The main gain is the Treaty Ports and further from those three other areas to set airbases from the looks of what they offered, Unification support is a large offer for that (or perhaps even then Westminster wanted shot of NI? @ShortsBelfast ), it wasn’t for the material strength that Ireland could add, those wiki numbers are “soft” with nothing more than small arms for the Army (and forget the Reserve figure). Future deployments of an actual Irish Expeditionary Force would depend on a lot of different factors, as for the Irish status in the Empire/Commonwealth, the Free State/Ireland was always a Dominion until the Republic was declared, it’s just pretty much under Dev it was totally disengaged, staying part of the Commonwealth isn’t that hard a POD, or at least an easier one than being involved in WW2.
UK offer to Ireland 1940
- Thread starter sparky42
- Start date
Reading through the War Cabinet Minutes for the time it was estimated by the British government that a force of 2000 German troops could take Eire. Now I'm not saying that was true but it's what they were basing their offer on. In June 1940 it was proposed that the UK should have access to Irish ports and that, in the event of an invasion, British troops should be allowed to venture south of the Irish border. To aid in the arrangements there was to be a unification of the North and South only in military matters, i.e. A combined command and emergency government. At this point it was not meant to be a permanent agreement, just a defensive pact.
No that military planning was separate to the diplomatic proposal as far as I know, while Dev and the Cabinet turned down the proposal, all that planning continued with airbases and movement plans worked out between the general staffs.
If we're that Ireland was just a dominion much like Canada and Australia then the case that Ireland should be treated just like the rest of the dominions is right there. A lot of the Irish army were former British regulars and at this point, there were still very strong ties between the two. I agree that the possibility of an IEF varies a lot but I think that's what London is going to want more than anything else.
I would take that estimation with a very hefty bag of salt; in the immediate aftermath of the Fall of France, Whitehall thought that the Germans could do everything shy of walking on water. Their estimations of Luftwaffe/Wehrmacht strength really point to this, and even if those 2000 Germans could take Eire (somehow ignoring the Royal Navy as they did so)I would very much like to see them try to hold an Ireland that had just come out of a civil war with largely minimal damage; especially when the Irish were perhaps the most veteran guerilla fighters in the world at that time.
It depends on when @sparky42. Patrick Buckland is good on this. Basically, in the halcyon days of the1920s and early 1930s, when Britain has economic troubles and no serious military threats, NI is seen as an unnecessary expense and even the Tory Right like Joynson -Hicks would have been quite happy to divest themselves. 1936 on, this becomes more muted with a resurgent Germany and Russia. 1940s, Derry is too important as an Atlantic port and manufacturing in NI is needed to help equip the war machine, unification thus only being offered on "you would have to join the war" terms.
1950s and 1960s, NI is too important to NATO because of Bishopscourt, Eglinton, Aldergrove and Gilnahirk and is quietescent if expensive. Early 1970s, desirable, but too sensitive an issue to raise. Late 1970s and early 1980s, "unification if you agree to joining NATO and rejoining the Commonwealth"(wouldn't have worked but demonstrates British interests are strategic and not economic). Mid to late 80s Eglinton no longer needed for MR, Aldergrove no longer necessary for fighter and bomber cover, Bishopscourt made obsolescent by A EW, Gilnahirk by improved monitoring technology and unification without preconditions is desirable again. Not readily deliverable but FCO and Whitehall generally in favour.
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Ireland's population and industrial resources were much smaller than those of Canada, South Africa or Australia. More comparable to New Zealand except much closer. The best use of Irish manpower was as recruits for the British armed forces and to replace British workers called up to the military. (Both my parents worked in the UK during the War.)
Fair points. Panic and desperation make for bad judgements.
Interesting analysis. Not sure I agree but it will be worth my while pondering on it
Of course, what Whitehall thinks isn't necessarily what Westminster thinks. Or what the Commons can tolerate. Especially when "playing the Orange Card" can win favourable media coverage and votes.
It is very hard to see what Ireland actually gets out of this. The British get ports, airfields, thousands of additional soldiers and a favourable press in Irish America for the low price of a few squadrons of second line aeroplanes. Ireland gets... well, a chance to be bombed and an unenforceable gesture of goodwill from London.
The British declaration will, rightly, be seen in Dublin as essentially toothless and not really much more of advance on the Council of Ireland that existed in shadowy form in 1920. At worst Dev might suspect it to be Churchillian theatrics to undermine his government in favour of a theoretically more pro-British Fine Gael.
The British declaration will, rightly, be seen in Dublin as essentially toothless and not really much more of advance on the Council of Ireland that existed in shadowy form in 1920. At worst Dev might suspect it to be Churchillian theatrics to undermine his government in favour of a theoretically more pro-British Fine Gael.
Quite so
The first is the likeliest outcome. The best that could be feasible would be something like a Sunningdale Agreement that improved the position of Catholics and Nationalists in Northern Ireland. But even that is implausible given Unionist attitudes.
Slightly OT but my late Aunt, at her 90th birthday celebrations, devoted at least 5 minutes of her speech to an excoriation of Dev for forcing women like herself to give up teaching ( & other public jobs) on marriage. At least because she switched to Gaelic then so may have go on about him!
Not easily in 1940 so the cost-benefit ratio isn't clear.
True but the Battle of the Atlantic is hotting up and you have to get the Lend-Lease stuff across. Is there any way of smoothing Us-Irish relations at this point?
In purely logistical terms that might be so but it would honestly be hard to think of worse optics to the general public - shades of the Conscription Crisis!
Any Irish government would fight tooth and nail to keep the Irish forces independent (even if under an overall British led command.)
Can’t say I blame your aunt at all, when you think of all the needless damage from decisions like that…
Irish entry should easy much of the US-Irish strains I would imagine?
Not that it makes it right (and there was certainly a degree of misogyny behind it) but the marriage ban was more of an economic measure given the disastrous state of the economy in 1932 and the competition for a shrinking pool of jobs. Decidedly non-Catholic Britain also had a marriage ban for female teachers until 1944, that likely would have lasted longer without the war.
Dev was a conservative guy, but there were a lot of conservative guys both inside and outside Ireland - and indeed many of the most 'conservative' were on the left. At the same time as Dev was introducing a marriage ban in Ireland in Spain the female socialist politicians Margarita Nelken and Victoria Kent were arguing against giving women the vote because they thought Spanish women were too influenced by the Catholic Church to be trusted with voting.
I suspect it would cause the British more problems than it solves.
Serious unrest in Northern Ireland strikes and sabotage minium.
The bombing of Cork and Dublin and the loss of the Georgian housing etc in both cities.
How big would Ireland's post-war debts be?
USN in southern ports? lock up your daughters.
Lend-lease for Ireland?
Marshal aid post-war.
Serious unrest in Northern Ireland strikes and sabotage minium.
The bombing of Cork and Dublin and the loss of the Georgian housing etc in both cities.
How big would Ireland's post-war debts be?
USN in southern ports? lock up your daughters.
Lend-lease for Ireland?
Marshal aid post-war.
Fully agree. If their arm was really twisted, Stormont might have agreed to cede South Fermanagh, South Armagh, Derry and the West Bank, Newry, Rostrevor and Warrenpoint. Wonder how a tangible offer of additional territory would have gone down in Dublin?
What do you think the rough figure of population would we be talking about with such areas, of course assuming that there's movement from there into the rest of NI as well?
There may have been more of a Protestant commercial presence in both towns then than now, but Strabane was almost 75% Catholic (3806/5156) and Omagh more than 60% Catholic (3159/5123) in the 1926 Census.
It may be selective memory, coupled with the old ratepayer only franchise in local government. As I have discovered before, people from an ethnosocioeconomic group tend to be educated, socialise, worship and do business together and aren't good at estimating the overall size of their community (see the Assyrians in twentieth century history). My farming cousins were actually frightened when they were giving off about the disregard of politicians for farming and I am " you do realise that only 1.5% are directly involved in agriculture these days and another 3.5% in agribusiness and food processing?"
Strabane was always unredrawable as Unionist-controlled even under the ratepayer franchise (the 1898 wards survived until the demise of that version of local government in 1973). The closest ward in 1911 was North Urban which was still over 60% Catholic; East Urban was 90%+ and the other two were 65-75% Catholic.
(Apologies for the size of the image but this dialect of BBCode doesn't seem to like style="max-width:..;")
The Omagh wards were packed and cracked to ensure Unionist control there but it took until 1936.
In relation to the original topic, it's mentioned in Robert Fisk's In Time Of War (based as far as I know on his TCD thesis) where there's a quote from Basil Brooke (still a relatively young Unionist MP at the time) which implied that Unionists might have to make unpalatable choices for the sake of the greater good of the empire.
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An old post of mine:
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The British offer of acceptance "in principle" of the idea of a united Ireland (with the "details" to be worked out later) was just too vague to induce de Valera to have Eire enter the war at a time when popular sentiment was clearly pro-neutrality. To quote Tim Pat Coogan's De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow:
"Like Maffey earlier, MacDonald had to read this to the nearly blind de Valera. But de Valera's political vision was sufficiently keen for him to spot the snag immediately. MacDonald reported that his reaction was that 'Eire was to enter the war immediately, but a United Ireland was to be a deferred payment'. As MacDonald struggled to convince him that Britain would not renege on her undertakings, de Valera's other fears emerged. The Germans would savagely bomb Ireland to make an example of her to other neutrals. Moreover, MacDonald reported:37 'One of the decisive influences on Mr. de Valera's mind now is his view that we are likely to lose the war.'
"The next day de Valera described the proposals to his Cabinet, which found them 'unacceptable'. He was empowered to tell MacDonald so in the company of Lemass and Aiken; it proved to be a hard man, soft man type of encounter. MacDonald said afterwards that whenever Lemass `began to develop at any length an argument that might have led to some compromise, one or other of his colleagues intervened with a fresh uncompromising statement'. Fear of Germany and the shadow of Irish history lay across the discussion, precluding any leaps of the imagination. The Irishmen were influenced by experiences in their own lifetimes such as the Curragh Mutiny and the fate of John Redmond, who had encouraged thousands of young Irishmen to their deaths for a Home Rule that never materialized. De Valera wanted to know: 'What guarantee... did the British have that the Northern Ireland Government would agree, even if they had accepted the plan in principle, to join a United Ireland in practice?'... https://books.google.com/books?id=5CFlCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT594&lpg=PT594
"Apart from de Valera's points about neutrality, the reference to the Constitution is highly significant. Despite his constant use of partition in negotiation — and his perceptive analysis of the real nature of the problem to Frank Gallagher — de Valera was not prepared to risk going further than his Constitution position to abolish the border. Articles 2 and 3, and the Special Position of the Roman Catholic Church, were the parameters of his fiefdom to extreme Republicanism and the Church. He subsequently gave further, differing, reasons for turning down an offer which would almost certainly have led to bombs falling on Dublin in the 1940s, but might have prevented them going off in Belfast and Dublin in the 1990s. He told Maffey that:. 'It had gone hard with him to... turn down the dream of his life. But that in present circumstances it was impossible. It would have meant civil war.' He later told his official biographers that it was because of the doctrine of 'equal holds'. In Bruree it had been the custom amongst his boyhood companions to keep 'equal holds' when engaged in a swap. 'Each was to have a firm grip on what he was to receive before he loosened his grip on that with which he was parting.'41 He did not feel that Chamberlain's offer gave him 'equal holds'. Chamberlain died the following November. De Valera sent his widow a telegram:42 'Mr. Chamberlain will always be remembered by the Irish people for his noble efforts in the cause of peace and friendship between the two nations.' Perhaps she was comforted by it." https://books.google.com/books?id=5CFlCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT596
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The British offer of acceptance "in principle" of the idea of a united Ireland (with the "details" to be worked out later) was just too vague to induce de Valera to have Eire enter the war at a time when popular sentiment was clearly pro-neutrality. To quote Tim Pat Coogan's De Valera: Long Fellow, Long Shadow:
"Like Maffey earlier, MacDonald had to read this to the nearly blind de Valera. But de Valera's political vision was sufficiently keen for him to spot the snag immediately. MacDonald reported that his reaction was that 'Eire was to enter the war immediately, but a United Ireland was to be a deferred payment'. As MacDonald struggled to convince him that Britain would not renege on her undertakings, de Valera's other fears emerged. The Germans would savagely bomb Ireland to make an example of her to other neutrals. Moreover, MacDonald reported:37 'One of the decisive influences on Mr. de Valera's mind now is his view that we are likely to lose the war.'
"The next day de Valera described the proposals to his Cabinet, which found them 'unacceptable'. He was empowered to tell MacDonald so in the company of Lemass and Aiken; it proved to be a hard man, soft man type of encounter. MacDonald said afterwards that whenever Lemass `began to develop at any length an argument that might have led to some compromise, one or other of his colleagues intervened with a fresh uncompromising statement'. Fear of Germany and the shadow of Irish history lay across the discussion, precluding any leaps of the imagination. The Irishmen were influenced by experiences in their own lifetimes such as the Curragh Mutiny and the fate of John Redmond, who had encouraged thousands of young Irishmen to their deaths for a Home Rule that never materialized. De Valera wanted to know: 'What guarantee... did the British have that the Northern Ireland Government would agree, even if they had accepted the plan in principle, to join a United Ireland in practice?'... https://books.google.com/books?id=5CFlCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT594&lpg=PT594
"Apart from de Valera's points about neutrality, the reference to the Constitution is highly significant. Despite his constant use of partition in negotiation — and his perceptive analysis of the real nature of the problem to Frank Gallagher — de Valera was not prepared to risk going further than his Constitution position to abolish the border. Articles 2 and 3, and the Special Position of the Roman Catholic Church, were the parameters of his fiefdom to extreme Republicanism and the Church. He subsequently gave further, differing, reasons for turning down an offer which would almost certainly have led to bombs falling on Dublin in the 1940s, but might have prevented them going off in Belfast and Dublin in the 1990s. He told Maffey that:. 'It had gone hard with him to... turn down the dream of his life. But that in present circumstances it was impossible. It would have meant civil war.' He later told his official biographers that it was because of the doctrine of 'equal holds'. In Bruree it had been the custom amongst his boyhood companions to keep 'equal holds' when engaged in a swap. 'Each was to have a firm grip on what he was to receive before he loosened his grip on that with which he was parting.'41 He did not feel that Chamberlain's offer gave him 'equal holds'. Chamberlain died the following November. De Valera sent his widow a telegram:42 'Mr. Chamberlain will always be remembered by the Irish people for his noble efforts in the cause of peace and friendship between the two nations.' Perhaps she was comforted by it." https://books.google.com/books?id=5CFlCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT596