The Emergency (Ireland)
The Emergency (Irish: Ré na Práinne / An Éigeandáil) was a state of emergency in the independent state of Ireland in the Second World War,[1] throughout which the state remained neutral. It was proclaimed by Dáil Éireann on 2 September 1939,[2] allowing the passage of the Emergency Powers Act 1939 by the Oireachtas the following day.[3] This gave sweeping powers to the government, including internment, censorship of the press and correspondence, and control of the economy. The Emergency Powers Act lapsed on 2 September 1946, although the Emergency was not formally ended until 1976.[4][5]
Background of the Emergency[edit]
On 6 December 1922, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the War of Independence, the island of Ireland became an autonomous dominion, known as the Irish Free State. On 7 December 1922,[6] the parliament of the six north-eastern counties, already known as Northern Ireland, voted to opt out of the Irish Free State and rejoin the United Kingdom. This Treaty settlement was immediately followed by the bitter Irish Civil War between the pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty factions of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
After 1932, the governing party of the new state was the republican Fianna Fáil, led by Éamon de Valera (a veteran of both Irish wars and Easter Rising). In 1937, de Valera introduced a new constitution, which had distanced the state further from the United Kingdom, and which changed its name to "Ireland". He had also conducted the Anglo-Irish trade war between 1932 and 1938.
De Valera had good relations with the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. He resolved the two countries' economic differences, and negotiated the return of the Treaty Ports—Berehaven, Cobh and Lough Swilly—which had remained under British jurisdiction under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. The major remaining disagreement between the countries was the status of Northern Ireland. The Irish saw it as rightfully Irish territory while the UK saw it as rightfully British territory. Within Ireland itself, armed opposition to the treaty settlement took the name of the anti-treaty IRA, seeing itself as the "true" government of Ireland. This IRA mounted a major sabotage/bombing campaign exclusively in England from January 1939 to March 1940 – the S-Plan in 1939. These attacks consisted of approximately 300 explosions/acts of sabotage and resulted in 10 deaths and 96 injuries.[7]
Ireland and the neutral United States[edit]
At the beginning of the Second World War, the United States President was Franklin Roosevelt. The United States was neutral, and Roosevelt's actions were circumscribed by neutrality legislation; however, Roosevelt was a vehement anti-Nazi, an unequivocal supporter of the UK in the war, and personally close to Churchill. The US minister to Ireland was David Gray, a personal friend of Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. De Valera saw the US as a bulwark against invasion from any party, while the US saw the support of Britain in the war as the priority, and so while supportive of Irish neutrality was sceptical of it extending over the whole island and wanted an arrangement to be made with the UK over ports, possibly through the leasing of them.[38]
The sale of arms was a major issue. The declaration of war legally impeded the US from selling any arms to belligerents under the laws in force at the time; this led to Ireland being briefly considered as a possible conduit for arms sales to circumvent the law. However, in November 1939 Congress agreed to change the law to allow the sale of arms to all belligerents on a "cash and carry" basis. Nevertheless, the Irish government wanted the US to sell them arms. This was supported by Gray, and by the British government, but only if not at the expense of their own allocation. As a result, in 1940 all surplus US arms were sold to the UK and Canada.
The strong support of the UK by the Roosevelt administration led the Irish government to try to bolster anti-Roosevelt isolationist opinion in the November 1940 presidential election and a Christmas radio broadcast by de Valera to the US supporting isolationism. An attempt to influence Roosevelt's special emissary, Wendell Willkie, on a visit to Great Britain and Ireland in January 1941, failed. In a further attempt to obtain arms from the US de Valera decided that Aiken should visit Washington. Gray supported the idea of a visit, but had doubts over whether Aiken was the right person to make it, and stressed that the Irish were only likely to obtain arms if they co-operated with the British Purchasing Commission. Aiken left Ireland in March 1941. For his St Patrick's Day address, de Valera claimed that Ireland was under blockade from both sides and that neutrality protected Ireland from "the hazards of imperial adventure". Aiken's visit was disastrous.[39] His anti-British views and, in American eyes, overestimation of Ireland's military capabilities went across all the administration's policies towards the war. As well as alienating Roosevelt and other members of the administration, he failed to use the letters of introduction to senior Democrats, including Eleanor Roosevelt, provided to him by Gray. Aiken spent the last seven weeks of his visit on what was seen as an anti-administration speaking tour, associating closely with isolationist opinion. The result was that the US would not sell any armaments to the State, and relations between the two countries significantly worsened, the US becoming even more unequivocal in its support of the UK. In October 1941 on receiving a note from the Irish government asking for its intentions with regard to Northern Ireland on the stationing of personnel associated with lend-lease, the US State Department referred them to the British government as Northern Ireland was, they insisted, part of the UK.[40]
End of the Emergency[edit]
The end of the Emergency was not declared until 1976, at the time of the Troubles. On 1 September 1976 a motion was passed in the Dáil "that the national emergency created by the armed conflict referred to in the Resolutions, pursuant to the said Article, of Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann of the 2nd September, 1939, has ceased to exist". The purpose of this was to allow the government to declare a new emergency, arising out of the conflict in Northern Ireland.[90]