Irish neutrality in the Second World War was a prominent issue in relations between the Irish Free State (Eire) and Great Britain during the war—or the “Emergency” as it was called in Ireland. Ian S. Wood’s book, Britain, Ireland and the Second World War provides a clear analysis of how each country approached and confronted the issues of war and how neutrality affected Anglo-Irish relations. Wood, a former lecturer at Napier University in Edinburgh and currently part-time lecturer for the Open University, brings to the study of Irish-British relations a prestigious background as both a historian and a journalist. As the latter, he has covered Northern Ireland conflict for several newspapers.

Each chapter in this excellent, well-written volume is focused on a specific aspect of Anglo-Irish relations during the war, beginning with an introductory chapter in which Wood explains the origins of Irish neutrality. That includes an overview of the long-term impact on Anglo-Irish relations of the “Black and Tan War” that was ended by the 1921 Treaty, which launched the division of Ireland into the Irish Free State in the south and British-controlled Ulster in the north. Wood’s overview also explains the rise of Irish nationalism and anti-British mentalities that fed pro-German sympathies among many Irish nationalists after Hitler came to power and launched the Third Reich. Of course, Wood makes clear that Irish leadership did not always, or perhaps even often, reflect this pro-German mind-set, but he does emphasize the importance of the Free State remaining neutral as indicating its leaders’ emphasis on Eire’s independence from Britain and their resentment of the boundary line drawn between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland.

In the following chapter, Wood addresses major factors that defined the relationship between the two nations both during and after the war, a relationship based on Eire’s policies of neutrality, which included prohibiting the Royal Navy’s use of key Irish sea ports, notably Bereshaven, Cobh, and Lough Swilly, in order to protect both merchant and naval British ships operating in the Atlantic. The result, Wood points out, was that many British ships were sunk off the Irish coast, because denying the Royal Navy access to the ports gave freedom of operation to German U-boats. This, he makes clear, created a bitterness that lasted for decades, during which time the Free State’s refusal to join Britain in the war against the Third Reich also remained a divisive subject.

In Chapter 2 Wood looks at the “Emergency,” which is the term used by the Irish to refer to the war rather than use the word “war” itself. This reflected Eire’s determination to remain neutral and separate from British involvement in the European conflict. Prime Minister Winston Churchill questioned the “legality” of Irish neutrality and hinted that if denial of access to the ports threatened to become “mortal,” Britain might act in accordance with self-preservation needs—that is, possibly take the ports by force. Also in this chapter, and later on in others, Wood addresses Catholic-Protestant division and north-south differences with a focus on Irishmen who actually served in British forces in the war. And he analyzes the role of propaganda both in attacks on, and defense of, Irish neutrality, and the limitations faced by Free State President Eamon de Valera in arming Eire in order to protect its neutral position.

This volume makes clear that Irish separation from Britain during the Emergency was not absolute. There was important underground wartime cooperation between specialized British agencies and their Irish counterparts, which had de Valera’s personal benediction. This included British help in getting Irish defense forces, such as the one hundred eighty thousand Local Defense Force, up to standard. Wood also describes how the Free State government cracked down on the anti-British IRA. This was because some in the IRA were adamantly anti-British and pro-German in the war and had direct contact with Berlin. Dealing with the IRA was another area in which Free State and British cooperation was important.

The chapter on “Security, Censorship and Propaganda” goes in depth regarding anti-British Irish who cooperated with the Germans. For example, some regularly briefed German diplomat, Eduard Hemple, regarding work being done in British aircraft factories and British plans for military advancement against Germany. Wood refers to Dan Breen, a Fianna Fáil Dáil (parliament) member, as one who was always a conduit for any information that might help the Axis. Subsequent chapters identify other individuals—as often as not IRA fanatics—who tried to play an anti-British, pro-German role. Meanwhile, Wood also discusses the many Irish who lived and worked in Britain and the others who volunteered to serve in British forces in the war, as did thousands of Free State Irish men. He also notes that the British were frequently concerned about whether these volunteers were reliable as servers in British forces.

All in all, Wood’s work is thorough, detailed, and illuminating regarding the various specific aspects of the main theme. Source materials include documents and a wide range of secondary work by well-known historians who have written about various aspects of Britain and the Irish Free State relations during the war years. The volume opens with an assessment of how Eamon de Valera’s declaration of Irish neutrality reflected a quarter century of Anglo-Irish relations; it ends with an account of the funeral of an Irish Guards lance corporal, killed in 2003 in the Iraq war while fighting on the side of the British. It was the first British funeral agreed to in the Irish state since 1922. Wood’s point is that the funeral “served to draw together many strands of a long and troubled relationship which, sixty years earlier, in a time of war and emergency, had faced one of its most severe tests” (214). This work is an excellent study of Anglo-Irish relations during the Second World War, and it is a work that every historian of the Second World War should read.