Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: v. 4: 1932 - 1936

Description

Volume IV of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy covers an eventful period of Irish foreign policy, from 10 March 1932 to 31 December 1936. It saw the first Fianna Fail administration led by a wilful Eamon de Valera, who was both President and Minister for External Affairs. The records show how de Valera and his officials set about restructuring the framework of British-Irish relations and dismantling the 1921 Treaty. Legislation facilitating the abolition of the Oath of Allegiance was introduced, land annuity payments due to Britain were withheld, and the office of Governor General was downgraded. A breakthrough in trade relations occurred when Britain imposed prohibitive tariffs following Ireland's retention of annuities, and Irish officials had to look abroad in search of alternative markets. De Valera expanded in size and influence of the Department of External Affairs, and politicians such as Joseph P. Walshe (Secretary of the DEA) and John W. Dulanty (Irish High Commissioner in London) were given unprecedented latitude in the tactical execution of policy. The volume reveals a personal dimension to Walshe's close professional relationship with de Valera. It offers a picture of Ireland in the 1930s enjoying unparalleled involvement on the wider international stage. Through the League of Nations diplomatic links with Europe and the USA strengthened and, on the eve of the Spanish Civil War, an Irish legation opened in Madrid. Documents charting the run up to the Second World War appear at the close of this exciting volume.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Diplomacy
• Ireland
• International relations
• Stephen Ireland
• Diplomatie (homonymie)

Informations

• Publié par: Royal Irish Academy
• Date de parution: 01 novembre 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908997425
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

Acadamh R oga na h ireann An Chartlann N isi nta An Roinn Gn tha Eachtracha

C ip is ar Pholasa Eachtrach na h ireann
Imleabhar IV
1932 ~ 1936
E AGARTH IR Catriona Crowe Ronan Fanning Michael Kennedy Dermot Keogh Eunan O Halpin
Royal Irish Academy National Archives Department of Foreign Affairs

Documents on Irish Foreign Policy
Volume IV
1932 ~ 1936
E DITORS Catriona Crowe Ronan Fanning Michael Kennedy Dermot Keogh Eunan O Halpin
First published in 2004 by the Royal Irish Academy 19 Dawson Street Dublin, Ireland
E-published in 2017
All rights reserved
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 1 904890 03 2 (Hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-908997-42-5 ISBN 9781908997418 (PDF)
Publishing consultants Institute of Public Administration, Dublin
Design by Jan de Fouw Typeset by Carole Lynch Printed by ColourBooks, Dublin
Contents
Editors and Editorial Advisory Board
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction
List of archival sources
Biographical notes
List of documents reproduced
Documents
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
Appendices
1 Months of the year in Irish and English
2 Glossary of Irish words and phrases
3 Text of the Anglo-Irish Treaty (6 December 1921)
4 List of Irish missions abroad 1932-1936
5 Calendars for years 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936
Editors

Ms Catriona Crowe (Senior Archivist, National Archives)
Professor Ronan Fanning MRIA (Professor of Modern History, University College Dublin)
Dr Michael Kennedy (Executive Editor, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy Series, Royal Irish Academy)
Professor Dermot Keogh MRIA (Professor of History, University College Cork)
Professor Eunan O Halpin MRIA (Professor of Contemporary Irish History, Trinity College Dublin)
Editorial Assistant
Ms Sanchia O Connor
(Royal Irish Academy)
Editorial Advisory Board

(In addition to the Editors)
Mr Patrick Buckley (Royal Irish Academy)
Ms Alma N Choigligh (Department of Foreign Affairs) (from June 2003)
Ms Susan Conlon (Department of Foreign Affairs) (to June 2003)
Mr Liam MacGabhann (Department of Foreign Affairs)
Ms Miriam Tiernan (Department of Foreign Affairs)
Abbreviations

The following is a list of the most commonly used abbreviated terms and phrases in the volume, covering both documents and editorial matter. Other abbreviations have been spelt out in the text. DFA Department of Foreign Affairs collection, National Archives, Dublin DTS Department of the Taoiseach, S series files, National Archives, Dublin NAI National Archives, Dublin TD Teachta D la (Member of D il ireann) TNA: PRO The National Archives: Public Record Office, Kew, London UCDA University College Dublin, Archives Department
Preface

The National Archives Act, 1986, provides for the transfer of departmental records more than thirty years old to the National Archives of Ireland for inspection by the public, unless they are certified to be in regular use by a Department for administrative purposes, or unless they are certified as withheld from public inspection on one of the grounds specified in the Act. The bulk of the material consulted for this volume comes from the records of the Department of Foreign Affairs (previously the Department of External Affairs) and the Department of the Taoiseach, all of which are available for inspection at the National Archives of Ireland at Bishop Street in Dublin. Other material comes from the holdings of the University College Dublin Archives Department and The National Archives, Kew, London. The Department of Foreign Affairs documents in the National Archives of Ireland have been made available to researchers since January 1991. 1
The concept of a multi-volume series of documents on Irish foreign policy was put forward in 1994 by the Department of Foreign Affairs. Mr Ted Barrington, then the Political Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs, brought the proposal to a meeting of the Royal Irish Academy s National Committee for the Study of International Affairs of which he was then a member. The then T naiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dick Spring, sanctioned the proposal, which was also welcomed by the Director of the National Archives of Ireland, Dr David Craig, whose permission was necessary for the publication of material in his care. The Royal Irish Academy agreed to become a partner in the project when Council approved its foundation document on 3 April 1995.
The main provisions of that document are:
that the project's basic aim is to make available, in an organised and accessible way, to people who may not be in a position easily to consult the National Archives, documents from the files of the Department which are considered important or useful for an understanding of Irish foreign policy ;
that an Editorial Advisory Board, comprising representatives of the Department, of the Academy and of the National Archives, in addition to senior Irish academics working in the fields of modern history and international relations, would oversee decisions on publication;
that the series would begin at the foundation of the State and publish volumes in chronological order and that the basic criterion for the selection of documents would be their use or importance in understanding the evolution of policies and decisions .
These arrangements found public expression in the 1996 White Paper on foreign policy, Challenges and Opportunities Abroad (16.48), which provided that-
As part of the Government s desire to encourage a greater interest in Irish foreign policy, it has been agreed that the Department of Foreign Affairs, in association with the Royal Irish Academy, will publish a series of foreign policy documents of historic interest. It is hoped that this initiative will encourage and assist greater academic interest in the study of Irish foreign policy.
Provision for the project was first included in the Department s Estimates for 1997 and a preliminary meeting of what became the Editorial Advisory Board, in Iveagh House on 10 April 1997, agreed that an assistant editor should be appointed in addition to the editors nominated by the National Committee for the Study of International Affairs: Professors Ronan Fanning, MRIA, Dermot Keogh MRIA and Eunan O Halpin MRIA. Dr Michael Kennedy was appointed in June 1997 when work began on the selection of documents. Dr Kennedy has since been designated as executive editor, and is responsible for the direction and day-to-day running of the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy Project. At the December 2003 meeting of the DIFP Editorial Advisory Board the important contribution of the National Archives to Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP) was officially recognised and the National Archives formally became a full partner to the DIFP project. Accordingly, Ms Catriona Crowe, Senior Archivist at the National Archives, who had attended meetings of the editors since June 1997 and who was de facto a fifth editor of DIFP, was formally appointed an editor of the DIFP series.
The first volume, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy I , covering the period 1919 to 1922, was published in November 1998 in the run-up to the eightieth anniversary of the founding of the Department of Foreign Affairs in January 1919. Subsequent volumes have been published at two-yearly intervals, with volume II, appearing in November 2000, volume III, appearing in October 2002 and volume IV being published in October 2004.
1 The Department of Foreign Affairs was known as the Department of External Affairs from December 1922 to 1971. From January 1919 to December 1922 the Department was known as the Department of Foreign Affairs or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (see DIFP Volume I for further details).
Introduction

This volume of selected documents, the fourth in the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series, covers the development of Irish foreign policy from 10 March 1932 to 31 December 1936.
The volume opens with the first change of government since independence, when Fianna F il, led by Eamon de Valera, formed a minority administration following the February 1932 general election. Fianna F il s election manifesto had sought the removal of article 17 of the 1922 Constitution, which made the oath of allegiance obligatory on members entering D il ireann, and the retention of the land annuities hitherto handed over to the British government under the land acts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
In addition to becoming President of the Executive Council, de Valera also took the External Affairs portfolio. This signalled the importance he attached to foreign policy and the re-direction of Ireland s external relations, in particular British-Irish relations, in the years to follow.
With the President of the Executive Council also the Minister for External Affairs, the status and power of the Department of External Affairs grew within the Irish administrative system. Officials at External Affairs eagerly grasped the opportunities offered for developing policy under their new minister. In particular, the Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, Joseph Walshe, rapidly developed a close working and personal relationship with de Valera. By March 1936, much to Walshe s annoyance, moves were made to contain the growing power of External Affairs by the Secretary of the Department of the President, Se n Moynihan. Nevertheless, Walshe remained central to de Valera s foreign policy making and his department retained its increased status, never returning to the uncertain days of the 1920s where the incorporation of External Affairs into the Department of the President seemed a possibility.
In the spring of 1932, Irish diplomats began to play a central role in the implementation of de Valera s vision, on which he and his party had been elected, of rewriting and ultimately abolishing many aspects of the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty. This process would eventually result, through the April 1938 Angl