This tenth volume in the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP) series covers the five years and nine months from June 1951 to March 1957. Unlike previous volumes in the series, it encompasses two administrations: the June 1951 to June 1954 Fianna Fáil government of Éamon de Valera, and the June 1954 to March 1957 Second Inter-Party government of Fine Gael, Labour and Clann na Talmhan, led by Fine Gael’s John A. Costello.
The foreign policies of the two governments form one distinct period in Irish diplomatic history. The early- to mid-1950s was an uncertain time for Ireland’s foreign policy makers. A growing international isolation pervaded both governments’ foreign relations. That isolation, achieved both by accident and by design, as a result of the foreign policy of the First Inter- Party government of 1948 to 1951, cut off avenues of diplomatic activity and brought an increasingly limited scope to Ireland’s foreign policy. The four years from 1951 to 1955 were the nadir of Ireland’s post-war international isolation. Outside the main international bodies of the post-war world, Ireland lacked a strong international voice. Membership of the Council of Europe was the state’s main international platform. By the mid-point of this volume, foreign policy had shrunk to core interests surrounding Anglo-Irish relations and Northern Ireland. Admission to the United Nations in December 1955, as part of a Cold War package deal, brought Ireland back into the mainstream of international affairs. After December 1955 a new focus and a wider direction, centred on the United Nations General Assembly, entered Irish foreign policy. The volume thus covers a significant turning point in Ireland’s foreign relations.
Each administration saw a new Minister for External Affairs take office. Yet Fianna Fáil’s Frank Aiken and Fine Gael’s Liam Cosgrave were hardly political novices. Aiken, de Valera’s closest Cabinet confidant, had significant ministerial expertise going back to the 1930s. He had acquired notable foreign relations experience during the Second World War and later at the Council of Europe.1 Cosgrave, son of W.T. Cosgrave, Ireland’s first Prime Minister, was only thirty- four when he became Minister for External Affairs. He had served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce during the First Inter-Party government. In the latter role he had overseen important cross-border negotiations with the government of Northern Ireland on the joint purchase of the Great Northern Railway. In the former he had acquired familiarity with Cabinet affairs as a minute taker in the difficult meetings of the 1948 to 1951 government.
Despite their experience, both men were new to the development and execution of Irish diplomacy. Their respective Taoisigh, both having long- term involvement in international affairs, maintained a considerable intellectual influence over the direction of foreign policy. Costello, and to a lesser extent de Valera, also took an interventionist attitude towards international relations. Aiken, known for his loyalty to de Valera, consciously modelled his policies on his Taoiseach’s world view, prioritising in particular the ending of the partition of Ireland. After the experience of dealing with Seán MacBride’s individualistic approach to diplomacy during the First Inter- Party government, Costello wanted a foreign minister he could trust and who would be his acolyte. Cosgrave saw eye-to-eye with Costello and agreed that, though neutral, Ireland should tend towards a pro-Western, pro-United States and Christian, meaning anti-Communist, stance in the Cold War.
The Cold War was the dominant background theme to Irish foreign policy through the 1950s along with the always present fear of a Third World War. Both the governments covered in this volume saw Ireland as militarily neutral but politically and intellectually Western and anti-Communist. While Ireland would not join military alliances, most significantly NATO, the private and public positions of politicians and foreign policy makers placed Ireland in the Western camp.
From 1951 to 1954 Aiken emphasised ending the partition of Ireland, enhancing neutral Ireland’s very limited defence capability and ensuring that Ireland appeared demonstrably anti-Communist. Failure on the first two items added to an increasingly directionless foreign policy by 1954. The impact of the change of government in June 1954 on the scope of foreign policy was minimal. Cosgrave’s arrival in Iveagh House saw no reorientation of the state’s international position. He forged no new lines of policy until Ireland’s admission to the United Nations in December 1955, eighteen months after he took office.
Over the following year the United Nations came to dominate Ireland’s international relations. The state took an active position in the 1956 General Assembly over the crises in Suez and Hungary. Policy was defined by a belief in the primacy of the United Nations Charter, a desire to maintain Ireland’s international independence of action and a strong anti-Communist tone. It was the beginning of a dynamic decade at the United Nations which would put the organisation centre-stage in Ireland’s foreign relations.
Aiken’s arrival in Iveagh House was accompanied by a message of encouragement to all diplomatic missions from Taoiseach Éamon de Valera. This set the scene for Aiken’s first term as Minister. He followed de Valera’s existing policies, in particular the long-stated aim of Irish unity. Aiken was an active minister. His rounds of meetings with British, American and European politicians and diplomats repeatedly stressed the enduring theme of reunification. He hoped that Britain would take a step towards ending Partition by issuing a declaration favouring a United Ireland. This, Aiken hoped, would influence Unionists to improve relations with Dublin. Irish unity would be, Aiken argued, in the interests of London, Washington and the security of Western Europe in the Cold War.
Partition was viewed internationally as a bilateral Anglo-Irish issue and those who heard Aiken did not wish to damage their relationship with London by involvement in the question. London’s policy remained that it would not coerce the majority Unionist population of Northern Ireland into a United Ireland. Like MacBride before him, Aiken was unable to comprehend that there was little or no international interest in his call to end Partition.
After the turmoil of the First Inter-Party government, Anglo-Irish relations were calm in the early 1950s. Again following de Valera, Aiken hoped for the establishment of truly friendly relations between Britain and Ireland. Aiken had been known to display anti-British attitudes. At times his personal views revealed themselves. The 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was a notable case, as, due to the continuance of Partition and reference to ‘Northern Ireland’ in the new Queen’s royal title, Aiken turned down offers of allocated seats at coronation events and forbade Irish officials from attending them. Yet in his meetings with senior British figures Aiken usually took a reasonable, if over-optimistic, attitude towards British-Irish relations.
The presence of Frederick Boland in London as Ireland’s ambassador from 1950 to 1956 greatly eased tensions in British-Irish relations. In contrast to Aiken, Boland was demonstrably Anglophile whilst still also determinedly Republican. He had good relations with the Commonwealth Relations Office and the Foreign Office and could use these when needed to appear the reasonable face of British-Irish relations.
Irish diplomats in London watched for changes of attitude towards Ireland within the governing Conservative Party. They also strengthened their connections with those favourable to Ireland within the opposition Labour Party and maintained close but distinctly separate connections with the Anti-Partition League in Britain and other Irish interest groups. The lack of anti-Partition momentum internationally amongst the Irish diaspora was commented upon by Irish diplomats. The diaspora, particularly its younger members, was developing interests of its own and breaking its direct cultural and political links with Ireland. This was evident in reports from the London Embassy where the dwindling national cultural awareness of younger Irish migrants in the face of an increasingly multicultural modern consumer society was noted. Of particular worry were the apparent vices awaiting young Irish men, and particularly women, amidst post-war British urban life.
At official level, detailed Anglo-Irish discussions were underway by 1953 to develop technical co-operation between both countries in the event of a Third World War. In line with Ireland’s neutrality, and building from co- operation during the Second World War, these discussions centred on civil defence, the evacuation of refugees, the monitoring of shipping, weather reporting and eventually fallout warning. They had a significant effect on Irish planners as they led to the first serious attempt since 1945 to create a national War Book to plan Ireland’s stages of transition to a future world war. While the specific War Book S-Files have not been released by the Department of the Taoiseach for public inspection, surrounding material from publicly available departmental files published in this volume reveals the beginning of Ireland’s planning for a national-level response to the outbreak of a nuclear war. Aiken ensured that the state of national emergency declared in 1939 was maintained due to the ongoing high level of global tension and the need to appear ready to counter the anticipated international crises of the coming years. By mid-1957 planning had developed so that responses from all departments of state had been received and a five-stage transition process culminating in a ‘War Stage’ had been completed.
When it came to defence and military matters Aiken’s ideas came from Ireland’s experience of neutrality during the Second World War, now refocussed to meet the threats of the Cold War. A modernised Irish Defence Forces would ensure that neutral Ireland would be a well-defended anti- Communist bastion on Europe’s western seaboard. Aiken was repeatedly told that NATO membership was Ireland’s only option when it came to avenues for rearmament. His continual reiteration of neutral Ireland’s strong anti-Communism and how the country could defend itself against the Soviet threat if only it was given the weapons to do so were given a polite hearing and expressions of sympathy, but nothing else. Aiken could not see that Ireland’s national defence was not a burning global issue. To many NATO members Ireland’s 1949 refusal to join the alliance because of Partition reinforced their negative feelings towards Ireland for its Second World War neutrality. They could not understand why Aiken protested when their armed forces took part in joint NATO exercises in Northern Ireland and they did not agree with the international significance Aiken attached to the matter. Relations with the United States had a distinctly difficult edge to them as the 1950s began. After the icy relations of the Second World War years and Ireland’s rejection of NATO membership, Dublin’s turning down of United States aid under the Mutual Security Assistance (MSA) programme, the successor to Marshall Aid, in the winter of 1951 to 1952 again put Dublin and Washington on an uncertain footing. Aiken felt MSA compromised neutrality because of its emphasis on military aid tied to mutual security. Ireland opted out of MSA and so also lost aid due to it under the final phases of the Marshall Plan.
In December 1951 Aiken gave private assurances to American diplomats that Ireland would never allow its territory to be used as a base from which the United States would be endangered. These assurances, which were reiterated in Dáil Éireann in the 1953 estimates speech for the Department of External Affairs, were based on de Valera’s 1935 declaration that Ireland would never be a base from which Britain would be attacked. They also followed on from Aiken’s predecessor Seán MacBride’s hazy notions of an Irish-United States bilateral defence pact. By the summer of 1952 conversations between the Irish embassy in Washington and the Department’s headquarters at Iveagh House in Dublin had concluded that Ireland would get no aid, military or otherwise, from the United States under MSA.
Attempts at securing weapons and equipment for the Defence Forces from the United States and from Britain, Ireland’s traditional source of armaments, failed. Instead Ireland began sourcing weapons from arms- producing European neutrals such as Sweden, or small European states, such as Belgium. Armed neutrality was impossible to implement. Through the 1950s the Defence Forces’ operational capacity was run down by successive governments as a result of budgetary cutbacks. The 1950s saw Ireland remain effectively undefended.
A strong, though ultimately unsuccessful, desire to seek United States goodwill to end Partition infused Irish-American relations and was common to both governments covered in this volume. The Irish embassy in Washington worked tirelessly to promote anti-Partition propaganda and liaised closely with a number of Congressmen and Senators to publicise on Capitol Hill the need to end Partition. Congressman John Fogarty introduced anti-Partition resolutions in the House of Representatives, the most successful of which was passed by the House Committee on Foreign Relations. In September 1954 Fogarty secured a private meeting with Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to discuss Partition. The meeting had no lasting results.
Through the mid-1950s John J. Hearne, Ireland’s first envoy to the United States with the rank of Ambassador, oversaw a gradual improvement in Irish-American relations. Hearne developed Irish access to top-level officials in the Eisenhower administration, including Secretary of State Dulles. To further improve these relations and ensure access to the White House, in 1952 Hearne initiated what has since become the annual St Patrick’s Day Shamrock Ceremony. De Valera’s Tánaiste Seán Lemass visited Washington in 1953, but the most significant Irish political visit to the United States was John A. Costello’s March 1956 official visit to Washington. The visit saw a marked pro- American re-orientation of Irish foreign policy. It resulted in a long and detailed memorandum by the Taoiseach and a resulting Cabinet minute on the future direction of Irish foreign policy. Both documents were unprecedented for the period.
By mid-1952 Aiken’s twin-track foreign policy had reached a dead end. Ireland was no closer to being reunited and modern weapons still eluded the Defence Forces. The remaining two years of his term were a directionless period where there was no dominating strategic theme. Yet Aiken did take an important step forward in contacts with Northern Ireland.
The late 1940s and early 1950s had seen a limited amount of cross-border co-operation with Northern Ireland. In 1952 the Foyle Fisheries Commission was established to oversee the management of fisheries in Lough Foyle, between counties Donegal and Derry, through which ran the border between both jurisdictions. The joint purchase of the Great Northern Railway, the line which connected Dublin and Belfast, was concluded in 1953. These steps were often drowned out by loud anti-Partitionist rhetoric which drove the Dublin and Belfast governments, locked in a three-decade long cold war over Partition, further apart. Perhaps because of his Ulster background, Aiken was the first Minister for External Affairs to send teams of diplomats to Northern Ireland to discuss political, social and economic affairs with the Nationalist community and interested Unionists. These visits began in March 1953 and continued through Cosgrave’s term of office. They gave External Affairs a greater insight into ground-level feelings in Northern Ireland in both communities and into political developments within the Unionist government. They also allowed Dublin to pick up the growing nationalist discontent which would feed into the rise of republican minority groups such as Fianna Uladh and ultimately in 1956 into a renewed campaign by the illegal Irish Republican Army (IRA).
Moving outside Anglo-Irish and Irish-American relations, which were the mainstay of Aiken’s foreign policy, relations with the states of Western Europe were increasingly seen through the prism of European integration. On the outside and looking in, Ireland had as yet had no part to play in European unity. Dublin saw the point of European integration, but saw Europe as a ‘Europe of the States’. Until Seán Lemass’ appointment as Taoiseach in 1959, Ireland displayed a preference for voluntary co-operation between the states of Europe and did not favour a European federation. Ireland was reluctant to submit its underdeveloped economy to the supranational control that would emerge through the Common Market of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. Ireland’s foreign trade policy remained based on tariffs and protection and the country, reliant on its access to British markets, had not yet opened up to free trade.
When Ireland received a French invitation to attend talks to discuss the creation of a European Agricultural Community (‘The Green Pool’), the reaction from Dublin was profoundly sceptical and in favour of cementing the process of integration of agricultural markets through the existing OEEC. Ireland based its economic relations with the states of Europe on OEEC conventions and a framework which allowed a network of trade agreements with the states of Western Europe. This went a limited way to broadening Ireland’s foreign trade outside the traditional confines of the British market. As yet, Ireland was unwilling to contemplate full free trade in agriculture or manufactured goods.
Ireland’s attitude to the Pleven Plan, and the eventual, and ill-fated, European Defence Community (EDC) which collapsed in autumn 1954, was dominated by the same anti-Partitionist views that dictated Ireland’s decision not to join NATO. Ireland could not join any military alliance while Partition continued. Not being a member of NATO, Ireland was not even invited to participate in the talks which led to the EDC. Seeing the importance of German rearmament and its place in Franco-German relations, Irish diplomats in Paris and Bonn reported in detail on the EDC up to its eventual collapse in the autumn of 1954.
In the mid-1950s Ireland had bilateral relations with each of the original six states who had commenced the integration process, except Luxembourg. The often indifferent quality of reporting from these missions was of growing concern to Dublin. A number of missions, particularly Bonn, were singled out as often providing irregular or uninformed reports. A number of issues, from personal differences of opinion, the attitudes of specific officials and the ever-evident generational divide in the Department of External Affairs, were the causes of this problem. But more significantly, by the mid-1950s, Irish diplomats were outside the mainstream of international relations and were finding it increasingly difficult to provide the high-grade reporting sought by Dublin. The paucity of high level information from the Irish legation in Bonn on West Germany’s critical place in Europe and European integration was increasingly noticeable. By mid-1952 Minister to West Germany John Belton was receiving forceful communications from Dublin to improve his output.
Relations with the Federal Republic of Germany were low-key. Attempts at a German-Irish trade agreement faltered and Ireland was not a major concern of the German foreign office. Compensation for wartime destruction and contacts over the actions of former Nazi agents, officials and sympathisers seeking to enter Ireland were additional themes. The Department of External Affairs, the Department of Justice and G2 (Military Intelligence) all dealt with the latter issue. Those who wished to visit, serve or reside in Ireland included exiled Nazi Otto Strasser, British Fascist leader Oswald Mosley, the failed German intelligence agent Werner Unland, and the former second-in- command of the German legation in wartime Dublin, Henning Thomsen. Strasser entered Ireland legitimately on a German passport, but his presence was not welcomed. Mosley, who had a residence in Ireland, was particularly worrying as his travel and financial transactions required that a constant watch be kept on his actions. External Affairs favoured keeping such undesirable individuals out of Ireland. The Department of Justice, despite its favouring a restrictive policy of immigration to Ireland, took a more welcoming attitude, which External Affairs tried hard to overcome. They knew they would have to explain publicly the presence in Ireland of individuals who would bring unfavourable attention on the country.
The most worrying case facing External Affairs was the aftermath of the covert transit through Ireland to the United States of Croatian Nazi Andrija Artukovic. In August 1952 an American court ruled that Artukovic be deported and Dublin was worried that his return destination might be Ireland. Instructions were issued that under no circumstances should Artukovic be permitted to enter the state. He did not return, remaining in the United States until his deportation to Yugoslavia in the closing years of the Cold War. Dublin also had to deal with Irish domestic interest, and interest from Bretons living in Ireland, in the fate of Breton Nationalist André Geoffroy who was facing a death sentence in France. External Affairs would not directly interfere in what it saw as a French domestic issue and one in which taking action might upset Irish relations with France or appear to support the aims of Breton Nationalists. Geoffroy’s death sentence was later commuted by the French President.
Bilateral relations with France were cordial, with Paris showing passing interest in Ireland’s non-membership of NATO and Dublin’s concerns about Partition. However, like other states with which Ireland raised Partition, France did not wish to pursue a line which would antagonise London. The Irish ambassador in Paris, Con Cremin and, from 1954, his successor William Fay, followed France’s changing international position. Fay was concerned about France’s global strategy after its retreat from Indochina following its defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 and the later nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Egypt in 1956. Fay’s reports, along with Boland’s parallel dispatches from London on Britain’s declining world role, Hearne’s from Washington on the United States’ growing designs in the Middle East, and Thomas J. Kiernan’s earlier reports from Canberra on Indochina complemented each other. They gave Dublin a multidimensional view of evolving international issues in the years leading up to the Suez Crisis.
Still lacking, as Ireland had no diplomatic missions east of Vienna, was in-depth reporting and analysis on events in the Communist Bloc and of the Soviet world view. There was a similar lack of an Irish diplomatic presence in the ever more important Middle East. Ireland’s Honorary Consul in Beirut, Sir Desmond Cochrane, having high-level business links in the region, sent only occasional in-depth reports on Middle Eastern affairs. Missions in Spain and Italy, and also the embassies in London, Paris and The Hague, paid close attention to events in Egypt. As Irish diplomats began to contemplate Egypt’s ultimate intentions over the Suez Canal, Boland in London acerbically charted the premiership of Anthony Eden, a British Prime Minister of whom he was no admirer.
Though Ireland had left the British Commonwealth in 1949, the Commonwealth Relations Office remained Ireland’s channel to the British government. Ireland remained a part of the Sterling Area and Britain remained Ireland’s most important foreign trade market. Ireland might no longer be a formal participant in Commonwealth meetings, and no desire existed to rejoin the Commonwealth, but there was a desire for access to the shared information and the multilateral meetings, if only as an observer, that Commonwealth membership provided. As the Commonwealth expanded to include India, Burma and Pakistan, Irish interest in the organisation continued. These states would achieve the status of being republics within the Commonwealth, a status which Ireland had sought, but could not obtain.
Ireland had mixed relations with the original members of the Commonwealth. Relations with Canada remained strong. The Canadian- Irish link in multilateral institutions went back to the Commonwealth Conferences and the League of Nations. Canada also took a more reasonable attitude towards the form of the Royal Style and Title and was instrumental in the dynamics of Ireland’s 1955 admission to the United Nations as part of a package deal which had its origins in a Canadian initiative.
In 1950 the Irish and Australian missions in Canberra and Dublin respectively were raised to Embassy rank. Irish relations with Australia were caught up in a long-lasting dispute over the form of the new credentials for ambassadors of both countries. Canberra would not accept the constitutionally-defined title ‘President of Ireland’ and attempts at a compromise failed. The dispute flowed into a wider dispute with London over the Royal Style and Title, but with the United Kingdom and with Canada it had proved possible to overcome differences and ensure the reciprocal appointment of ambassadors. Canberra held out and Australia did not fill their Dublin post. They refused also to accept Dublin’s credentials for the incoming Irish Ambassador to Australia. Deadlock ensued, with Canberra finally cancelling the appointment of the Australian ambassador to Dublin in January 1954. From 1956 to 1964 Ireland would be represented in Canberra by a chargé d’affaires and not by an ambassador.
Canberra was an important listening post for Ireland to follow the growing international importance of China, India and the new states of south-east Asia. Ireland had no other diplomatic missions in the region and contacts with diplomats from these states were generally via third party meetings in Britain, the United States or Australia. Asian expressions of parallels and links with Ireland and its independence struggle were noted by Irish diplomats, but more significant issues concerned the recognition of China and the related safety of the small number of Irish Catholic missionaries remaining in China.
Dublin took every available opportunity to distance itself from Moscow and its allies. Relations with Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were officially non-existent. Trade too was almost non-existent and was not encouraged. A slight loosening of the official barriers to trade with the Communist bloc was agreed in early 1954 and this loosening, which had an economic and not a political motivation, continued following the change of government in June that year. Irish and Eastern Bloc diplomats met unofficially at social and some official events but generally ignored each other. Strict rules for contact with Communist officials were laid down, particularly when it came to protocol, and Irish officials were instructed to be reserved and cautious in their contacts with Communist diplomats.
The Irish Embassy in London was an exception, and Irish diplomats there could expect to at least socialise formally with their Communist counterparts. Thus the London Embassy acted as a limited point of contact between Irish and Communist officials. From April 1952 low-ranking diplomats and several KGB officers at the Soviet Embassy in London began to make low- level contacts with Irish diplomats. Seeking to find out more about Ireland, these contacts had limited effect, but they gave the Department of External Affairs its first serious exchanges with Soviet officials. Ireland would not have diplomatic representation in Moscow for another twenty years. Dublin still refused visas to Soviet and Soviet Bloc diplomats wishing to visit Ireland and discouraged official and business contacts between Ireland and the Soviet Union.
This issue was developing as Cosgrave took over from Aiken in the Department of External Affairs. So too was the future of the European Defence Community treaty, which would collapse in September 1954, and the ‘Green Pool’ negotiations for a European Agricultural Community, where the new Government unambiguously agreed to follow their predecessor’s line. Specifically Irish issues which had faced Aiken such as promoting anti- Partition propaganda in the United States, contacts with the Nationalist community in Northern Ireland, the welfare of Irish emigrants in Britain and the overseas adoption of Irish children also faced Cosgrave.
DIFP X continues to cover the difficult and often unsympathetically handled question of the overseas adoption of illegitimate Irish infants. Through the 1950s the Department continued to facilitate the provision of passports to infants to enable their adoption by United States families. Overseas adoption was often the subject of negative international publicity, such as surrounded the adoption by Hollywood actress Jane Russell of an Irish child in 1951. While some queries were raised, by and large, and in character with the prevailing ethos of the period, no official felt that it was necessary to curtail the process. Also in character with the time, officials let the Catholic Church and Catholic adoption societies take the lead when deciding the family with which infants were to be placed. However, it was noticeable that officials in External Affairs were becoming increasingly unhappy with the behaviour of some United States Catholic adoption societies and their vetting procedures when seeking to select prospective families with which to place infants. Adoption was put on a legal basis under the 1952 Adoption Act; nonetheless, the overseas adoption of children continued, facilitated by the Department of External Affairs, and it was not seen as exceptional in 1950s Ireland.
In matters of policy and execution, little changed after Cosgrave took over from Aiken. In the most important areas of foreign policy, such as Partition and Northern Ireland, Cosgrave built on Aiken’s foundations and continued his policies. One discreet development was the establishment of a top secret channel of communication between the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and G2, the Intelligence Branch of the Defence Forces. Communications would be carried out via the Irish Embassy in London and content would mainly concern anti-Communist and Cold War matters.
There was one further significant development awaiting the incoming Costello administration at the core of Irish foreign policy-making. DIFP X covers a pivotal moment of generational change in the intellectual foundation and operations of Irish foreign policy. The retirement in October 1954 of the founding father of the Department of External Affairs, Secretary of the Department from 1922 to 1946 Joseph P. Walshe, marked a psychological as well as an institutional changing of the guard as the most senior of the first generation of Irish diplomats began to leave the service through the 1950s.
Ambassador to the Holy See since 1946, Walshe sought to influence successive post-war Ministers for External Affairs, writing to them privately, often without the knowledge of his successors as Secretary. Walshe was by the early 1950s increasingly isolated in Rome, but he was still a powerful figure in Irish diplomacy, exerting a controlling influence over Ireland’s policy towards the Holy Places in Jerusalem and Dublin’s ongoing refusal to give de jure recognition to the state of Israel. Amongst Walshe’s last major actions was to ensure the 1951 appointment of an Irish-American bishop as Papal Nuncio to Ireland. He regarded the eventual appointment of American Bishop Gerald O’Hara as a victory over Vatican officials who had earlier appointed an Italian. Walshe felt that only a bishop with an Irish background could understand the Church in Ireland and Ireland’s international outlook. He also felt that it was an important link to the United States hierarchy. A final démarche was preventing an over-eager President Seán T. O’Ceallaigh from making yet another visit to the Vatican City. O’Ceallaigh had ignored protocol and, worse still, on a previous visit had revealed publicly the contents of a conversation with Pope Pius XII. Otherwise Walshe’s actions were limited within the sphere of general Catholic Church action. A developing side of his character outside general diplomacy, and worth noting, was his promoting the work of lay Catholic organisations, including Maria Duce, the Legion of Mary and Opus Dei.
Walshe’s retirement had a profound impact on his colleagues and on the Department of External Affairs. The retirement of Secretary of the Department Seán Nunan in mid-1955 and his succession by Seán Murphy brought with it further change. Like Nunan, Murphy could trace his roots in diplomacy back to the foundation of the Department of External Affairs. Murphy was close to retirement when he replaced Nunan and would serve as Secretary until 1958. The 1950s saw a period of unprecedented change of personnel at official, as well as at ministerial, level within the Department of External Affairs.
Generational change brought with it questions about disappearing institutional memory. Walshe was secretive by nature, rarely setting down his views on the history of the Department. In the mid-1950s the Department’s history came into sharp focus in another, unexpected, manner. The publication in 1953 of a series of press articles on Ireland’s Second World War neutrality by University College Dublin Professor of Modern History Thomas Desmond Williams, and the subsequent libel action by former Minister to Spain Leopold Kerney over Williams’ coverage in these articles of Kerney’s wartime behaviour in Madrid, was unsettling for External Affairs. Williams had strong personal connections with External Affairs, in particular with Frederick Boland, and with the former Director of Military Intelligence Colonel Dan Bryan. He had also worked as an Assistant Editor on the Allied project to publish captured German foreign office documents. Williams based his account on information provided by these Irish and British sources, much of it provided either privately or without permission to publish its contents. He could not prove outright his allegations that an Irish diplomat on the continent (self-identified by Kerney as himself) had contacts with a Nazi agent which could be argued to imperil Irish neutrality. Kerney held that he was simply carrying out the normal activities of a diplomat in wartime.
Communications between Nunan, Boland and Walshe on the articles and libel action cast new light on the conduct of Irish neutrality from 1939 to 1945, their attitude towards Kerney as a colleague and their assessment of him as a diplomat. After initially lauding Williams for his work, and indeed informally supplying him with much of his information, External Affairs was critical of Williams. Williams, writing from memory, using confidential material unwisely and being unable to reveal his sources, had unintentionally placed the secretive world of Irish diplomacy in the public eye in an unwelcome manner. The case was settled in November 1954 with an apology from Williams and the payment of damages by the newspapers concerned to Kerney, but its legacy hung over both men.
Under Cosgrave the basic tenets of Aiken’s Northern Ireland policy remained intact, changes being those of nuance only. Following IRA raids for arms in the summer of 1954 the Department of External Affairs considered the responsibilities facing Dublin should IRA activity rise further. At the same time the Department undertook a detailed analysis of the policy of Sinn Féin. International law, national tradition and local emotions were all considered against a background of intensifying nationalist disaffection and economic decline in Northern Ireland. As 1955 began Dublin saw that the resurgence in IRA activity was augmented by a rise in support for Sinn Féin in the run-up to the May 1955 United Kingdom general election, and afterwards in by-elections in Northern Ireland in which Sinn Féin won seats. These developments, added to by further IRA raids for arms in August 1955 and subsequent attacks in Northern Ireland, left no doubt that the strength of physical force nationalism was growing.
External Affairs aimed to promote a policy of co-operation with Northern Ireland whilst highlighting concerns over discrimination in the province. Cross-border visits continued and External Affairs sought information from missions in Britain and the United States on support for the IRA amongst the Irish diaspora. The Department also ensured that Dublin and London could be in swift communication should further IRA actions occur. Dublin made clear to London that Ireland would not tolerate the unlawful use of force by terrorist groups to try to end Partition and would take action against the IRA within its own jurisdiction. After the outbreak of the IRA border campaign ‘Operation Harvest’ in December 1956, Dublin moved quickly to reject the place of violence in ending the partition of Ireland.
Costello took a leading role in drafting the aides-mémoire sent to London in response to British protests against IRA actions. He placed the blame for IRA actions firmly with London for its role in partitioning Ireland and allowing Partition to continue. That Costello personally drafted these documents is probable as drafts do not appear in the archive files of either the Department of the Taoiseach or the Department of External Affairs. They can be found in Costello’s own personal papers. The Cabinet minutes associated with the most significant of these documents do not have the expected cross-reference to an associated S-file.
Through early autumn 1955 reports reached Dublin of a possible Cold War package deal to increase membership of the United Nations General Assembly. Ireland’s 1946 application for UN membership, vetoed by the Soviet Union that year, remained before the Secretary General. Reports from London, Washington and Ottawa all suggested that it was likely that Ireland’s United Nations application would be included in the package deal. Dublin remained cautious, aware of what had happened in 1946. No great diplomatic activity by External Affairs took place in the days leading up to Ireland’s admission to the United Nations on 14 December 1955 during the closing days of the 10th General Assembly. Ireland’s chargé d’affaires in New York, Jack Conway, quietly took Ireland’s seat in the General Assembly on 15 December 1955. Many of those Conway met expected that Ireland would now follow an independent line at the United Nations. Conway’s action marked a turning point in Irish foreign policy. After a decade of growing isolation Ireland had now taken its place in the world forum which would define the state’s foreign policy for the coming decade and beyond.
Ireland’s support for the United Nations Charter was augmented by a ‘Christian’, in other words a ‘pro-Western and anti-Communist’, direction to United Nations policy and would be illustrated by independent action in the General Assembly. However contradictory these ‘Three Principles’, as they came to be known, might be in theory, in reality they coalesced into a pro- Western stance in the General Assembly. During his trip to the United States in 1956 Costello had met with top United Nations officials including Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld. He returned to Ireland advocating that Ireland play a prominent role within the United Nations. A significant step in this direction was the opening of Ireland’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in summer 1956, the only new foreign mission opened within the scope of this volume. Frederick Boland took up the position of Ireland’s first Permanent Representative (Ambassador) to the United Nations in October 1956.
Boland’s move to New York was a critical moment in Ireland’s early years at the United Nations. He had wide experience of diplomacy in international organisations from his pre-war attendance at the League of Nations. Boland also understood multilateral conference diplomacy from his significant role in Ireland’s response to the Marshall Plan and membership of the Conference on European Economic Co-operation (CEEC). From the CEEC, Boland knew United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld personally. It was a friendship which would be of great significance in the coming years. Boland’s earlier years in London also meant that he brought with him to New York significant connections with British diplomats now serving at the United Nations.
The United Nations gave a new dimension to Ireland’s foreign relations. International questions before the United Nations now became real for Ireland. Where previously the Political Section in Iveagh House was writing briefs to inform the minister for his information, now Ireland had to form policies on these questions. The recognition of China, a question on which Ireland had previously abstained, the future of Cyprus, where Ireland did not want to make explicit connections with the partition of Ireland, and Algeria, where Ireland’s anti-colonial outlook sympathised with the demands of the Algerian people for self-determination but Dublin had to be mindful of maintaining good relations with France, were important cases in point.
By the summer of 1956 the possible course of Anglo-French actions over Suez was being discussed in the Department of External Affairs. William Fay, Ambassador to France, and Boland, who was about to leave London for New York, along with Boland’s colleague in London Frank Biggar, sent detailed reports on how events in Egypt were likely to play out. All three knew that force was not out of the equation, a point also emphasised by Conor Cruise O’Brien from Paris. All diplomats reflected the anxiety and uncertainty of where the unfolding Suez crisis would lead. It was a theme taken up by Hearne in Washington and Boland’s successor in London, Con Cremin. Their collective reports provided considerable detail, but none of them could foresee the direction the crisis was taking as London, Paris and Tel-Aviv concocted a plan to topple Nasser.
The Israeli invasion of Egypt and the subsequent Anglo-French action at Port Said coincided with the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Boland acted on his own initiative to include Ireland in the ranks of the United Nations members critical of the Soviet action in Hungary and calling for United Nations action. It was in tune with Ireland’s support for self-determination and its strong anti-Communist stance that Dublin would support Hungary’s bid for freedom and condemn Moscow’s actions. Support for Hungary became the subject of Ireland’s first major speech at the General Assembly.
Boland was informed by Dublin to support moves for UN action directed towards the cessation of hostilities in Egypt. Here Ireland’s support for the UN Charter as well as its anti-colonialism defined policy. Reports from London and Paris provided the background to events at Suez, so far as it was known to these embassies, as Boland and his colleagues entered into Ireland’s first serious undertaking as UN members as the General Assembly opened in an emergency session. In Dublin Cosgrave used scheduled political speeches to explain Ireland’s actions over both crises. Ireland would urge the United Nations to de-escalate both and solve them in line with the Charter. Costello was kept informed of developments in New York as they occurred, being sent copies of all telegrams received from and sent to Boland. Cosgrave often brought Boland’s reports to Cabinet meetings and read them to his colleagues. For the first time in over a decade Ireland was playing an active role in the major crises facing the Cold War world.
As Cosgrave arrived in New York to make Ireland’s first address to the General Assembly’s general debate, the possibility of practical involvement in the Suez and Hungarian crises arose for Ireland. Ireland provided emergency financial aid to Hungary via the Irish Red Cross and, having only the most limited experience of welcoming refugees, agreed to accept a small, and ever-reducing, number of Hungarians who were fleeing the fighting. The state was ill-prepared for the reception and accommodation of these refugees and their housing in a dilapidated former army base led to discontent. Unhappy at their treatment in Ireland, most of the refugees chose to leave as soon as they could and many made a new life in Canada.
Eager to play its role in the United Nations’ response to the Suez Crisis, Ireland considered whether it could, if asked, participate in the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), the UN’s first peacekeeping mission. Legislative changes were necessary to allow Defence Forces participation in peacekeeping missions and this prevented involvement in United Nations missions. Instead Ireland provided financial support for UNEF. After the necessary legislative revisions were passed, Irish involvement in United Nations peacekeeping commenced two years later in 1958, with Defence Forces deployments to the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO), supervising armistice agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbours, and the United Nations Observer Group in Lebanon (UNOGIL).
Cosgrave’s address to the General Debate of the 11th General Assembly on 30 November 1956 set out the main parameters of Ireland’s United Nations policy. With a strong independent and internationalist tone it addressed the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the Anglo-French and Israeli invasion of Egypt. Written in the most part by Conor Cruise O’Brien and amended by Cosgrave, the speech is reproduced below, as it is not published elsewhere in printed form in the manner of Frank Aiken’s later speeches at the United Nations. Cosgrave condemned the use of force and the flouting of the United Nations Charter by member states, including member states with which Ireland had close ties. He also criticised colonialism, and called on the states of Africa to recognise the nature of Soviet imperialism.
The events of the 11th General Assembly were reported by Cosgrave from New York in almost daily letters to Costello and in detailed reports from Boland to Murphy. The Irish delegation were stretched and were not able to participate in all the Assembly Committees, but the level of contact they were now having with world leaders was unsurpassed in post-war Irish foreign policy. Many of those leaders had existing connections with Ireland, with the senior members of the Irish delegation and with Costello via pre-war contacts at Geneva. Hungary, Suez, the rising power of the Afro-Asian Bloc, development aid and general criticism of the actions of the Soviet Bloc all continued to concern the Irish delegation. In the day-to-day working of the General Assembly, as resolutions were drafted and introduced, Boland and his fellow delegation members were heavily involved in negotiations, drafting and voting and were often able to take the initiative and show leadership. These actions accrued to Ireland a considerable amount of goodwill and prestige for a new entrant to the organisation. In a late December 1956 report to Dublin summarising Ireland’s role in the 11th General Assembly, Boland looked to the future and how Ireland could learn from the previous weeks and employ timing, tactical restraint and well- timed interventions to ensure that Ireland would continue to be listened to with respect and attention at the United Nations.
The United Nations General Assembly, which would stay in session until March 1957, the continuing fallout from Suez and from the Soviet invasion of Hungary as well as Anglo-Irish relations in the context of renewed IRA violence along the Northern Ireland border continued to dominate Irish foreign policy as 1957 began. The latest phase of European integration was also rising in significance for Dublin. The ‘Relaunch of Europe’ after the Messina Conference of June 1955 was not seen as a moment of profound importance by Irish diplomats. It certainly was not seen as a precursor to the successful conclusion of a European Common Market, the European Economic Community established by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. But as 1956 ended and 1957 began Dublin began to consider the implications of a free trade zone for the highly-protected Irish economy, particularly in the context of Ireland’s close economic ties to Britain. Ireland’s public position remained to wish a free trade zone every success whilst standing aside from the proposal. Concurrent moves to establish a European atomic energy organisation were of peripheral interest for Irish diplomats. Nevertheless Irish officials saw nuclear energy in a positive light in the 1950s and felt it was a possible area for cross-border co-operation in Ireland.
By early 1957 the IRA campaign led External Affairs to try to piece together a feasible blueprint for a new Northern Ireland policy and ending Partition by peaceful means. Taking advice from Nationalist community leaders, the scheme included raising the issue of discrimination in Northern Ireland with Britain and even the United Nations, trying to restrain Irish citizens from joining the IRA and instead promoting constitutional means to gain Irish unity. Tripartite talks were also included as a possible option to bring Dublin, Belfast and London into contact. The proposal reflected the contemporary influences of United Nations membership and the ongoing integration of Europe on Cosgrave’s thinking. Further proposals agreed by Cabinet included departmental level investigations of the problems likely to arise after Irish unity had been achieved.
As the Second Inter-Party government left office in late March 1957, Ireland’s foreign relations were noticeably more robust as a result of United Nations membership, though the challenge of Northern Ireland remained. The 11th General Assembly had tested the Department of External Affairs, in particular Frederick Boland and his team in New York. Boland’s report for Cabinet on the General Assembly, which was received by Aiken on his return to office in April 1957 and which is the last document in this volume, analysed Ireland’s first real outing in the United Nations. Where in June 1951 Aiken had come into office facing the question of where Ireland’s international role lay, six years later there was no doubt. The United Nations would dominate Irish foreign policy in the coming years and membership would further transform Ireland’s foreign relations and international involvements.
Records of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and other archival sources
Until the passage of the National Archives Act (1986), government departments in Ireland were under no compulsion to release their archives. The Department of the Taoiseach, however, has voluntarily released material since the mid-1970s. The records of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have been released on an annual basis since 1991.
In the late 1920s the Department of External Affairs established a numerical registry system for filing its papers. Under this system a list of subject categories corresponding to the main areas of the department’s work was drawn up and each subject category was assigned a unique number code. For example the number code 26 was allocated to files and papers dealing with the League of Nations. Individual files within each number category were assigned a unique sub-number. File 26/95 deals with the Irish Free State’s candidature for the League of Nations Council in 1930. This registry and filing system, known colloquially as ‘number series’ files, was further developed in the mid-1930s. The existing two-digit prefixes had the number 1 added to them with, for example, the previous 26 series becoming the 126 series and so on. A further development took place in the late 1930s with the 1 being replaced by a 2, thus 126 became 226.
As the Second World War drew to a close a further 300 series was established, to be joined by a 400 series in the later 1940s. These two file series remained the core of the Department’s general registry for the next twenty years. Individual file reference numbers became increasingly complex within this system as the Department of External Affairs grew in size and scope. For example the number code 305 was initially allocated to political files, but this classification grew in size and complexity as the Registry at External Affairs grew. To take one case, file 305/57 and its sub-parts deal with the European Recovery Program. The 305/57 sub-series contains over 500 files and at their most complex such series can contain files such as 305/57/205/2/2, this being the second sub-part of the second part of file 305/57/2, or files such as 305/57/2 and 305/57/II where the Arabic and Roman numerals each designate a different file.
The most sensitive information held by the Department of External Affairs was kept in the Secretary’s Files series. This collection began in the 1920s, with files being designated S with a number following (not to be confused with the separate Department of the Taoiseach S Series files.). In later years A and P series were created, as well as a PS series for the Private Secretary to the Secretary. These series were held under lock and key in the Secretary’s office and were only made available to certain senior officials under specified conditions. The S Series was a target for widespread destruction during the wartime invasion scares of 1940.
Material generated in Irish missions abroad is held at the National Archives in Dublin in the Embassies Series collection. Due to weeding and the routine destruction of documents the Embassies Series is often patchy. The collections for Madrid and Paris are the most complete. Unfortunately, the majority of files of the Irish Embassy in London (Irish High Commission from 1923 to 1949) were shredded in the 1950s. Similarly, very little survives from the Washington Embassy for the period covered by this volume. Where files do survive there is an understandable degree of overlap with Headquarters’ number series files.
The main files from the Department of the Taoiseach are known as the ‘S-files’ series. They begin at S1 and progress numerically (S1, S2, S3 etc.) in a roughly chronological order.
In recent years the National Archives of Ireland has undertaken a renumbering of its Department of External Affairs collection. Details of this change can be found on the National Archives website (www.nationalarchives. ie). With reference to the material contained in DIFP X, the former ‘300 Series’ is now known as DFA/5, the former ‘400 Series’ as DFA/6 and the Secretary’s Files (A, P and S sub-series) known as DFA/10. In a similar renumbering of its Department of the Taoiseach collection, Cabinet Minutes can now be found in the TSCH/2/ series and the ‘S files’ collection is now TSCH/3/.
Editorial policy and the selection of documents
The executive editor and assistant editor are responsible for the initial wide choice of documents that make up each volume of DIFP. These documents are then assessed jointly at periodic group meetings by the executive editor, the assistant editor and the four editors, to select the most appropriate documents for publication. Due to the rise in the number of missions and the size of Ireland’s diplomatic network it has not been possible to cover communications from and between all Ireland’s overseas missions in volumes covering the postwar years. The editors have prioritised the selection within these volumes to ensure they comprise the main areas of Irish foreign policy in the years being covered.
The documents in this volume are presented in chronological order based on date of despatch. The text of documents has been reproduced as exactly as possible. Marginal notes and annotations have generally been reproduced in footnotes; annotations have however sometimes been reproduced in the body text when to have reproduced them as footnotes would have reduced the clarity of the document from the reader’s point of view. Where possible, the authors of marginal notes have been identified. There have been no alterations of the text of documents nor have there been any deletions without indication being given of where changes have been made. Nothing was omitted that might conceal or gloss over defects in policymaking and policy execution. The use of the term ‘matter omitted’ refers to the editing out of routine discussion. All material reproduced was already open to the public at the relevant repository.
At some points in the text the footnotes refer to documents that were ‘not printed’. Either the document referred to could not be found, or the document contained routine or repeated information found elsewhere in the documents selected and so was not printed. Where it was impossible to decipher a word or series of words, an ellipsis has been inserted or the assumed word inserted with an explanatory footnote. Spelling mistakes have been silently corrected, but capitalisation, punctuation and contemporary spelling have in the main been left as found in the originals and have been changed only where the sense is affected. Additions to the text appear in square brackets. Original abbreviations have been preserved and either spelt out between square brackets or explained in the list of abbreviations.
At all times efforts have been made to confirm the identity of the senders and recipients of unsigned letters, and in cases where identity is impossible to establish a footnote has been inserted to that effect. In a number of cases in this volume documents are from specific departments to the government or cabinet and it is not possible from these documents to discover the identity or identities of authors.
In correspondence, English was the working language of Irish diplomats. It is evident from the archives that written communication in Irish was only used for documents of symbolic national importance, although Irish was spoken by a number of diplomats and many officials were bilingual. In correspondence, the Irish language was more commonly used for salutations and in signatures. In many cases there was no consistent spelling of Gaelicised names and in the volume many different spellings of the same name and salutation in Irish occur. These have not been standardised and are reproduced as found.
Encrypted telegrams were sent in three forms of code. ‘Personal Code’ was person-specific and usually used only by heads of missions. ‘Dearg’ (‘Red’, in the Irish language) code was the highest level of encryption, and then came ordinary code.
The authors of the documents reproduced tended to refer to Britain as ‘England’ or made no distinction between the two geographical entities, and the editors have not thought it necessary to insert (sic) at all relevant points throughout the volume.
Acknowledgements
Many people were involved in the production of Volume X of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy. The assistance of the following is particularly acknowledged by the editors:
At the Department of Foreign Affairs: Niall Burgess, Secretary General of
the Department; Clare Hanratty, Frances Kiernan, and Maureen Sweeney.
At the Royal Irish Academy: Professor Mary Daly, President of the Academy; Laura Mahoney, Executive Secretary of the Academy; Dr. James Quinn, Executive Editor of the Academy’s Dictionary of Irish Biography; Eilís Ní Mhearraí, Clárbhainisteoir of the Foclóir Nua Gaeilge; Ruth Hegarty, Managing Editor of Publications; Pauric Dempsey, Director of Public Affairs, and Hugh Shiels, Facilities Manager at Academy House.
At the National Archives: John McDonough, Director, for his generosity in providing access to the facilities and collections; Aideen Ireland, Mary Mackey, Helen Hewson, Zoë Reid, Liz McEvoy, Mary Chaney, Ken Robinson, David O’Neill and Paddy Sarsfield.
At the University College Dublin Archives Department: Kate Manning and Orna Somerville.
At the Institute of Public Administration: Richard Boyle and Hannah Ryan. We would also like to thank James McGuire, Chairman of the Irish
Manuscripts Commission, Dr. Marc Dierikx of the Institute for Netherlands History, and the Ambassador of Portugal to Ireland, Dr. Bernardo Futscher Pereira, for their assistance. Former Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs Noel Dorr answered a number of historical queries.
We are indebted to Helen Litton, who copy-edited the volume, Julitta Clancy, who indexed the volume, Carole Lynch, who typeset the text and our typist, Maura O’Shea.
Catriona Crowe
Ronan Fanning
Michael Kennedy
Dermot Keogh
Eunan O’Halpin
Kate O’Malley
10 August 2016
