The Documents on Irish Foreign policy is now a well-established series and this volume maintains the highest editorial and publication standards. Most of the material is drawn from the departments of the Taoiseach and External Affairs, while other departments receive little attention. This is a particularly important volume, focusing on a period of considerable change both politically and diplomatically. In 1948, Fianna Fáil was replaced by an Inter-Party coalition led by Fine Gael’s John A. Costello. For the first time since 1932 the head of government was not also the minister for External Affairs, as had been the case with Éamon de Valera. The new minister for External Affairs Seán MacBride, a former chief of staff of the I.R.A., had considerable autonomy and independence due to the complex nature of the coalition. MacBride was also ambitious and interventionist, a stance not always welcomed by his colleagues or his staff.
Some two-thirds of the documents presented in this volume are from 1948 and 1949, reflecting the intensive nature of these years. Ireland left the Commonwealth and became an independent republic; participated in the Marshall Plan (European Recovery Programme) but did not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The volume contains a considerable amount of material on Costello’s visit to Canada in 1948 when he announced the decision to repeal the External Relations Act (see document 122, pp 142–4). This decision has been the focus of considerable discussion in the literature and the most satisfactory discussion remains David McCullagh’s The reluctant Taoiseach (2010). What is remarkable is that a Fine Gael-led government actively promoted the decision to leave the Commonwealth, demonstrating the impact of Fianna Fáil’s previous policies.
There were many challenges and opportunities for Ireland during this time, yet on the evidence of this volume the government failed to meet or benefit from them. Ireland’s diplomatic reach was limited and its obsession with partition clouded its judgment and policymaking. MacBride insisted that diplomats pursue this issue with a ‘missionary spirit’ (pp 56–7) and there was no dissent from other members of the cabinet to this position. Furthermore, Costello was a staunch anti-partitionist who shared MacBride’s view that Britain was to blame for this continuing situation. Costello and MacBride failed to appreciate that the world had changed since 1939, because their world had not changed. Most European states were indifferent to partition and resented Irish attempts to turn any international gathering into a propaganda opportunity for anti-British rhetoric. More seriously, Ireland misjudged its importance in concluding that it was in the best interest of other states that Ireland should be united, when the contrary position was taken by the U.S. and European states. Costello and MacBride irritated the United States when they supported a campaign to deny Britain U.S. funding unless it supported a united Ireland. With some exasperation the Canadian prime minister told one Irish diplomat there were ‘worse crimes than the partition of Ireland’ (p. 323).
The diplomatic failures are numerous. The U.S. decided that Ireland should receive a loan under the European Recovery Programme rather than a grant. The government at first refused to accept the loan but was forced to reverse that decision due to British pressure and the recognition that the U.S. was not prepared to meet Irish concerns. Indeed, one official emphasised that it ‘would be our funeral’ if Ireland refused to accept the loan (Document 78, pp 102–3). This reflected a wider problem for Ireland: the U.S. was constructing a new economic and political order in Europe and Ireland was reluctant to play a role in that. While Ireland proclaimed its anti-Communist sentiments, its refusal to join NATO reinforced its political isolation in Europe. The editors conclude in their introduction that by 1951 ‘Ireland had become increasingly isolated internationally’ (p. xii).
The inadequacy of Ireland’s diplomacy is most apparent when it was decided to repeal the External Relations Act and declare the state a republic. This was the logical consequence of what de Valera had achieved by 1948 but the government did not consider the possible consequences of leaving the Commonwealth. The government and nationalist opinion was angered and dismayed when the British government introduced the ‘Ireland Bill’. While all of Ireland’s diplomatic resources were mobilised to challenge Britain’s guarantee of Northern Ireland’s status within the United Kingdom, support for the British government’s position in Westminster was overwhelming. Irish diplomats put the best interpretations on their meetings with politicians and cabinet members but even this cannot disguise the failure (pp 379–91).
This volume produces documents on other issues including the sterling crisis in 1949, the origins of the Schuman Plan and aspects of Anglo–Irish trade relations. There are references to the provision of passports for Irish children adopted by American couples from homes for unmarried mothers, but no wider discussion of this controversial issue. There are brief mentions of the Havana Charter and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade but it is difficult for the reader to appreciate policy in this respect, without the inclusion of material from the departments of Industry and Commerce or Finance. What the volume provides is a snapshot of Irish diplomacy from the perspective of Ireland, which is the main strength of the series.
On reflection, the reader might ask was Ireland powerless to achieve its diplomatic objectives? If power is the ability of one state to persuade another to do what it wants, then Ireland had no power. Yet this was never inevitable. Austria and Finland renegotiated their status and independence in much more difficult circumstances during the post-war years (Michael Gehler, Vom Marshall-Plan bus zur EU (Innsbruck, 2006)). These states may have been weak but they did not lack agency. In contrast, Ireland’s commitment to anti-partitionism and irredentism condemned it to a decade of unnecessary isolation from mainstream Europe.
