Documents on
Irish Foreign Policy
Volume VI,
1937-1939
 

Edited by Catriona Crowe, Ronan Fanning, Michael Kennedy, Eunan O'Halpin and Dermot Keogh

The sixth in the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP) series, runs from September 1939 to January 1941.

Commencing as war began in Europe, it covers seventeen months of grave crisis for Irish foreign policy makers, months in which an invasion of Ireland by either belligerent became a real possibility.

Neutrality, hitherto aspirational, had to be implemented in practice.
Ireland did not wish to be dragged unwillingly into war.

The months from September 1939 to May 1940 allowed the Department of External Affairs to organise to meet the exigencies of the European conflict and to set out the parameters of neutrality.

For Irish diplomats, the most sensitive and dangerous period of the Second World War was without doubt the summer and autumn of 1940. The German invasion of France and the Low Countries, the eventual fall of France on 22 June and the advance of German forces to the French coast concentrated Irish minds on the possibility of a German invasion of Ireland as part of, or as a diversionary raid leading to, an invasion of Britain. Preventing invasion, preserving neutrality and independence in wartime, became the overriding theme of Irish foreign policy in September 1939 and would remain so until May 1945.

Reviews of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, Volume VI
(1939-1941)

Mary Kenny, Times Literary Supplement, 26 June 2009
‘a compelling narrative’
‘a page-turner, leaving the reader eager for the sequel … one longs for Volume VII’

Sunday Independent, 14 December 2008
‘Ireland was a lucky neutral during the Second World War’
‘preserving Ireland from invasion – by Britain or Germany is the theme of this latest volume in the Royal Irish Academy’s DIFP series’.

Deirdre McMahon, Irish Times, 2 December 2008
‘Reports from the diplomatic front line on a world turned upside down

Ciaran Byrne, Irish Independent, 26 November 2008
‘remarkable disclosures’

Stephen Collins, Irish Times, 26 November 2008
‘War Secrets – a fascinating light on a critical period in the nation’s history’
‘State planned for British rescue mission in case of German invasion’

Belfast Telegraph, 2 December 2008
‘DIFP VI reveals a mood of continual crisis’

Irish Daily Mail, 26 November 2008
‘Brits in! Dev’s pact with Britain as Nazis Loomed’
‘Irish welcome for UK troops – but only after Hitler’s invasion began’