Ireland - Neutrality
The roots of Irish neutrality lie deep in history. No discussion of Ireland’s defence policy takes place without an assertion of the “traditional policy of military neutrality.” Yet no such policy exists, and even if it did, Ireland had never been in a position to fulfil it barring a short period during the Second World War. Winston Churchill viewed Irish neutrality as self-serving and greedy, and Britain put in place a supply squeeze from 1941 on. The lower classes were affected the most, and there were worries about a second famine. For years it had been the conventional wisdom among Irish Americans, and particularly among those who remembered the Second World War, to lament Irish neutrality in that war and in the post-war period. A growing internal political attachment to Irish neutrality as a national doctrine hastened the attentuation of Ireland's old links with the USA.
With the advent of the twentieth century had come a great burst of nationalism sparked by a remarkable literary renaissance and a movement for the revival of the Gaelic language and culture, by a rapidly growing labor movement, and by a secret revolutionary society which was heir to the republican ideal. To the men of these movements any- thing less than complete independence was intolerable; it was they who organized the quite hopeless but deeply stirring rebellion of Easter Week, 1916. The Rising failed, but the national passion for independence was fired by the stern punishment meted out to its leaders and Irish nationalism began a drive for complete independence.
By 1918 mere Home Rule was, to the great majority of Irishmen, no longer acceptable. In the parliamentary elections of 1918 the independence-bent Sinn Fein [Meaning "Ourselves Alone"] organization swept the polls in Ireland. The 73 Sinn Fein members (out of 105) returned at the election were pledged not to attend the Parliament at Westminster; they met in Dublin as Dail Eireann [Literally, "Assembly of Ireland"], issued a Declaration of Independence, and set up a Government of the Irish Republic. The two years of exhausting guerrilla warfare that followed ended in compromise: the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, known to Irishmen simply as the Treaty, which provided for the establishment of the Irish Free State. The Free State, however, did not include all of Ireland; the six northeastern counties of Ulster chose to remain a part of the United Kingdom. Nor was it a Republic, for the Treaty provided that it was to have the status of a dominion of the British Commonwealth.
The Treaty settlement was nevertheless accepted by a majority of Irishmen, and in 1922 under W.T.Cosgrave the first Government of the Irish Free State assumed office. To Cosgrave and his supporters, who remained in power for ten years, the Treaty afforded "freedom to achieve freedom". Their administration was conservative and primarily concerned with the problem of restoring internal stability.
In the first two years of the Cosgrave Government guerilla warfare was waged against the Free State by remnants of the Irish Republican Army who had vowed to continue the struggle for a united Ireland completely independent of the United Kingdom. The bitterness generated by the "Civil War" still plagues Irish politics. Even after the restoration of tranquillity the republicans, most of them now organized into the Fianna Fail party under Eamon De Valera, a principal leader in the struggle for independence, boycotted the Free State Government.
Until 1927 the elected Fianna Fail deputies refused to take the oath prescribed for Dail deputies on the ground that it was an oath of allegiance to the King. Finally, in 1927, the oath was sworn as an "empty political formula" and De Valera led Fianna Fail into the Dail. In 1932 he formed the Government that was to remain in power for the next sixteen years. The pro-Commonwealth policies of the Cosgrave Government were reversed. Fianna Fail envisaged complete Irish political and economic independence. A discontinuance of certain land annuity payments to the British precipitated a tariff war and a general deterioration of Anglo-Irish relations. The land annuities dispute was settled in 1938 and a trade agreement concluded.
The British also relinquished the three naval bases in Ireland reserved under the Treaty. Meanwhile, Fianna Fail had been only partially successful in its program to lessen economic dependence on the United Kingdom by fostering Irish industrial development. But it had proceeded far with the implementa- tion of its nationalistic aims. By the time of the adoption of the present Constitution in 1937, the functions of the Crown in Irish domestic affairs had been completely discarded and in external affairs there remained only a very tenuous link with the Commonwealth.
The 1930's were also turbulent years internally, with armed political demonstra- tions and even terrorism not uncommon. Before the formation of the Fianna Fail Party, De Valera had broken with the militant extremists of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) ; but, in office, he was reluctant to suppress them and he lifted the ban imposed under Cosgrave. The IRA had remained active and armed while illegal; and now, in a time of depression and deteriorated relations with the United Kingdom, it became a serious menace. During this period an unarmed counter organization, eventually called the Blueshirts, was formed along paramilitary lines. The leading Opposition party came under partial Blueshirt control for a time. The activities of the Blueshirts were restricted by the Government and eventually ceased; but not until the Cosgrave Party, the present Fine Gael, had been demoralized by association with them, for the Blueshirts in their later days had begun to preach doctrines Fascist in connotation.
In 1933 there were over 100,000 Blueshirts, members of one of the Irish fascist parties. Even when undisguised fascist ideology went out of fashion as the war went on, many right-wingers (influenced by the Catholic clergy) held up fascist countries as an example: "True to Catholic traditions, Ireland, Spain and Portugal may yet be the salvation of the world . . ." (The Donegal Democrat newspaper).
The IRA was finally declared an illegal organization in 1936, and the proclamation was renewed under the new Constitution. De Valera used the policy of neutrality to neutralize the IRA, which was still blowing up movie theaters and trying to kill Irish police in its war against the partition.
Fianna Fail was the party of Eamon De Valera. Its policies on international affairs were influenced by intense nationalism and by a disillusionment with Big Power policies which began to harden in 1935-36 when De Valera advocated a stronger League of Nations line with Italy than the United Kingdom and France were prepared to follow. It is perhaps the most neutrality-minded of the parties.
In 1932, De Valera, supported by the Labor Party, formed a Fianna Fail Government. Although his party often had less than half the seats in the Dail, De Valera remained in office until February 1948, surviving in the meantime five general elections, the depression, a tariff war with the UK, threats to the security of the State from dissident extremist elements and, finally, World War II. During these sixteen years nearly all manifestations of association with the British Commonwealth were discarded; an essentially Republican Constitution was adopted. The 1944 election supported de Valera and his policies.
After De Valera assumed office in 1932, Irish policy became one of increasing dissociation from the Commonwealth. By 1936 nearly all the manifestations of membership in the Commonwealth - as, for example, the office of Governor-General - had been discarded, demonstrating the flimsiness of Eire's link with the Crown since 1936. The Constitution of 1937, an essentially republican document although not expressly proclaiming a republic, mentioned neither Crown nor Commonwealth and affirmed that Ireland was a sovereign, independent, democratic state with an inalienable right to choose its own form of government. "External association" with the Commonwealth became the de facto position. As its neutrality in World War II emphasized, Ireland regarded itself not as a member of the Commonwealth but as a State associated with it for certain aspects of external relations The last legal link to the Crown was the External Relations Act of 1936 under which Irish diplomatic representatives were appointed in the name of the King [that last link was cut in December 1948 by the passage of the Republic of Ireland Act].
In 1937 and 1938 the United Kingdom Government made a determined effort to clear up the outstanding difficulties and disputes with Eire which had embarrassed relations between the two countries since de Valera first took office in 1932. In 1937 de Valera had completed his constitutional changes by the introduction of the Constitution of Eire and had coupled this with an Act authorising certain formal Acts in external affairs to be conducted in the name of The King. This position was considered by the United Kingdom Government in consultation with the Dominion Governments both by correspondence and at the meeting of Prime Ministers at the Imperial Conference of 1937. As a result it was decided to accept the new Constitution as not effecting a fundamental alteration in the position of Eire as a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and a statement to this effect was issued at the end of 1937.
An agreement was also reached at the same time under which the United Kingdom Government gave up their claim under the treaty of 1921 to facilities in Eire in the event of war, and the retention of three defended ports - Cobh, Berehaven and Lough Swilly - on a care and maintenance basis in time of peace, for the defense of the so-called "Western Approaches" in time of war. It was hoped that, as a result of this, the active co-operation of Eire in a future war might be obtained though Mr. de Valera was not at the time prepared to go further than to give an emphatic undertaking not to allow Eire to be used as a base for attack upon this country. In the strategic field the lack of facilities for ships and aircraft on the West and South-West of Ireland proved a very serious danger during some periods of the war. This danger would have been still more serious had it not been for the facilities that were readily made available in Northern Ireland.
James Dillion had been active in politics himself since 1932. During World War II he was the only politician in Ireland to advocate abandonment of strict neutrality and active cooperation with the United States and Great Britain. He resigned from the Fine Gael Party, of which he was a Vice-President, because of his stand on this issue.
Nearly all Northern Protestants were Unionists, demanding continued union with the United Kingdom, and all Catholics, Nationalists, demanding reunion with the rest of Ireland. Although two of the six counties, Tyrone and Fermanagh, have Catholic and Nationalist majorities and there are Nationalist elements in other sections such as Derry city and South Down, there is a strong Unionist majority in the six counties as a whole. The Unionist attitude is reinforced by patriotic and religious considerations, by Irish neutrality in World War II, and by the fact that social services in the twenty- six counties were lower than in the United Kingdom.
Eire was a nonbelligerent, officially unconcerned in the war, but she was never neutral in the generally accepted sense of the term. The word “neutrality” as used in the Irish context tends to be informed by the subjective values and beliefs of the speaker rather than by reference to legal and military norms. Military neutrality has legal and objective form, understood by other nation states. The rights and responsibilities of neutral states were set out in Article VI of the Hague Conventions in 1907. Ireland has never enforced these rights, nor complied with responsibilities as a neutral. The Hague Conventions were relied upon by smaller European states which declared themselves neutral prior to World War II. Despite formal declarations of neutrality, Germany invaded Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg; the UK invaded the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Iran. The Soviet Union invaded Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Iran. Their experience in World War II was significant in the post-war decisions of Belgium, Netherland, Denmark and Norway to join NATO.
The reasons for Irish neutrality during the Second World War are widely understood: that any attempt to take an overtly pro-British line might have resulted in a replay of the Civil War; that Southern Ireland could make little material contribution to the Allied effort, while engagement without adequate defence would have resulted in wholesale domestic destruction; that small states do badly in wars not of their making brought about by large ones, and are better keeping out if at all possible; that by asserting its right to remain out of the war, Southern Ireland also asserted its own independence in international affairs. It had mass popular backing. Nor can Southern Ireland’s right to stay out of the war be disputed. That this was deeply unpopular with both Britain and the United States has also never been in doubt.
Irish neutrality (or the lack of conscription) did not prevent significant numbers of Irishmen and Irishwomen from joining the British and American forces in two world wars. There were more Irish volunteers than could possibly have been enlisted through conscription,-as the Irish reaction to the British conscription act in 1918 demonstrated (there was no conscription even in "Northern Ireland" at any time during World War II). Although de Valera easily might have followed the example of other neutral countries by passing a Foreign Enlistment Act, making it punishable, to join the fighting services of any of the belligerent Powers, he did not.
By the beginning of World War II Ireland had emerged from this period of political, economic, and social discord. De Valera's administration was popular, and his policy of neutrality had universal support. The settlement of 1938 had ended a period of disputatious Anglo-Irish relations, but neutrality in World War II posed a new problem. The respect accorded their neutrality did much to alleviate Irish dislike and mistrust of the English although Ireland's neutrality hardened the attitude of Northern Ireland. British fears were accentuated by the belief that the Irish would do anything to bring the six northern counties into a united Eire, including allying with the Nazis—remembering, perhaps, the absurd 1916 German attempt to support the Easter Rising.
The Irish Government fearing, with much justification, that an alliance with Britain would result in civil disorder. Furthermore, always somewhat distrustful of Great Powers' motives and possessed of a small country's normal reluctance to become involved in their conflicts, the Irish were never convinced that moral considerations played a great part in Allied war aims. [Although these factors were still present in greater or less degree, the Irish attitude toward a war between the USSR and the West would for obvious reasons be different. The attitude of the Church had great influence in Ireland, and the Irish would be deeply stirred on religious grounds by an East-West war and in all probability would not remain neutral.]
Arthur Griffith, when asked what was the Foreign Policy of Sinn Fein, said, " On any international issue, find out on which side the English stand. Ireland will be found on the other side." In this spirit Eire remained obstinately aloof while rhe UK toiled through the hard years of war. Neutrality was decided upon by the Nationalists mainly in order to establish the fact that there was no sort of loyal adherence to be expected by England from Ireland as of right. By 1945, after six years' detachment, Eire was more than ever a foreign country. It was so dominated by the National Catholic Church as to be almost a theocratic State. Gaelic was enforced in order to show that Eire is not one of the English-speaking nations. Foreign games are frowned upon, the war censorship has been misapplied for anti-British purposes, anti-British feeling is fostered in school and by Church and State by a system of "hereditary enemy" indoctrination. There was probably more widespread anti-British sentiment in Eire in 1945 than ever before.
Ireland stayed neutral while the global conflict literally washed up on its shores. Scavengers stripped the corpses of drowned seamen, and scam-mongers then wrote to the relatives asking for money.
The censorship of Irish newspapers contributed to the feeling of isolation in Ireland. Accusations of betrayal and hypocrisy poisoned the media; legends of Nazi spies roaming the country depicted Ireland as a haven for Hitler's friends. Press censorship refused "to allow any mention of the fact that American troops had landed in Northern Ireland, although it was being barked by every dog in the streets of Dublin" in R.M.Smyllie's memorable phrase.
Despite Winston Churchill's best efforts to the contrary, de Valera stuck determinedly to Ireland's right to remain outside a conflict in which it had no enemies. De Valera even made a foolhardy call on the German ambassador on 20 May 1945 to the German legation in Dublin to express formal “condolences” on the death (i.e., suicide) of Adolf Hitler. This was two weeks after the first reports from Buchenwald. One cannot quite see de Valera going to such trouble upon the death of a British sovereign.
Franklin Roosevelt’s response when Ireland declared neutrality was publicly restrained, but he did ask, in his 29 December 1940 “Arsenal of Democracy” speech: “Would Irish freedom be permitted as an amazing pet exception in an unfree world?” Privately, FDR’s anger and scorn for Irish neutrality was as strong as Churchill’s. In fact, there is no issue where the two were more tightly in tandem—at least until the very end.
Churchill regularly offered to end partition and unite Ireland. His famous “letter” to Roosevelt of 7 December 1940 is remembered because it supposedly stimulated creation of the Lend-Lease program. But it also contained a suggestion that the “good offices” of the USA could help with Ireland, followed by a wistful and palpably false hint that, if Ireland would join with the “democracies of the English speaking world…the unity of the island would probably emerge…after the war.”
On 13 May 1945, in his Victory in Europe Day speech broadcast to the world, Winston Churchill saw fit to castigate the conduct of Eamon de Valera’s government, intoning: “the approaches which the Southern Irish ports and airfields could so easily have guarded were closed by hostile aircraft and U-boats. This was a deadly moment in our life…However with a restraint and poise with which history will find few parallels His Majesty’s government never laid a violent hand upon them...and we left the de Valera government to frolic with the Germans and later with the Japanese representatives to their heart’s content.”.
Taoiseach Éamon de Valera, in a much anticipated reply, outlined Ireland’s right as an independent state to remain neutral. “It is indeed fortunate that Britain’s necessity did not reach the point when Mr Churchill would have acted. All credit to him that he successfully resisted the temptation which I have no doubt many times assailed him in his difficulties and to which I freely admit many leaders might have succumbed. It is indeed hard for the strong to be just to the weak but acting justly always has its rewards.”
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