the Irish Free State and the British

Empire – due to the fact that Ireland was a part of the British Commonwealth of Nations (the

symbol of which was the Monarch), it was still the Monarch who had the power to nominate

diplomatic and consular envoys of Ireland as well as to accept international treaties in the

name of the Irish Free State (after the binding opinion of Irish Executive Council was issued).

More on this can be read in Chubb (1983).

As far as the question of the Irish head of state is concerned, one should also keep in mind

that the office of popularly elected president was introduced in Ireland already in 1937 in the

text of the Constitution of Ireland (Bunreacht na hEireann, Art. 12.2). However, the formal

proclamation of republic took place only after World War II – in November 1948, when the

Irish parliament accepted the Republic of Ireland Act. For more information see Konarski

(2005, 30-31).

So, as opposed to the other states applying neutrality policy during World War II, neither

did Ireland lose economically and materially by such a decision (like Holland and Belgium

did), nor did it earn the name of a state gaining morally dubious profits from the war at the

expense of the war victims (which was the case of Switzerland and – to the lesser extent – of

Sweden). Rather it emerged from the wartime turmoil as a state which, although not taking

part in the actual fighting, was always presenting more or less pro-Allied stance. It is due to

this stance that Ireland was finally able to achieve its basic national goal: complete national

independence. In other words, neutrality policy applied by Ireland in the times of World War

II should not be perceived negatively in the moral assessment of this course of politics.

Furthermore, the acceptance of this model of safeguarding national security in the extremely

unstable international environment made it possible for the Irish to achieve their national

interests, their explicitly formulated, if not always explicitly voiced, raison d’etat.

In order to properly verify the hypothesis stated above, theoretical foundations of the

political neutrality model need to be presented, as this is exactly the model which Ireland

applied in the wartime period and which is still being used by the Republic of Ireland until

today. Then we need to examine the steps which Irish political elites had to take in order to

get to a gradual formulation of neutrality stance through the properly chosen political action

in the interwar period. It is only upon such a prepared research ground that we will be able to

analyze in detail this specific neutrality policy which was enacted by Ireland in the times of

World War II.

Neutrality as a Unilateral Model of International Security

The concept of neutrality is a kind of relic from the earlier times when it was possible to

safeguard national existence and well-being by the implementation of unilateral models of

security. In those times, warfare was not being perceived as a phenomenon encompassing the

whole known world, instead of that it was seen as a separate state of relations between two or

at most a few countries only. In such a reality to remain neutral in a particular war seemed to

be quite an easy task: it needed only to voice, by the means of interstate communication

instruments, that a particular state will not be engaging in the war struggle alongside any of

the parties to the conflict.

The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) is being often recognized as the very first conflict on a

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global scale (taking into consideration that it engaged all the then major political powers and

the fact that most contemporary historians link the European course of the war with the fights

taking place in other continents as well: the so-called Dutch-Portuguese War, 1624-1661, with

the theatre of operations ranging from Africa, South-East Asia to South America). This war,

for the very first time in human history, caused the situation where states not directly involved

in the particular conflict of interest were drawn en masse into the armed conflict nonetheless.

The reality of global-scale conflict – the model of forceful international conflict management

gaining more and more influence since the 17th

c. – it all made the concept of non-

engagement in the armed struggle an outdated and not practical choice of policy. The

maximizing of this stance took place in the times of the First World War and the early

interwar period, when the analysts kept saying that “if civilisation does not stop war by a

common effort, by the use of some form of international police work, where there can be no

such thing as neutrality, war will wipe out civilisation as completely as the city of Knossos”

(Royal Institute of International Affairs [RIIA], 1928, 101-102).

In the Post-Westphalian period the degree of complication of international relations

gradually led to the situation where most of the actors deemed it impossible to safeguard their

own stability and security basing on traditional, unilateral methods. It is in that period that an

era of collective security building measures was begun. Created on the basis of this new

paradigm, multilateral national security models seemed to be the proper response to the needs

of the then international political and military scene. However, through time it turned out that

not every international relations actor accepted such a profound change in the way their own

foreign policy should be managed. Some of the states which have been blessed by nature with

unique, desirable geopolitical attributes (states located far away from the centre of the world

conflicts – meaning Europe), decided to keep in force their traditional attitude towards the

actions which gave them peace and security. Those states decided that the model of not

engaging in the wars which do not affect their national interests in a direct way – the model of

isolationism – is still a valid one. That was the model ruling the actions taken in external

relations by such states as Great Britain (the splendid isolation) and the USA (the Monroe

Doctrine) (Cesarz & Stadtmüller, 1996, 49-50).

The model of neutrality is a slightly different variant of unilateral model of security in

international relations, which also survived Post-Westphalian period and functions until

present day in its various forms. Generally we need to dichotomize this model into the

permanent (legal) neutrality and political (wartime) neutrality, known also as neutralism.

According to contemporary international law interpretations, there are presently two elements

which decide whether a given state can be named as permanently neutral or politically neutral.

The first of those elements defining permanent neutrality is presenting the application of this

neutral stance in external relations in a form of legally binding document. Permanent

neutrality can be outlined either in the internal law document (e.g. an act of parliament,

constitution) or in the text of international treaty. The second element constituting permanent

neutrality are indubitable guarantees voiced by major political powers with respect to the

acceptance of neutrality of a given state (that is how the neutrality of Switzerland began). E

contrario then, a state which did not write down its neutral status in any legally binding

document and/ or a state which did not receive proper international guarantees for its

neutrality, such a state will be acting in its foreign policy according to the model of political

neutrality (neutralism). This concrete model – the relic of an era when the preference for

safeguarding national security was unilateralism – has been accepted as a set of rules guiding

the actions of the Irish Free State which – starting with 1948 – was renamed and reshaped as

the Republic of Ireland.

It needs to be remembered that neutrality is a concept both variable in time and dependent

on a specific international relations actor who elaborates on the subject. What’s more,

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sometimes even the politicians from the same time and the same state express their views on

neutrality in a completely different way. The best well-known example for such a politically

unstable attitude towards the idea of neutrality are the speeches given by the U.S. President

Dwight D. Eisenhower on June 6th

, 1956 and his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles on

June 9th

that very same year. Eisenhower, during his press conference, clearly supported the

right of every nation to remain neutral and not to join any military alliances. Dulles on his part

described the concept of neutrality in international relations as “immoral and shortsighted”

(Armstrong, 1956, 57). Such a profound difference in evaluation of one seemingly simple

concept – non-engagement in an armed struggle – is a result of the fact that the very idea of

neutrality is a concept definitely more complex and complicated than it would seem at first

glance. There is no commonly accepted definition of neutrality in the field of international

law. Until today no international treaty was signed that would regulate which aspects of state

activities in international relations are determinants of neutrality and which state activities are

not to be perceived as such. In other words, to define the notion of neutrality and to express a

clear political assessment of this particular stance in international relations is a problematic

task. That is because until presently the concept of neutrality operates mostly based on

customary international law or unilateral declarations defining the obligations and rights of

particular states.

The very first attempt at codifying the notion of neutrality is closely connected with the

first attempts at codifying international law as well. Such a correlation shouldn’t surprise us at

all since it was exactly then that the first global-scale armed conflict took place and what

followed was the trend of denying the state the right to remain neutral. In 1625 Hugo Grotius

in his famous work “De Jure Belli ac Pacis” described (in book III, chapter XVII) neutrality

as “the duty to do nothing towards increasing the strength of a party maintaining an unjust

cause, nor to impede the measures of a power engaged in a just and righteous cause”. In case

of any doubt Grotius advises neutral powers “to show themselves impartial to both sides, and

to give no succour to besieged places, but to allow the troops of each to march through the

country, and to purchase forage, and other supplies”. So, Grotius – the father of public

international law – does not insist at all that states which would like to follow the path of

neutrality should remain absolutely impartial. What’s more, Grotius seems to leave neutral

states a certain degree of free will in deciding whether they perceive a given party to the

conflict as fighting a just war (in this situation he acknowledges the right of neutral power to

give any required assistance to the party to the conflict identified as such – with the obvious

exception of directly engaging in an armed struggle) or if they deem that a given party to the

conflict is fighting an unjust war (today we would call such a state an aggressor) and because

of that it is not worthy of getting any kind of assistance from neutral state. Such formulated

first definition of neutrality in the field of public international law is thus positioned definitely

very far from common knowledge on the rights and duties of neutral states.

Subsequent definitions of neutrality originating in consecutive centuries, such as the

definitions of neutrality by Christian Wolff from 1749 or the one by Emmerich de Vattel from

1758 – already focus on a perfectly well-known aspect of neutrality: the obligation to refrain

from giving any assistance towards any of belligerents (de Vattel clearly stresses that a

neutral state must not assist the parties to the conflict in any way, even if such a state would

like to offer its assistance indiscriminately) (de Vattel, book III, chapter VII, §104). So, we

can see that even the classics of legal and political thought from the 17th

and 18th

centuries

were faced with a considerable amount of difficulty in attempting to clearly define what is to

be understood under the notion of neutrality. Those problems with the term “neutrality” are to

be perceived also in later ages. However, until presently the interpretation of rights and duties

for neutral powers more akin to Wolff and de Vattel than to Grotius appears to be the

dominant one. For example, in 1793 the USA declared, in the words of George Washington,

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that they will remain neutral in armed struggles between post-revolutionary France and other

European powers. In this proclamation of neutrality one could read that the USA clearly

declared to treat all the belligerents in an impartial way.

The text of this proclamation introduced, however, some essential novelty in the matter of

rights and duties of neutral powers as well. It included a clear warning for the U.S. citizens

not to expect any protection from American government if they happen to get caught in the

act of trading forbidden goods with any of the parties to the conflict (RIIA, 1928, 102-103). It

meant that the proclamation of 1793 introduced a substantial rule which from that time

onwards was very often being reproduced in documents regarding neutrality: neutral power

does not answer for the actions undertaken by its citizens, who can trade with one or both

belligerent parties without any detriment to the status of neutrality of the state they are the

citizens of. In later times this rule was also stretched so as to encompass the participation of

individual citizens of neutral state in the armed struggle, as volunteers, at the side of one of

the belligerent powers.

In 1871, due to Great Britain accepting the verdict of arbitration tribunal in the “Alabama”

Claims Case, the set of obligations describing neutrality status was enriched with the

following detailed rules: the prohibition of constructing and equipping ships in the territory of

neutral states if there is a suspicion that those ships will be used against one of belligerent

powers; the prohibition of providing the territory of neutral state for the purposes of

establishing the base of naval operations by any belligerent and the prohibition of recruiting in

the territory of neutral state for the army of one of belligerents (Parry, 1977, 145).

Such a state of affairs with respect to the notion of neutrality was additionally sanctioned

by the confirmation of most of the aforementioned rights and duties of neutral powers in the

text of the Hague Convention on the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers in Naval War

(Hague XIII) from 1907. It needs to be said that in the times before and during the First World

War interpretations of neutrality akin to the classical, however – let us keep this in mind – not

the original, model of Wolff and de Vattel prevailed. More permissive Grotian approach to

the concept of neutrality was not widely known and discussed then. It is in such a state of

public international law that the Irish Free State came to decide on taking the path of

neutrality in its way of conduct in foreign affairs.

Ireland’s Political Activism in International Relations before World War II

After achieving partial independence – as a result of Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 creating

the Irish Free State (IFS), a political entity of British dominion status (Płachecki, 2010, 59) –

Ireland gradually, and not without some internal opposition, started to implement into its

political instrumentation the rule of non-engagement in international disputes which did not

concern this country in a direct way. This rule, being more and more put forward in Irish

foreign policy starting from the moment of Éamon de Valera’s political party – Fianna Fáil –

taking over in Ireland in 1932, had to remain in the 1930s mostly in the sphere of applied but

generally non-verbalized international activity. That was because of the aversion that the then

political elites of Great Britain were expressing towards any dominion activity which was

incoherent with the movements of London in international relations (with Winston Churchill

as one of the main critics of any concessions to dominions in general and to Ireland in

particular).

If the Irish political thought of that time restrained only to this single element – non-

engagement in European or global conflicts – we could risk saying that Dublin simply wanted

to implement a perfectly well known (from the earlier practices of the British Empire) rule of

isolationism. However, the paradigm taking shape then, which would later rule the actions

taken by the Irish diplomacy, included other elements as well. Those resulted in taking a

different model of safeguarding national and international security by the Irish Free State

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(called by the Irish themselves as Éire, to distinct the 26 counties comprising the dominion

state from the 6 counties comprising Ulster – Northern Ireland). This model, quite similar to

the traditional British model of isolationism, happened to be the model of political neutrality.

Ireland, trying to learn from the experience of Switzerland, wanted to gain some time to

strengthen its political institutions, to develop political, social and economic functions of a

newborn Irish state. This time was to be bought precisely by applying this particular approach

to international relations that worked so well in the case of Switzerland. However, knowing

well that Ireland has had an unfavorable geopolitical position – in the periphery of Europe and

in the close vicinity of its powerful neighbor treated as a past and a possible future invader –

the authorities of the Irish Free State decided to apply a slightly different approach to the

question of neutrality than the one being practiced by Switzerland. The model of permanent

neutrality exercised by Switzerland simply could not have been achieved by Ireland in the

political reality of interwar period. Political elites in London would surely not give their

consent for such a turn of events. It was not without reason that in the text of the Treaty of

1921 Great Britain reserved the right to exclusive use of three naval bases located in the

territory of the Irish Free State (Lough Swilly, Berehaven and Queenstown) and to the free

and undisturbed use of other Irish bases in the times of war. The Lough Swilly naval base was

controlling sea routes located to the north of Ireland (the route between Scotland and the

USA), Berehaven base (today: Castletownbere) – sea routes to the south of Ireland.

Queenstown (today: Cobh) was an extremely important seaport for the Transatlantic transport

(e.g. that was the place where most of the Irish in the 19th

century started their long journey

while migrating to the USA) (Boyd, 1941, 428-429). Therefore Ireland had to undertake its

own, specific path of political neutrality, neutrality which on one hand could be used as a

defense against engaging in international conflicts but on the other hand could also be a factor

attracting attention of post-war major political powers to the plight of this European

periphery.

It is those powers, perceived by Dublin as potential allies in slowing down conceivable

expansionist drive of the British Empire, that were the proper audience for diplomatic actions

undertaken by the Irish Free State diplomacy in the interwar period. Those actions included

active engagement in the project of creating the organization which would assure global

security – the League of Nations – as well as initiation of numerous bilateral contacts. Such an

activism in international political relations seems to be incoherent with the model of neutrality

gradually being formulated by the Irish in political practice of the 1920s and 1930s. In truth it

was not incoherent at all. Ireland was meant to be visible in international relations in order for

the world not to forget about the Irish state and thus to make it impossible for Great Britain to

somehow reabsorb Éire into its political framework. On the other hand however, Ireland also

wanted to remain impartial in political, economic and military international relations. This

neutrality was meant to give the Irish institutions sufficient time to get internalized into the

collective consciousness of Irish citizens and to prove to them that, even without the

assistance from London, Irishmen can effectively govern themselves. Another important

factor which made the idea of neutrality start growing in the minds of the Irish was the will to

show that Ireland was a political entity separate from Great Britain. P. Keatinge talks in this

context even of the “psychological necessity” of Ireland accepting the position of neutrality as

a path leading to full independence, which was taken away from the Irish in 1921 (1973, 24).

Taking into consideration the fact that Great Britain in the interwar period was extremely

active in international relations, the gradual implementation of the neutrality model into the

Irish way of reacting at various international situations needs to be recognized as a definitely

good solution.

Accentuating Ireland’s independence in international relations begun already in the very

first years of the Irish Free State existence. The Dublin government took all the necessary

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steps to register the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the treaty constituting the IFS, with the League of

Nations as a normal international treaty. The aim was achieved even though Great Britain

decisively opposed it (Boyce, 1979, 21). The next move of the sort was to send an Irish

diplomatic representative in the rank of minister to the USA: ipso facto Ireland became the

first of British dominions which established a permanent diplomatic mission in the country

outside of the British Commonwealth (Dwyer, 2010, 2). Soon other Irish permanent

diplomatic missions followed: to the League of Nations, to France and to Germany. Irish

envoys played one of the crucial roles in negotiations during Imperial Conferences which

resulted first in unanimous approval of Balfour Declaration (1926) and then in British

parliament and dominion states’ parliaments accepting the Statute of Westminster (1931).

This document formally declared that all the British dominions are autonomous actors in

international relations, equal in status (more on this in Dańda, 2009, 29-31).

In 1932 political scene in Ireland saw the definite return of Éamon de Valera (after a period

of political absence connected with his negative attitude towards the Anglo-Irish Treaty).

After taking the function of Prime Minister (Taoiseach), one of his first decisions which

became known internationally was the abolition of the pledge of allegiance to the British

Crown by the members of Irish political establishment. The pledge was one of those elements

that originally made de Valera oppose the Treaty in 1921 (Dwyer, 2010, 2).

In the same year of 1932 de Valera assumed the rotational (in three-month cycle) position

of the President of the Council of the League of Nations. While acting as the President, de

Valera distinguished himself by a good sense of timing and an equally good sense of taking

advantage of the mood predominant in the societies of the League of Nations’ states at that

time. In his official speeches of that period he accentuated the necessity of strengthening the

organization which had just had to face its first serious failure – in 1931 Japan disregarded the

Covenant for the League of Nations by attacking Manchuria. In 1934 de Valera took Ireland

to international spotlight again by taking a definite position in the League forum appealing to

this organization to intervene in the conflict between Bolivia and Paraguay (Chaco War) – it

was the first time that Ireland took a different stance in international relations than the USA.

A logical consequence of such de Valera’s engagement in the League was his appeal of 1935

to all the member states to stop by any means possible (the collective use of force not

excluded) Italian expansionism in relation to Ethiopia.

Therefore it is clear that Ireland in the interwar period was working primarily on its

national interests which concentrated mostly on stressing the independence of the Irish Free

State from the United Kingdom and on accentuating the presence of Ireland in world politics.

Until the clear division between the states creating the post-war system of international

security took place in the late 1930s, Ireland in practice was not forced to make any choice of

the future political-military alliance. Irish politicians in that period were free to voice their

ideas, both in bilateral and multilateral relations, directed only by ethical-moral indicators

(supporting the causes perceived as politically and legally just – e.g. de Valera’s position on

Ethiopia case stressed by Dwyer: 2010, 4). They didn’t have to face any dilemma on which

side of the future conflict Ireland is going to be placed by those decisions. Until the post-war

structure of the balance of powers existed, Ireland simply did not have to explicitly place its

loyalties. This time of easiness came to a close however, due to a series of events, of which

one of the most important ones turned out to be the aforementioned annexation of Ethiopia by

Italy, with the League of Nations idly standing by.

Let us remind that in 1935 de Valera supported the option of definite counteraction to be

taken by international community, the use of force not excluded. However, on July 2nd

, 1936,

in the forum of the League of Nations the Taoiseach abandoned his previous efforts to

strengthen the system of collective security. In his speech that supported the repeal of

sanctions which the League had previously imposed on Italy, de Valera clearly stated that war

10

is inevitable in the perspective of a few years and that the Irish state will remain neutral in this

upcoming armed struggle (de Valera, 1944, 54-59). Therefore, this is the very first moment

that the concept of neutrality, already growing for some time in the minds of Irish politicians,

has been explicitly verbalized.

This neutral stance, so clearly manifested in 1936 by de Valera, was noticeable to some

extent in Irish foreign policy already for some years. For example, when the civil war in Spain

broke out, and Fianna Fáil with de Valera were being condemned for inaction by the Irish

Catholic hierarchy and political opposition supporting the Church in this matter, the

government of the Irish Free State did not bend under internal pressure and – remaining in

line with the rules of already crystallizing doctrine of political neutrality – decided not to

intervene on the side of general Franco (Dwyer, 2010, 5). In this case the decision was surely

facilitated by the similar attitude that de Valera’s favorite international institution – the

League of Nations – assumed in relation to the Spanish conflict.

From the time of de Valera’s League of Nations speech in 1936 Irish state clearly began

applying in its foreign policy the rule of equal distance being held towards the political-

military alliances forming in Europe. The visible result of that was the unequivocal support

given by the IFS to the policy of appeasement being realized in the period directly prior to

World War II.

An attempt to drag Ireland away from the path leading it towards a definite neutrality in the

future armed conflict in Europe was made by the British. In January 1938 negotiations with

Irish government were initiated in London. Prime Minister Chamberlain declared the will to

hand over to Ireland the control of three naval bases and all the powers that Great Britain still

retained in the territory of the IFS according to the Treaty of 1921 – all that for the price of

supporting Great Britain in the upcoming war and for terminating the Irish-British customs

war (the economic conflict which began in 1932 because of the differences in interpretation of

the 1921 Treaty) (Gwynn, 1979, 311-312; Boyce, 1940, 22). Finally, although the agreement

was signed in April 1938 in which Chamberlain turned over the control of the three Treaty

naval bases to Ireland (an act of goodwill on the part of Great Britain as it was publicly

pronounced) and which ended the customs war, there was no consent given by Dublin on the

issue of Ireland abandoning its neutrality policy – because of the impossibility of reaching a

consensus with the United Kingdom on Northern Ireland status (Raymond, 1984, 34; Dwyer,

2010, 5-7). Quoting de Valera: “so long as the British kept a foothold on Irish soil (…) Ireland

would not be free, and therefore could not be expected to take an active part in a war on

Britain’s side” (Smyllie, 1946, 318). It was thus yet another case in British-Irish relations that

a well-known sentence of Irish MP Sir Horace Plunkett turned out to be true: “Irish history is

for Englishmen to remember and Irishmen to forget” (Boyd, 1941, 432). This time however,

the sentence uniquely turned out to be true against the interest of Great Britain. Since the

Chamberlain government did not show any inclination to solve the problem of the division of

the island in a way which was interesting for de Valera, Irish decision-making circles were

ultimately reassured in their neutral stance taking shape already for some years. Support to

British cause in the upcoming conflict would surely not bring any benefits to the national

interests of Irish state and thus it would weaken Ireland economically, politically and socially.

So Irish politicians, by engaging their country in the war, could only bring harm to Ireland’s

national interests.

Neutrality of Ireland during World War II

Considering the aforementioned traditional (but not original, Grotian) way of

understanding neutrality, it needs to be said that Ireland was not a model example of neutral

power during World War II. The statement above holds true both for the formal legal sphere

as well as for the field of political practice.

11

The Formal Legal Aspects of Irish Neutrality

Formally Ireland began applying its wartime, political neutrality on September 2nd

, 1939,

when Dáil Eireann (the lower house of Irish parliament) voted in favor of resolution

introducing the state of emergency in the territory of Éire (for more details see The Record of

Parliamentary Debate Prior to the Vote on Imposing the Emergency Measures). It is good to

remember that in Irish historiography the time of World War II is being referred to just like

that – as “The Emergency”. So, contrary to the classical requirements for voicing the will of

applying political neutrality measures, it was not a clearly formulated declaration of non-

engagement in the armed struggle that was to become the basis of Dublin neutrality policy in

the wartime years. Instead of that, the declaration of imposing emergency measures in the

territory of the Irish Free State was to become such a basis for the Irish neutrality policy.

The second formal legal basis for Irish neutrality during World War II, the basis which was

also substantially different from the previous practices of states declaring wartime neutrality,

was the Emergency Powers Act accepted on September 3rd

, 1939 by both houses of the Irish

Free State parliament. The act was empowering the government of Ireland to undertake such

steps as it deemed necessary “for securing the public safety or the preservation of the State, or

for the maintenance of public order, or for the provision and control of supplies and services

essential to the life of the community” (Emergency Powers Act 1939, Art. 2.1). Therefore, the

government of the Irish Free State was entitled by the parliament to take all the necessary

action in the external environment of Éire that would strengthen Ireland as an independent

player and at the same time enable the survival of the Irish Free State in the wartime turmoil.

In the text of the act from the 3rd

of September de Valera together with his ministers also

received the powers to profoundly affect the internal life of Irish state. This influence took the

form of e.g. strict censorship of mass media, governmental control over the key sectors of

economy or the right to intern service members of any belligerent state if they happen to be

found in the territory of the Irish Free State.

As far as the political practices unusual for a neutral state are concerned, it needs to be said

that from the very beginning of “The Emergency” Taoiseach de Valera clearly expressed his

will to assist the British in any way necessary with the exception of taking an action which

would lead Ireland to war. London obviously was not delighted by such a turn of events in the

region which until quite recently had been ruled directly by Great Britain and in the interwar

period was perceived as the unquestionable British sphere of influence. That is why the

British Government of His Majesty George VI with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and

the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs Anthony Eden initially (September 16th

, 1939)

attempted to prove the Irish wrong in the grounds of constitutionalism. The attempt was made

to prove that Ireland, being the member of the British Commonwealth and a British dominion,

legally had no right to abstain from the war which was declared by Great Britain because it

was a part of the indivisible British Crown. This reasoning was, however, undermined very

quickly, even in the formal legal grounds. For the aforementioned constitutional rule of

Crown indivisibility was undermined by the British themselves already in the period prior to

the dispute between London and Dublin. In 1937, when the Irish Minister was sent as a

diplomatic envoy to the court of the King of Italy recognized as the Emperor of Ethiopia, it all

took place with the consent of the King George VI and his government in London, although at

that time Great Britain still did not formally recognize Italy’s annexation of Ethiopia from

1935. It is in this way that the British Crown had been divided in the grounds of

constitutionalism for the first time in the new era of the British Empire restructured by the

Statute of Westminster (Dwyer, 2010, 19-20).

The legal constitutional arguments were not the only ones which de Valera used in order to

achieve the consent of London government for Ireland declaring neutrality. Political

12

arguments were equally important in this matter: the conviction that any attempt at forcing

Ireland into abandoning its neutral status would surely mean the growth of antipathy in the

spheres of the Irish Americans in the USA. Ipso facto, any attempt to violate the decision of

the Irish Free State in this matter could result in serious worsening of the key relations for

Great Britain: the relations with the Americans, still not engaged in the war effort.

Wartime Neutrality of Ireland in Political Practice

De Valera’s declaration of neutrality, expressing the will of giving assistance to Great

Britain and its allies in any way necessary except the one which would entail engaging Ireland

in the armed conflict, was – similarly as the Dáil resolution and the act of Oirechtas (Irish

parliament), both preceding this declaration – an announcement of quite a peculiar nature, an

act quite unique when compared to the earlier practices which have been applied in such

situations by other neutral states. In the years of World War II Irish neutrality gained even a

more peculiar form, incomparable with anything which had been settled on the matter of

classical neutrality in international legal analyses until that time.

On one hand, there were numerous examples of formal strict application of the rules

defining neutrality model (in the shape of Wolff and de Vattel approach) by the political elites

of the Irish Free State. The confirmation can be the fact of the formal closing the territory of

the Irish Free State for the British Armed Forces (and all other armed forces of any state

taking part in the war). That this Irish declaration has been taken seriously we can learn from

the fact that even after the USA joined the war effort in Europe and the dislocation of

American units in the territory of Ulster was taking place, the U.S. Army – being perceived by

Éire definitely friendlier than the British Armed Forces – never crossed the internal Irish

border (between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State). They stayed on the British side of

the border.

Another argument, which could be used to support Ireland’s claim to the model

interpretation of neutrality policy, could be the censorship activity, which for the most part of

“The Emergency” period was performed by the Ministry for Coordination of Defensive

Measures led by extremely anti-British, former IRA commander Frank Aiken. It is worth

mentioning that the censorship supervised by Aiken was definitely more aimed at information

which could have supported the Allied cause than at information which had the pro-German

flavor. For example, although the cases of the Irish Free State citizens joining the British

Armed Forces were widely known, in the whole “Emergency” period no piece of information

connected to this fact could have been published in Irish mass media. Therefore, there was no

consent given for the publication of obituaries of the Irishmen who died fighting under the

British banner. When the news reached Ireland that one of the Irish serving onboard the HMS

Prince of Wales in the defense of Singapore did not drown with this famous battleship, the

statement which appeared in Irish media – after having been censored by the Aiken office –

only said that a certain young man survived the boating accident. Another commonly known

topic, which did not found its place in the Irish Free State mass media during the whole World

War II, was the fact that numerous American units were being stationed in the territory of

Northern Ireland. Even the Irish origins of such important Allied Powers commanders as

Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery or Field Marshal Harold Alexander had been

considered by the Irish censorship as the information which – if it were to spread – could have

harmed the neutrality policy being formally implemented by Dublin government (Smyllie,

1946, 323).

Another element corresponding with Ireland acting in accord with the rules of

indiscriminative neutrality policy is the fact of the Irish Free State maintaining in its territory

diplomatic and consular representations of the Allied Powers as well as those of the Axis

states. Those diplomatic ties with the Axis were kept by Ireland even though the most

13

influential of all the allies for Irish cause – the USA – clearly demanded that those ties should

be terminated (to the lesser extent that same demand was voiced by Great Britain as well).

Both American and British objections, directed towards de Valera government in 1944, were

motivated by the fears of the Axis powers discovering the Allies’ plans which were to take its

ultimate form of opening the second front in Europe (meaning Operation Overlord). However,

even such strongly motivated operational need appeared to be insufficient for the Irish

decision-making circles to depart from the rules of diplomatic protocol and to expel from Irish

territory representatives of the Third Reich and the Empire of Japan. Eduard Hempel – the

Nazi German Minister to Ireland (together with his four co-workers) – and Japanese consul

Fetsuya Beppu (with his two assistants) were formally enjoying full diplomatic privileges in

the territory of the Irish Free State. However, in practice their activities were being closely

monitored by the Irish secret service. Also the social life – such an important sphere for

diplomat’s work – was not completely open for the representatives of the Axis states. Only

rarely have they been invited for the meetings with members of de Valera government and the

less formal meetings, which were quite often being organized by Dublin political elites

inviting diplomatic envoys from the USA, Great Britain, Belgium, France, Poland,

Czechoslovakia, Denmark and Holland, did not see the presence of Hempel or Beppu even

once. The most distinct example of social ostracism, which was in everyday practice being

applied to the diplomatic envoys of the Axis powers in Ireland, was the story of consul

Beppu’s membership in a respectable Irish golf club. He was accepted to join the club only

after the formal intervention of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Irish Free State (a few

prominent club members resigned their membership because of this enforced decision).

However, even after such a forced membership in this exclusive circle was granted to Beppu,

nobody wanted to play golf with him (Smyllie, 1946, 325).

Diplomatic relations with the Axis states were the reason for yet another paradox in the

external relations of formally neutral Ireland. According to one of the common rules in

diplomatic relations – the rule of reciprocity – since there was a German diplomatic

representation in the territory of the Irish Free State, Ireland was fully entitled to possess its

own representation in Berlin. This right was being exercised by Ireland for a certain amount

of time during the war, that is until the position of Irish Minister to Germany was vacated. In

such a situation de Valera decided to appoint a new Minister to Germany: the director of

Dublin Broadcasting Station – T.J. Kiernan. It is because of the formal procedure of

acceptance for this candidacy that Ireland’s neutrality was one more time undermined in its

practical, implementing aspect. According to diplomatic protocol German government could

not accept this new Irish diplomatic representative without the proper letter of credence which

had to be signed by the Monarch – the symbol of unity of the British Commonwealth (this

royal prerogative survived the changes done to the Irish constitution in 1936 and 1937). For

obvious reasons His Majesty George VI did not have the slightest possibility (not to mention

the inclination) to – as the head of a state being in war with Germany – contribute to the

implementation of foreign policy of a different state, which was formally not subjected to him

anymore (Smyllie, 1946, 319). Ultimately, the position of Irish Minister to Germany had to

remain vacant until the end of the war and the rank of Irish diplomatic mission in Berlin was

formally lowered, with chargé d’affaires at its steering wheel.

Apart from the elements of the Irish Free State neutrality which corresponded with the

model solution, it needs to be shown that there were also numerous elements which did not fit

into such an idealized frame of neutral state. Formally, the territory of the Irish Free State had

been closed for the armed forces of all the belligerents. In practice however, there were some

situations when the RAF pilots were forced to emergency landing in the Irish territory and –

although there was a formal obligation of detaining them – such an action was never uttered

14

by any of the Irish security forces. Such an event took place already on September 3rd

, 1939 –

on the first day of British Armed Forces at war – when two RAF seaplanes landed in the

waters of Dublin harbor Dun Laoghaire. One of the pilots even went to the shore where, using

the equipment of a local police station, he made a few phone calls. After a couple of hours the

planes took off and flew towards Britain, undisturbed by the Irish Free State security forces

(Dwyer, 2010, 15).

It is also worth to remember that security forces of the Irish Free State in the times of The

Emergency consisted of 40 thousand Regular Army servicemen, 80 thousand members of

Local Defence Force (all of them being volunteers) and an uncertain number of Local

Security Force (mostly elderly people). What is important is that all of those forces

comprising the defense of Éire had been armed almost exclusively by the British. Also, in the

times just after the war there was a documentation revealed testifying to the fact that there

were unusually close relations being kept in the years 1939-1945 between British General

Staff and the highest commanding officers of the Irish Free State armed forces (Smyllie,

1946, 320-321). It is quite obvious then that the practical implementation of a model

neutrality policy attempted by Ireland had to be in such a situation a flawed attempt from the

very beginning.

The untypical, departing from the ideal model shape of Irish neutrality was also being

created by the economic cooperation and trade relations between the Irish Free State and

Great Britain, which for the most part remained unchanged in comparison with the pre-war

situation. Food was still the main Irish export commodity in the trade relations with Great

Britain. It needs to be remembered that although both the value and the amount of food being

sold to the British has been substantially increased during wartime (especially after Hitler

closed the food supplying route from Denmark to Britain), Ireland itself did not benefit a lot

from such trade relations in real terms. The increase in food supplies to the United Kingdom

did not mean that Éire received immediate payment for the sold goods – the effect of all that

was a huge debt (at the end of the war amounting to USD 1.6 bln) – a result of a constant

imbalance in trade relations between London and Dublin (Smyllie, 1946, 322). Therefore, it

can be said that Ireland was supporting British war effort by agreeing to credit the UK’s

consumption needs.

It is also worth noticing that apart from the lively trading activity, Irishmen during The

Emergency were also quite often deciding to leave their houses and to move into the British

territory looking for better jobs and earnings and – as a side effect – also contributing to the

war effort of the United Kingdom. This possibility was exercised in the wartime years by

approximately 170 thousand Irish workers. De Valera government – besides imposing the ban

on placing advertisements in Irish newspapers which would offer working positions in Great

Britain – did not take any measures in order to stop this outflow of workforce. Some of the

commentators even claim that such a turn of events was perceived by Dublin as definitely

favorable, as it diminished the rate of unemployment in Éire (Smyllie, 1946, 321). The

aforementioned formula of neutrality, announced in the end of the 18th

century by George

Washington, was thus clearly applied in this case: the formula which professed that it is only a

state that, if it wishes to remain neutral, cannot engage in supporting any of the parties to the

conflict; the very same rule however, does not apply to the citizens of such a state.

Another element which can be used to prove that Ireland did not abide by all the rules of

ideal neutrality policy during The Emergency is the fact of 150-180 thousand citizens of the

Irish Free State (with the total population of the state ranging 3 million) decided to cross the

border with Great Britain in order to join the British Armed Forces (usually the easiest road

was being chosen: a largely undefended border with Northern Ireland). This number also

includes approximately 4 thousand deserters from the Irish army (in other words – 10 % of its

total number) (Smyllie, 1946, 320-321). Seven out of those Irish volunteers serving under the

15

Union Jack flag were awarded for their service the highest military decoration of the British

Commonwealth – the Victoria Cross. The very first officer who was distinguished in all the

British Armed Forces during World War II was also an Irishman – RAF Lieutenant Kenneth

Doran, awarded the highest British military decoration for RAF members – the Distinguished

Flying Cross – for leading the raid on the Kiel Canal directly after the hostilities in the

Western front began (Gwynn, 1940, 308).

Such a distinct act of disobedience of a large group of Irishmen against the official line of

politics being implemented by their own state was possible because the Irish Free State

government applied the Washington formula of neutrality also in this regard. According to the

formula neutral state does not hold responsibility for the actions of its citizens if those citizens

opt to support the war effort of one or both of the parties to the armed conflict. Of course,

Dublin could have acted just like any other state declaring neutrality and introduced – in a

form of an act of parliament – the formal prohibition for its own citizens on enlisting into the

military service in the armies of other states. After such an act had been accepted by the

Oirechtas, any Irishman joining the British Armed Forces would have had to face criminal

charges punishable by e.g. the loss of civil rights. De Valera government however, did not

take any steps towards putting such an act to vote in the Irish parliament. The effect of this

governmental inaction was a regular disrespect for general rules of wartime neutrality shown

by the Irish serving on the other side of the British border. This disrespect for the official line

of their own government was such a common case, that when those servicemen received their

short leave from duty, they were usually returning to Ireland in civilian clothing for a quick

visit home.

The only real repercussions that those Irish volunteers fighting in World War II on the

British side had to face were reserved for this particular group of 4 thousand deserters from

the Irish army. However, even those were mostly show trials, all of which ended only with

probation sentences and the prohibition of employing such a sentenced deserter in a position

paid out of the Irish budget. What is interesting, the defender of one of those soldiers

attempted to dismiss the charges of desertion based upon the definitional problems connected

with this term. According to the classical definition desertion means a soldier running away

from the place in danger to some sort of safe haven. The case of the Irish deciding to leave the

ranks of the Irish Free State military and joining the British Armed Forces was completely

different. They were actually abandoning the safe haven for the place where their lives and

health could have been put in a serious danger (Smyllie, 1946, 321).

So, it can be said that in the face of the ambiguous attitude of Dublin political elites, a

relatively big share of Irishmen from the Irish Free State decided that the policy of neutrality

implemented by their own government is unacceptable for them and – even though the anti-

British attitudes in Ireland were still much alive – those Irishmen decided to assist their

attacked neighbors. It is worth recording that a bigger share of the inhabitants of 26 counties

comprising Éire was recruited into the British Armed Forces than the percentage of Irishmen

of Ulster origin (we need to remember that, because of de Valera’s loud protest, Northern

Ireland was not subjected to the conscription for the UK’s army). Possibly they were

following the perennial instructions of the Roman Catholic Church, such as the words of St.

Augustine: “constitutions and written laws do not confer any moral obligation if they are not

the expression of a constitution inscribed in the minds of citizens” (Friss, 2011). Another

equally convincing explanation favored by some of the Irish analysts for this act of mass civil

disobedience is the observation that World War II was the first armed conflict for many ages

that the Irish – a nation of warriors – did not formally take part in (Smyllie, 1946, 319). Yet

another interpretation that also seems to be quite sound in this matter is the fact that tradition

of disobedience against written laws, imposed on the inhabitants of the island for more than

700 years by the British invaders, had to exert a serious influence upon the way that the Irish

16

society en masse treated formal rules and prohibitions issued even by its own government in

the times of The Emergency.

Summary

Wartime Ireland is a perfect example for the observation that accepting the policy of

neutrality does not necessarily mean a negative assessment of a state activity in the field of

international relations. Neutrality does not have to be dull, connected only with inaction in

international relations. Quite the opposite – in order to assure the conditions for survival in the

world overcome by war struggle Ireland had to actively look for its own path in international

relations which would ensure Éire with the status of a non-aligned state (at least in the eyes of

the major international players of that time). In other words, Irish wartime neutrality is not a

neutrality of a fearful hare hiding in its peaceful burrow. Ireland is not an actor which mostly

due to its own and unconstrained will excludes itself from the relations with other actors in

the field of international relations and thus seems to lose its subjectivity in the process of the

game. Political neutrality in the version applied by Ireland in the times of World War II is a

neutrality more akin to a circus acrobat who, while walking on a rope placed very high above

the ground level, has to put special care not to lean too much towards any side in order to

keep balance. The loss of balance would surely end badly for the Irish state – that was the way

the Irish decision-making circles were thinking like starting from 1921. Therefore, as the

primary element of Ireland’s wartime raison d’etat we need to recognize the will to survive as

an independent actor of international relations. This survival was to be achieved precisely by

keeping balance, maintaining equal distance towards every party to the conflict. The side

effect of this concept of neutrality was also the promotion of Ireland as a potential mediator

for the warring parties. Such strengthening of Ireland’s significance in international relations

field (especially in the eyes of the USA) was to guarantee the survival of independent Irish

state in the close vicinity of British imperial neighbor and to create the international situation,

where it would be possible to obtain Great Britain’s decision of ending the political partition

of the island of Ireland.

The paradigm of conducting foreign policy in The Emergency period in a way consistent

with the basics of neutrality model was not only a creation (as some British historians like to

think) of Irish antipathy towards all that is British. According to the chief editor of “The Irish

Times” – the most important Irish newspaper in the times of World War II – the Irishmen who

would cheer in a case of German victory over Britain were really few in numbers. The actions

of de Valera and other representatives of Irish government in the wartime period remained in

full compliance with the accepted in the first days of World War II rules of political

neutrality. However, Irish neutrality cannot be recognized as the model-type neutrality. This

period in Irish diplomacy and international relations involving the Irish factor was

characterized by activism, untypical and quite absent in the case of other states applying the

model of neutrality back then (e.g. Switzerland or Sweden). Irish neutrality was a concept

forming the way of conduct for political elites in the international field. A concept that was

directly connected with the national interests of Irish state. Those national interests were: 1) to

ensure the survival of a newborn Irish state, 2) to gradually strengthen independence from

Great Britain (both by accentuating differences between Irish and British way of dealing with

international problems and by economic and cultural empowerment of Irish state and society),

3) to pursue such a situation in international relations where the unification of the island of

Ireland would be possible (Dwyer, 2010, 1-20).

From the historical point of view it needs to be said that the strategy of conduct in

international relations which was accepted by Irish elites in the wartime period was a good

choice. Two out of three goals forming the basis of the then Irish raison d’etat were achieved

as a consequence of this strategy being implemented. Independent Ireland survived the times

17

of World War II even though there was the will of a substantial part of decision-making

circles in London to violate its neutrality which could lead in turn to abolition of the Irish Free

State independence (Dwyer, 2010, 19). The internal peace in the years 1939-1945 made it

possible to keep the quality of life on the island on the same level as in the pre-war period (in

the times when the rest of Europe was being ravaged by the cataclysm of war). This in turn

made it possible for the Irish society to strengthen its identification with its own state, a

political entity independent from Great Britain. The result of that was establishing the

atmosphere in Irish society which facilitated the decision of Dublin just after World War II

(1948) to withdraw from political framework of the British Commonwealth and to cut the last

remaining ties between Ireland and Great Britain: the resignation from dominion status and

formal initiation of republicanism.

We can risk saying that Ireland fully engaged in a war effort on the side of the Allies

would not achieve more than it achieved due to its neutrality stance. The question of Ireland’s

unification obviously remains unsolved until the present day, however, again we can risk

saying that even strong and clearly visible military support for the Allied cause, even the price

of blood which had to be paid for such a support would not be enough to bring about the

situation where the Irish pretense towards Ulster gained sufficient support in the USA to

pressure Great Britain in this matter. Of course, one can always question whether the

conceivable Hitler’s victory in Europe would not lead to the situation where Ireland could be

united again. However, it seems that Irish society was not so anti-British in the times prior to

World War II and during the wartime so as to even theoretically give a serious thought to this

option of engaging Ireland in the war effort on the side of the Axis powers (Smyllie, 1946;

Dwyer, 2010). Even more to the point can be the conclusion being widely spread by the Irish

themselves that in 1939 and the following years Ireland was still anti-British, but this anti-

British stance was directed against London political-military-economic establishment and not

against the common people of the United Kingdom who were definitely better perceived by

the Irish already for some time. This situation reminds in some way the ambivalent attitude of

Polish people towards Russia as a state identified with a centuries-long oppressiveness and

towards the Russians as a nation which by its nature comes remarkably close to the Polish

soul.

The Irish Anti-British stance has been additionally weakened by the fact that the USA –

the most substantial ally of Ireland in international relations, the only state whose political

elites Éire was inclined to trust at that time – accepted from the very beginning of the armed

conflict in 1939 position definitely supportive towards the United Kingdom. Also, as it can

be read in numerous memoirs of that time, a typical Irishman would fear an unknown enemy

(meaning fascism and Hitler) as much as the enemy perfectly well known (imperialism and

His Majesty’s Government) (Boyd, 1941, 430-431). It needs to be stressed then, that with

such attitudes predominant in the society of the 26 counties comprising the Irish Free State,

the maxim “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, the maxim which in the case of earlier

global conflicts Irish elites attempted to implement (with no effect: the attempt of getting

Napoleon interested in the Irish cause in the times when he was planning the invasion on the

British Isles happened to be a total failure, the same can be said about Sinn Fein’s strategy

during World War I – trying to get the attention and sympathy of the German Empire), this

time that way was not even an option (Boyd, 1941, 432).

Therefore we must stress that the widespread conviction that the Irish decision to remain

neutral changed the geostrategic situation in Europe in favor of Germany in the first years of

World War II, such a conviction is plainly wrong. This distorted picture of reality is an effect

of the influence which was exerted upon the historiography of World War II by the views of

Winston Churchill (definitely averse towards the Irish cause) and – to the lesser extent –

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tactically maneuvered by de Valera into supporting Irish

18

demands. Thus a quotation from one of the creators of Sinn Fein – Arthur Griffith: “the

British had built a paper wall around Ireland; on the inside they painted what they wanted the

Irish to know about the rest of the world, on the outside what they wanted the rest of the

world to know about Ireland” – a sentence well-known in Ireland, one more time appeared to

be true (Smyllie, 1946, 317). Keeping in mind the simple fact that history is being written by

the victors (nota bene – the saying attributed to Churchill) and that Great Britain

unquestionably belongs to World War II winners’ circle, we should be definitely more

cautious while evaluating the performance of Ireland during the wartime period. The

widespread negative Anglo-Saxon assessment of Irish neutrality is – in the light of the

aforementioned evidence – definitely unjust. For this neutrality was nothing more but an

instrument of achieving Irish national interests at that time, the instrument which happened to

be extremely effective in securing Irish raison d’etat.

19

References:

Source material:

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Difference Between the Two Countries (The Washington Treaty), Washington,

8th

May 1871, [in:] Parry, C. (ed.) (1977). The Consolidated Treaty Series,

New York, Vol.143, p. 145.

Bunreacht na hEireann (Constitution of Ireland), Dublin 1937.

The Record of Parliamentary Debate Prior to the Vote on Imposing the Emergency Measures

2nd

September 1939, http://historical-

debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0077/D.0077.193909020007.html (accessed on 5.05.2011).

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(accessed on 6.05.2011).

de Valera, E. (1944). Peace and War. Speeches by Mr de Valera on international affairs,

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Boyce, G. (1979). From War to Neutrality: Anglo-Irish Relations 1921-1950, British Journal

of International Studies, vol.5, no.1.

Boyd, E. (1941). Ireland between Two Stools, Foreign Affairs, vol.19, no.2.

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Dańda, A. (2009). Dominium jako forma ustrojowa państw anglosaskich, Kraków.

Duggan, J.P. (1975). Neutral Ireland and the Third Reich, Dublin.

Dwyer, T.R. (2010). Behind the Green Curtain. Ireland’s Phoney Neutrality During World

War II, Dublin.

Friss, R. (2011). Orban’s constitution, a dangerous anachronism, Nepszabadsag, 19.04.2011

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