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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
The foreign policy of the Irish Free State under the Cumann na nGaedheal administrations of 1922–32 was a far more complex issue than has generally been realised. Policy had a greater scope than simply Anglo-Irish relations. It had two basic foundations. Through the 1921 treaty, the state reluctantly joined the British Commonwealth. Then, with great deliberation, the Free State joined the League of Nations, being admitted on 10 September 1923. By developing an active multidimensional foreign policy using these structures, the new state sought to show its ‘international’ and European credentials. The Irish Free State was to carve out a small niche for itself in the post-Versailles world order. An analysis of the Free State’s response to the Geneva Protocol of 1924 provides a case study of this multifaceted foreign policy in action.
As the foundations of Irish foreign policy in the 1920s, the League and the Commonwealth were played off against each other. A prominent stance at the League indicated that although the Free State was a dominion, it was not tied to the imperial line and could act independently to secure its own interests. The Free State’s position as a radical dominion was emphasised through League membership as the state used its independence at the League in the 1920s to develop the concept of the Commonwealth as a looser international grouping of equals. This approach to foreign policy served to benefit both core aspects of the state’s foreign relations. Generally these two core aspects of foreign policy complemented each other.
1 The area has received survey analysis in a number of books dealing with twentieth-century Irish foreign policy. Most important are Keatinge, Patrick, The formulation of Irish foreign policy (Dublin, 1973)Google Scholar, idem, A place amongst the nations (Dublin, 1978), and Keogh, Dermot, Ireland and Europe, 1919–1989 (Cork & Dublin, 1990 Google Scholar) (hereafter cited as Keogh, Europe). For a guide to published work in the general area see Maguire, Maria, A bibliography of published works on Irish foreign relations (Dublin, 1984)Google Scholar.
2 See Harkness, David, The restless dominion: the Irish Free State and the British Commonwealth of Nations (London, 1969)Google Scholar.
3 For an analysis of this issue see Keatinge, Patrick, ‘Ireland and the League of Nations’ in Studies, lix, no. 234 (summer 1970), pp 137–47Google Scholar Kennedy, Michael, ‘The Irish Free State and the League of Nations, 1922–1932’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University College, Dublin, 1993)Google Scholar; idem, ‘The Irish Free State and the League of Nations, 1922–1932: the wider implications’ in Irish Studies in International Affairs, iii, no. 4 (1992), pp 9–23.
4 In an outcome of two possible policy solutions, this is a concept whereby the gains to one area of policy would be wholly at the expense of the other. It is a central tenet of the theory of games which has widespread use in politics, international relations and economics.
5 For an analysis of Britain’s response to the protocol see Royal Institute of International Affairs, Survey of international affairs for 1924 (London, 1925).Google Scholar
6 The disarmament conference opened in February 1932.
7 Dáil Éireann deb., ix, 869 (6 Nov. 1924).
8 O’Hegarty to FitzGerald, 19 Feb. 1925 (N.A.I., Department of the Taoiseach (DT), S 4040A).
9 Governor General to Secretary of State for the Colonies (draft of response), 14 July 1924 (N.A.I., Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), EA 140).
10 O’Hegarty to FitzGerald, 19 Feb. 1925 (N.A.I., DT, S 4040A).
11 For an opposing view see Duggan, John P., Neutral Ireland and the Third Reich (Dublin, 1989), p. 32 Google Scholar.
12 Dáil Eireann deh., v, 1409 (5 Dec. 1923), quoted in Keatinge, Formulation of Irish foreign policy, p. 54; see also Keogh, Europe, p. 14.
13 Dáil Éireann deb., lxvii,348 (16 June 1937), quoted in Farrell, Brian, Chairman or chief? (Dublin, 1971), p. 20 Google ScholarPubMed.
14 Department of External Affairs memorandum, 5 Mar. 1925 (Archives Department, University College, Dublin (U.C.D.A.), P24/180).
15 See, for example, O’Brien, Conor Cruise in Edwards, Owen Dudley (ed.), Conor Cruise O’Brien introduces Ireland (London, 1969), p. 109 Google Scholar, where O’Brien remarks that ‘Ministers were seen too often hobnobbing too affably with British Ministers; heard too often talking appreciatively about the British Commonwealth, and the results of Imperial Conferences’.
16 Keith, Arthur Berriedale, The sovereignty of the British dominions (London, 1929), p. 351 Google Scholar.
17 Articles of Agreement for a Treaty, Article 7[B], quoted in Frank Pakenham (Lord Longford), Peace by ordeal (4th ed., London, 1972), p. 289 Google Scholar.
18 Dáil Éireann deb., xviii, 399 (8 Feb. 1927). This area is analysed in Salmon, Trevor, Unneutral Ireland (Oxford, 1989), pp 120–54 Google Scholar.
19 See Duggan, Neutral Ireland, pp 1–34, for an interesting analysis of military relations between Ireland and Great Britain between the wars.
20 This arose out of rivalry over freedom of the seas in the wake of the Paris Peace Conference.
21 Rough notes, undated, but in the run-up to the Naval Disarmament Conference, (U.C.D.A., P35B/118).
22 Public statutes of the Oireachtas (1923), p. 1207, League of Nations (Guarantee) Act, 1923 [no. 41]; see also Salmon, Unneutral Ireland, pp 101–2.
23 This perspective is also taken by Douglas Gageby in his foreword to Duggan, Neutral Ireland, where he states: ‘Had the collective security policy of the League of Nations worked, there might have been no [Irish] neutrality: military sanctions could well have led us to war’ (p. viii).
24 An example of this was Eamon de Valera’s promise of Irish troops to police the 1935 plebiscite in the Saar. Little documentary evidence remains, but the episode is mentioned in Temperley, A.C., The whispering gallery of Europe (London, 1939), p. 290 Google Scholar.
25 Department of External Affairs memorandum. 5 Mar. 1925 (U.C.D.A., P24/180).
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 Handwritten notes by Walshe, n.d. (N.A.I., DFA, LN 95).
31 Ibid.
32 Report by MacWhite on the 33rd Session of the Council, 16 Mar. 1925 (ibid., LN 15).
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Dáil Éìreann deh, x, 1354 (25 Mar. 1925).
36 Ibid., col. 1355.
37 Ibid., xi, 1417 (13 May 1925).
38 Ibid., col. 1418.
39 Ibid., col. 1419.
40 Ibid., col. 1420.
41 A desire to revise the 1919 treaties only became a recognised part of Irish foreign policy in the 1930s. The Cosgrave administration’s desire to see Germany admitted unreservedly into the League of Nations may be seen as evidence of the state’s willingness to welcome the defeated Central Powers back into the world community.
42 See the Dáil debates of the 1920s, especially the External Affairs estimates debates for contemporary derogatory perspectives on the Department of External Affairs; see also Keatinge, Formulation of Irish foreign policy, pp 109–10 for a summary of some of the most choice views.