Eire

Eire, name from 1937 of the Irish Free State whose Dominion status was steadily eroded by its Taoiseach (prime minister), Eamon de Valera, during the 1930s. In 1938 the British agreed to relinquish the ports of Cóbh, Castletown Bere, and Lough Swilly, the use of which they had acquired by treaty, but de Valera kept his country technically within the British Empire in the hope that when he achieved his most important political goal, of reuniting Northern Ireland with Eire, contact with the Crown would not be entirely severed.

When war came de Valera declared a state of emergency—the war years became known in Eire as ‘The Emergency’—and he also declared the country neutral, the only member of the British Empire to remain outside the conflict. He formed the Department for Co-Ordination of Defensive Measures under Frank Aiken and introduced severe measures to curb the activities of the illegal Irish Republican Army (IRA) whose sporadic acts of violence could, de Valera feared, provoke the British into infringing Eire's neutrality.

The British, anxious to use the treaty ports again, hinted at the possibility of the reunification of Northern Ireland with Eire if the latter entered the war. But de Valera maintained his neutral stance, knowing that it reflected the true feelings of the majority of Eire's 2.9 million population. Eire was not only not willing to fight, it was not ready to: in September 1939 the regular Irish Army totalled only 7,494 men, its Air Corps had four effective fighters, and the Irish Naval Service only two patrol boats. The UK did provide some matériel, but neither it nor the USA was willing to supply large quantities of arms unless de Valera abandoned his policy of neutrality.

But when the question ‘Who are we neutral against?’ was raised the answer could only be Germany, for the British were allowed to infringe Eire's air space and pursue U-boats into its territorial waters, while from 1942 Allied air crews of crashed aircraft were sent to Northern Ireland instead of being interned. However, these concessions did not prevent the British also making unauthorized infringements of Eire's neutrality; as did the Germans who landed Abwehr agents to contact the IRA. Both Hitler and the British considered invading Eire and once the Americans were in the war, and had troops based in Northern Ireland, de Valera was concerned that they might cross the border. Certainly the Irish Army, which, swelled by auxiliary forces, eventually grew to an inadequately armed 250,000, was as alert for an invasion from Northern Ireland as it was for one from occupied France, and though there was military co-operation with the British—the W-Plan covered a move south by the British Army from Northern Ireland in the event of a German invasion of Eire—mutual suspicion pervaded Anglo-Irish relations. When the Germans accidentally bombed a Dublin suburb, most of those on the ground thought the British had raided them; and when two South Africans and an Indian on an Abwehr espionage mission were captured, it was initially assumed they were British spies. For their part the British were convinced, wrongly, that de Valera permitted Axis agents to roam at will and allowed U-boats to refuel and revictual in remote southern inlets.

Churchill considered Eire's position unforgivable. He threatened to employ ‘weapons of coercion’ if the UK were not allowed use of the treaty ports, so essential, he considered, if the battle of the Atlantic was to be won. But though the Atlantic convoys brought supplies for Eire as well as the UK, de Valera remained adamant. Coercion followed in the form of economic sanctions, though these were carefully disguised as genuine shortages. As the UK provided most of Eire's imports, and controlled the movements of Irish merchant shipping, the effect of sanctions was felt immediately, though they were not as severe as some US government officials would have wished. By 1943 the weekly tea ration in Eire per person was three-quarters of an ounce while in the UK it was two ounces, coal had disappeared from domestic hearths, and private motorists had no petrol. But de Valera remained doggedly neutral to the end. Despite constant Allied pressure—which culminated in March 1944 when Eire was totally isolated to prevent any leakage about the forthcoming Normandy landings (see OVERLORD)—he refused to expel Axis diplomats, and when Hitler committed suicide he went in person to the German Legation to express his condolences.

During the war 124,500 men and 58,000 women left Eire for Northern Ireland or the UK. Of these 38,544 volunteered for the British armed forces, a figure which included 7,000 deserters from the Irish Army, and several thousands more already living in the UK also joined up. In 1948 Eire became the Republic of Ireland.

Bibliography

Fisk, R. , In Time of War (London, 1983).