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Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: v. 6: 1939-1941

by  Michael KennedyDermot KeoghEunan O'HalpinRonan FanningCatriona Crowe
€ 45.00

Book Details

Published by Royal Irish Academy

November 2008

Hardback

Number of pages: 566

ISBN: 9781904890515

The sixth volume of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy delivers a fascinating account of neutral Ireland during the war years. Volume VI demonstrates in gripping detail how Irish diplomats maintained neutrality despite Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s attempt to lure Ireland to join the war in winter 1939. It sheds light on the security crisis of 1940, when both a Nazi and a British invasion were feared. Volume VI publishes, for the first time, complete transcripts of the British-Irish defence co-operation talks that took place in late May 1940. It includes full reports from Irish diplomats abroad on the progress of the war in Europe and deals with areas as vast as the Russo-Finnish Winter War, the invasion and fall of France, the invasion of Norway, Churchill's rise to power, the Blitz, daily life in Berlin during war and the Luftwaffe attacks on Ireland. It reveals, in material hitherto unseen, the increasingly complex and highly charged nature of wartime British-Irish relations. The volume is the most comprehensive account ever published of Ireland's foreign policy during the first years of the so-called 'Emergency'.

About the authors

Michael Kennedy

Dr Michael Kennedy has for almost three decades written and published widely on modern Irish history, in particular on Irish military and diplomatic history and on Irish foreign policy. He has been the executive editor of the RIA's Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series and head of the DIFP series since 1997. Previously he lectured in Irish and European history at Queen's University, Belfast and received his doctorate from the NUI in 1994 on the early history of Ireland’s relationship with the League of Nations.  Michael appears regularly on television and radio discussing aspects of Irish history ranging from lighthouses to embassies to the history of curry houses in Dublin. Michael is a former member of the Irish Manuscripts Commission, a Research Associate of the Centre for Contemporary Irish History, Trinity College, Dublin and was a Visiting Professor at Liverpool Hope University from 2009 to 2018. He was also formerly an adjunct Professor of History at University College Dublin. He is the co-author (with John Gibney and Kate O'Malley) of Ireland: a voice among the nations (Royal Irish Academy, 2019), and (with Daniel Ayiotis and John Gibney) of The Emergency: A visual history of the Irish Defence Forces during the Second World War, 1939-1945 (Eastwood, 2019).

Dermot Keogh

Dermot Keogh MRIA is Professor of History at University College Cork and an editor of the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series. He has been a Fulbright Professor in California, Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington and Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration at University College Cork. He is the co-editor of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: Volume I, 1919-22, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: Volume II, 1923-1926 and Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: Volume III, 1926-1932. He is the author of numerous books on Irish diplomatic and political history, including Ireland and Europe, 1919-1989, Ireland and the Vatican: The Politics and Diplomacy of Church and State, 1922-1960, Twentieth-Century Ireland: Nation and State and Jews in Twentieth-Century Ireland: Refugees, Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.

You can find more information on the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy research project here.

Eunan O'Halpin

Eunan O'Halpin MRIA is the Professor of Contemporary Irish History at Trinity College, Dublin. He is also an editor of the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series. His most recent publications are: Head of the Civil Service: A Study of Sir Warren Fisher, Defending Ireland: The Irish State and its Enemies since 1922 and MI5 and Ireland, 1939 – 1935. He is a co-editor of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: Volume I, 1919-22, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: Volume II, 1923 – 1926 and Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: Volume III, 1926 – 1932. He is currently co-editing a study of Anglo-American security co-operation between 1914 and 1949. For more information about the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy research project please check https://www.ria.ie/research-projects/documents-irish-foreign-policy

Ronan Fanning

Ronan Fanning MRIA was Professor of Modern History at University College Dublin. He was an editor of the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy series and a founder-member of the Royal Irish Academy's National Committee for the Study of International Affairs. He was joint-editor of Irish Historical Studies from 1976 to 1987. He was the author of The Irish Department of Finance and Independent Ireland and co-editor of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: Volume I, 1919-22, Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: Volume II, 1923-1926 and Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: Volume III, 1926 – 1932. He published scholarly articles in journals throughout Europe and North America and was a regular political columnist for the Irish Sunday Independent.

You can find more information on the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy research project here.

Catriona Crowe

Catriona Crowe is Head of Special Projects at the National Archives of Ireland. She is Manager of the Irish Census Online Project, which has placed the 1901 and 1911 censuses online free of charge over the last 5 years. She is an Editor of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy and of Dublin 1911, both published by the Royal Irish Academy. She is Vice-President of the Irish Labour History Society, and a former President of the Women’s History Association. She is Chairperson of the Irish Theatre Institute, which promotes and supports Irish theatre and has created an award-winning website of Irish theatre productions. She is Chairperson of the SAOL Project, a rehabilitation initiative for women with addiction problems, based in the North Inner City, and also Chairperson of the Inner Cirty Renewal Group, which delivers employment and welfare rights advice and support to the community in the North Inner City. She contributes regularly to the broadcast and print media on cultural and historical matters. She is a member of the Royal Irish Academy.

You can find more information on the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy research project here.