Second World War

Second World War (1939–45). The Second World War marked a significant watershed in Irish political relationships. The neutrality of Southern Ireland conclusively demonstrated the new state's autonomy from Great Britain and reinforced Ulster unionist alienation from ‘Eire’. By contrast, Northern Ireland's role in the war effort confirmed the province's position within the United Kingdom and (in Winston Churchill's opinion) forged unbreakable bonds between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Many important defence facilities were located in the province. A string of airfields was built in the north‐west and Londonderry became a major base for allied North Atlantic convoy escorts. Between 1942 and 1945 some 300,000 American soldiers were stationed in the province. The devlopment of Northern Ireland agriculture, industry, and commerce to meet wartime needs brought employment and prosperity. The unemployment rate, which had stood at over 20 per cent in the mid‐1930s, fell to less than 5 per cent by the end of the war.

In April—May 1941 Belfast suffered two major German air raids in which over 1,000 people perished. In all some 56,000 houses—over half the city's total housing stock—were damaged. For unionists the suffering during ‘the Belfast blitz’ provided a sacrifice (though nationalists suffered equally) to match and reinforce that of the Ulster Division on the Somme 25 years earlier(see first world war).

Although the Belfast cabinet on a number of occasions called on the British government to apply conscription to Northern Ireland, London refused on the grounds that the costs raised by nationalist opposition would far outweigh any manpower benefits. Recruitment in Northern Ireland was in fact rather disappointing. In all, an estimated 38,000 people (of whom 7,000 were women) joined the British forces between 1939 and 1945. A significant number—estimated at over 43,000 men and women—also enlisted from southern Ireland, whose public stance of neutrality was modified by tacit assistance provided across a wide spectrum of activities: the intelligence services of the two countries co‐operated closely; weather reports from the west of Ireland were passed on to the British Air Ministry; allied servicemen who landed in southern Ireland were quickly and quietly repatriated to the United Kingdom, while Axis personnel were interned; and overflying rights in Donegal were permitted to British and American planes operating out of Co. Fermanagh.

Bibliography

Barton, Brian , Northern Ireland in the Second World War (1995)

Keith Jeffery