Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: v. 5: 1937-1939

Ronan Fanning

Description

Volume V of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy chronicles the development of Irish foreign policy during the lead up to World War Two. Irish-British relations take centre stage in this record, which explains in unrivalled detail the 1938 Anglo-Irish Agreement which allowed Ireland to remain neutral in World War Two. The editors have pieced together a picture of Irish-German relations despite the destruction, in 1940 and 1943, of official documents, when a German invasion was anticipated in Ireland. It provides a comprehensive picture of Irish relations with Hitler's Germany in the late 1930s, offering a precise listing of material known to have been destroyed. The volume deals in detail with Ireland's policy during the Spanish Civil War, including its effort to safeguard the life of the shadowy Irish Republian, Frank Ryan, who was captured, jailed and sentenced to death in Spain by the Nationalists while fighting with the International Brigade. Sources unearthed include confidential reports, deciphered code telegrams and declassified material recently discovered in the Irish embassy in London. Volume V is essential for historians of Irish foreign policy. It offers a new angle on the clash between democracy and fascism that led to the Second World War.

Sujets

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

Informations

• Publié par: Royal Irish Academy
• Date de parution: 27 novembre 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781908997395
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 9 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 V
1937 ~ 1939
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 V
1937 ~ 1939
E DITORS Catriona Crowe Ronan Fanning Michael Kennedy Dermot Keogh Eunan O Halpin
First e-published in 2017 by Royal Irish Academy 19 Dawson Street Dublin, Ireland
All rights reserved
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-908997-39-5
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
1936
1937
1938
1939
Appendices
1 Destruction of files and documents dating from 1938 to 1940 by the Department of External Affairs
2 Months of the year in Irish and English
3 Glossary of Irish words and phrases
4 Text of the Anglo-Irish Treaty (6 December 1921)
5 List of Irish missions abroad 1937-1939
6 Calendars for years 1937, 1938, 1939
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) (to September 2005) Dr Kate O Malley (Royal Irish Academy) (from October 2005)
Editorial Advisory Board
(In addition to the Editors)
Ms Anne Barrington (Department of Foreign Affairs) (from June 2004 to September 2005)
Mr Patrick Buckley (Royal Irish Academy)
Mr Karl Gardner (Department of Foreign Affairs) (August 2005 to July 2006)
Mr Tony McCullough (Department of Foreign Affairs) (from August 2006)
Ms Alma N Choigligh (Department of Foreign Affairs) (to August 2005)
Mr Adrian O Neill (Department of Foreign Affairs) (from September 2005)
Ms Miriam Tiernan (Department of Foreign Affairs) (to July 2006)
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 DT S Department of the Taoiseach, S series files, National Archives, Dublin NAI National Archives, Dublin TD Teachta D la (Member of D il ireann) NAUK The National Archives (formerly the 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 was in January 1998 designated executive editor, and is responsible for the direction and day-to-day running of the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP) project. At the December 2003 meeting of the DIFP Editorial Advisory Board the important contribution of the National Archives to the DIFP project was officially recognised and the National Archives formally became a full partner to DIFP. 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 V being published in November 2006.
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 fifth in the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series, covers the development of Irish foreign policy from 1 January 1937 to 1 September 1939.
The volume opens in the aftermath of the passing by the Oireachtas of the Executive Authority (External Relations) Act of December 1936 in a period where the future direction of British-Irish relations was the dominating factor in Irish foreign policy. Throughout 1937 Eamon de Valera, the President of the Executive Council (Taoiseach from 29 December 1937) and Minister for External Affairs, and Malcolm MacDonald, the British Dominions Secretary, together with their senior officials sought to resolve outstanding differences between Britain and Ireland. The receipt in Dublin in November 1937 of a British memorandum on aspects of relations between the two countries in time of war was the catalyst facilitating the commencement of full intergovernmental negotiations in London in January 1938.
The negotiations led to the conclusion of a tripartite Anglo-Irish agreement in April 1938 encompassing the removal of barriers to British-Irish trade, the resolution of the dispute over the land annuities question 1 following a lumpsum payment by Ireland to Britain, and provisions for the handing over of the three British defended anchorages in Ireland 2 to Irish control. De Valera had hoped for movement during the talks towards the ending of partition, but these hopes were in vain.
The probability of a major European war gained strength during the year 1938 and the Irish government and administration seriously anticipated the outbreak of conflict from the time of the Sudeten crisis of August-September. The likelihood of war increased over the next twelve months and Irish missions abroad continually reported local opinions of war and peace and rumours of imminent conflict. By August 1939 most missions were reporting that the outbreak of war was only a matter of days away. The volume ends on the morning of 1 September 1939 when a telegram from the Irish Ch