1

IEHC 2006 Helsinki Session 101

Irish neutrality and East-West trade, 1945-55

Till Geiger1

University of Manchester

Introduction

Ireland emerged as one of five neutral non-belligerents from the Second World War alondside

Portugal, Spain,Sweden and Switzerland. Despite the popular perception that Ireland’s policy favoured

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1. In writing this paper, I have greatly benefited from the comments of Michael Kennedy, Alan Milward

and the participants at the pre-conference for this session on “Neutrals and East-West trade” held in

Bratislava in September 2005. I am grateful to the British Academy for supporting my participation at the

pre-conference in Bratislava (OCG-41076).

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the Axis powers, Ireland provided crucial support in terms of resources, toleration of military operations

and intelligence to Britain and the Allies during the war. The existing historiography on Ireland’s wartime

neutrality emphasises that this policy was highly symbolic reflecting the country’s hard-fought

independence from Britain as well as a certain neutralist tradition in the nationalist movement. At the

same time, Irish neutrality was primarily pragmatic. In contrast to other wartime neutrals, Ireland was

virtually defenceless due to a lack of strong armed forces and air defences. Moreover, a different policy

would have divided the country potentially leading to a renewal of the civil strife of the 1920s. As a

consequence, Ireland relied on the government’s able diplomacy to maintain neutrality by placating both

sides of the conflict.2

While other small Western European countries such as Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and

Norway decided to abandon their traditional neutrality in favour of western economic cooperation and

integration in the immediate postwar period, Ireland continued to pursue an isolationist economic policy

regime. For these other countries, the experience of wartime occupation convinced policy-makers that in

future small countries could only defend their independence through international cooperation.3 In

contrast, Irish policy-makers remained rather sceptical about the new emerging international order and

joined only a small number of the newly created international organisations. Moreover, Ireland chose not

to participate in the international efforts to coordinate supplies to war-torn Europe in the immediate

postwar period. Britain and the United States encouraged Ireland to become more involved in

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2. For a recent review of the existing historiography, see Donal Ó Drisceoil, “Neither Friend Nor Foe?:

Irish Neutrality in the Second World War,” Contemporary European History 15, no. 2 (2006): 245–53.

3. This argument has been forcefully made by Brian Girvin, “Did Ireland Benefit from the Marshall

Plan?: Choice, Strategy and the National Interest in a Comparative Context,” in Ireland, Europe and the

Marshall Plan, ed. Till Geiger and Michael Kennedy (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), 182–220,

particularly 183–99.

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international cooperation, but Irish politicians frequently argued that such participation would not serve

the national interest.4 When the United States invited Ireland to join the North Atlantic alliance in early

1949, the Irish government rejected this invitation arguing that the country could not join a defensive

alliance as long as Ireland was still partitioned and a part of the country “occupied” by a member of the

alliance.5 Even though Ireland did not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), its foreign

policy was decidedly pro-western in the early stages of the cold war. Fearing a Communist victory in the

Italian election in April 1948, Irish foreign policy-makers coordinated efforts to support the election

campaign of the Christian Democrats.6 Moreover, Ireland did participate in the Marshall Plan and

championed plans for further western European integration in the Organisation for European Economic

Co-operation (OEEC).7 However, Bernadette Whelan argues in her book Ireland and the Marshall Plan

that American policy-makers failed in their attempt to embed Ireland in the western bloc.8 As this partial

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4. Till Geiger, “A Belated Discovery of Internationalism? Ireland, the United Nations and the

Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945- 1960,” in Obligations and Responsibilities: Ireland and the

United Nations, 1955–2005: Essays Marking Fifty Years of Ireland’s United Nations Membership, ed.

Michael Kennedy and Deirdre McMahon (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 2005), 27–38.

5. Eunan O’Halpin, Defending Ireland: The Irish State and Its Enemies Since 1922 (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1999), 260–2.

6. Dermot Keogh, “Ireland, the Vatican and the Cold War: The Case of Italy, 1948,” Historical

Journal 34, no. 4 (November 1991): 931–52.

7. On Ireland’s participation in the Marshall Plan, see Bernadette Whelan, Ireland and the Marshall

Plan, 1947–1957 (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000); and the contributions to Till Geiger and Michael

Kennedy, eds., Ireland, Europe and the Marshall Plan (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004).

8. Whelan, Ireland, 398.

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integration into the West shows, neutrality remained for many Irish policy-makers a pragmatic concept

adhered to mainly for reasons of domestic politics rather than a principled stance in the immediate

postwar policy. Neutrality continued to symbolise Ireland’s independence (primarily from Britain) in the

postwar world.

In rejecting membership in NATO, Irish policy-makers did not consider the likely impact of this

decision on its (non-)relationship with the Soviet bloc. Indeed, Irish politicians pointed to the Soviet veto

on Irish membership in the United Nations (UN) as confirmation of Ireland’s pro-western credentials.

Despite the limited nature of Ireland’s trade with Eastern European countries, an analysis of these trade

relations provides a fascinating perspective on Irish neutrality policy in action. The first section of this

paper examines the emergence of Irish neutrality as result of the struggle for an independent Ireland.

Subsequent sections discuss the development of Irish foreign economic policy on East-West trade in the

period of the first cold war (1947-1955). This paper argues that the Irish government curtailed its trade

with Eastern Europe at the height of the Korean War, because this step allowed Irish politicians to

demonstrate their anti-Communist credentials without involving any real cost to the Irish economy. At the

same time, Irish politicians hoped that by complying with the provisions of the Battle Act Ireland would

be able to garner American support to end partition.

A peculiar kind of neutrality: Irish nationalism and the struggle for independence

The ability of Ireland to remain neutral became for many Irish nationalists the ultimate test of

Irish independence and sovereignty during the Irish independence struggle. This commitment to neutrality

emerged in the run-up to the Boer War with the aim of keeping Ireland out of Britain’s imperial wars.

Despite Ireland still being an integral part of the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland, the Irish

nationalist press supported the Boer forces in the ensuing conflict. This support for the Boer forces led to

the formation of two batallions of Irish volunteers which joined the Boer forces to fight the British in

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Southern Africa.9 As this episode shows, the commitment to neutrality arose and remained linked to the

anti-colonial struggle. At the same time, few nationalists including the members of Irish Neutrality

Association seemed to be committed “to a specific concept of neutrality.”10 Nevertheless, this however

vague commitment to neutrality has remained a defining feature of Irish nationalist political identity.

However, an Irish commitment to neutrality remained largely aspirational. Even after fighting a

protracted and increasingly bloody war of independence, Irish negotiators could only secure a limited

form of independence from Britain. The resulting Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 established the Irish Free

State with the status of a dominion within the British Commonwealth of Nations.11 While the other

British dominions had started to assert their independence in terms of foreign policy, British politicians

maintained that Britain spoke for the Commonwealth and the Empire in international affairs. The Anglo-

Irish Treaty further restricted Ireland’s freedom by imposing restrictions on the size of the Irish armed

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9. Charles Townshend, Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion (London: Penguin Books, 2006), 10.

10. Thomas E. Hachey, “The Rhetoric and Reality of Irish Neutrality,” New Hibernia Review 6, no. 4

(Winter 2002): 27.

11. “Final text of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland as signed in

London,” 6 December 1921, in Ronan Fanning, et.al., Documents on Irish Foreign Policy, Volume I:

1919–1922 (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1998) (hereafter: DIFP i) 356–61. Throughout this paper, I

will use the term Ireland to describe the political unit comprising the 26 southern counties which make up

the state established as the Irish Free State under the provisions of the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1922. The

name of the state was changed to Éire (Ireland) in the new constitution adopted in 1937. In November

1948, the Irish government repealed the External Relations Act of 1936 and thereby formally declaring

the Republic of Ireland. However, this act of parliament did not change the name of state in the

constitution; see Article 4, J. Anthony Foley and Stephen Lalor, eds., Gill and Macmillan Annotated

Constitution of Ireland: With Commentary (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1995), 28.

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forces and through the continued existence of three British naval bases on the territory of the newly

independent state. As the Irish negotiators realised, the continued British military presence would make it

impossible for Ireland to stay neutral in any future war involving Britain. In one other respect, this

settlement failed to meet the aspirations of the nationalist movement. The Treaty permitted the Northern

six counties of Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom as an independently governed province.

While the Irish side remained unhappy about aspects of the settlement, the British Prime Minister, David

Lloyd George, forced the hand of the Irish negotiators by threatening to renew the military confrontation

unless they signed the draft treaty. While the delegations defended the draft treaty as the best possible

agreement under the circumstances, the hard-liners in the Irish cabinet which had remained in Dublin

rejected the settlement. After an acrinomious debate, the Irish rebel parliament, the Dáil Éirann, approved

the treaty by a narrow margin splitting the nationalist movement and leading to a bitter civil war.12

After the end of the civil war in 1923, the government of the Irish Free State worked within the

framework of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but continually pressed for a widening of the rights of dominions in

within the Commonwealth. By 1931, the British government accepted in the Statute of Westminster that

dominions were fully independent in terms of domestic legislation and by implication their foreign policy.

While the Irish government strove to gain its full independence, the government’s foreign policy

remained closely linked to that of Britain and the other dominions. Despite all its protestations of

independence, this affinity reflected the fact that Ireland’s international position depended on the support

of other dominions within the Commonwealth and the League of Nations. Therefore, the Irish

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12. The most comprehensive account of the treaty negotiations remains: Frank Pakenham, Peace by

Ordeal: An Account, from First-Hand Sources of the Negotiation and Signature of the Anglo-Irish Treaty

1921 (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1972).

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government ensured that its own foreign policy decisions did not run counter to vital British interests.13

Indeed, the Irish government harboured few illusions as to the fact that, given its strategic position,

Ireland would be vulnerable to attack in any future war between any of the major powers. In a secret

memorandum to the government written in July 1925, the minister for defence and the top military

commander urged the government to adopt a defence policy for the country, because the existing armed

forces would not be capable of resisting a foreign invader or suppressing an armed insurgency. The

memorandum noted that the greatest threat would arise from another major power wanting to use its

territory as a forward base to invade Britain. In such an event, the country might have to consider

cooperating closely with Britain. Alternatively, the country would have to build up its armed forces to

defend its territory to prevent such an eventuality. Intriguingly, the memorandum noted that the Irish

communities living might be used to pressure the mother country into entering a global conflict, but also

suggested that the Irish abroad might be used to wage a terrorist bombing campaign against an

aggressor.14 After consideration of this memorandum, the Irish government restated that the objective of

government policy would be to keep Ireland out any future conflict, but decided against increasing the

size of the country’s armed forces. In its decision, the government acknowledged that in case of an attack

its armed forces would have to cooperate with Britain to repel an invader.15 As Eunan O’Halpin has

noted, the government’s decision only envisaged going to war if Irish neutrality was violated, but clearly

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13. Donal Lowry, “New Ireland, Old Empire and the Outside World, 1922–49: The Strange Evolution

of a ‘Dictionary Republic’,” in Ireland: The Politics of Independence, 1922–49, ed. Mike Cronin and

John M. Regan (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), 164–216.

14. “Memorandum by the Council of Defence on Irish Defence Policy (Secret)”, 25 July 1925, in DIFP

ii, 416–21.

15. “Department of the President to each member of the Executive Council enclosing schedule on

Defence Policy (Secret)”, 28 October 1925, in DIFP ii, 438–40.

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assumed that Ireland’s membership in the League of Nations did not carry with it any obligation to

contribute military forces to defend its system of collective security. While Britain would be an obvious

wartime ally for Ireland, the recent memory of the war of independence and the continued British military

presence effectively ruled military co-operation with Britain in peacetime.16 Unwilling to increase its

defence effort, Ireland effectively chose to rely on Britain defending the British Isles, including Ireland,

from foreign attack. At the same time, as long as Britain maintained its naval bases in Ireland, Ireland

would inevitably be drawn into any future major conflict.

Even though the Irish government worked hard to establish Ireland as an independent country on

the international stage, the Department of External Affairs remained small employing not more than 50

officials at home and abroad by the end of the 1920s.17 As a consequence, Ireland maintained only a

handful of diplomatic missions abroad including Britain, the League of Nations, Washington, Paris, the

Vatican and Berlin by 1930.18 Given its limited links, the Irish government never established diplomatic

relations with the Soviet Union, after its abortive attempts to do so during the period of the revolutionary

Dáil Éirann government in 1919/20. At the time, the primary objective of de Valera's emissary, Patrick

MacCartan, had been to persuade the Soviet government to recognise Irish independence and thereby

lending support to the nationalist cause in the war of independence.19 However, by the time McCartan

finally arrived in Moscow in February 1921, the Soviet leadership was no longer interested in establishing

diplomatic relations with the revolutionary Daíl Éirann government, because such a step might undermine

the completion of a trade agreement with Britain which might end the Allied intervention in the Russian

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16. O’Halpin, Defending Ireland, 91–2.

17. Lowry, “New Ireland,” 176.

18. “Appendix 4: List of Irish Missions Abroad, 1926-1932,” in DIFP iii, 932–3.

19. “Eamon de Valera to Arthur Griffith (for Cabinet),” 6 March 1920, in DIFP i, 56–7.

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civil war and secure international help for the reconstruction of the war-torn country.20 When the British

Labour government recognised the Soviet Union on behalf of the Commonwealth in 1924, the Irish Free

State government objected arguing that the British government could not take such a step without first

consulting the other dominion governments and refused to be bound by the British decision.21 Despite the

absence of diplomatic relations, the Irish government explored the possibility of establishing trading

relationship with the Soviet Union in 1927.22 These initial contacts failed to bring about a change in the

relationship between the two countries.

A few years later, the Irish Free State's most important inward investor, the Ford Motor

Company, pressed the Irish government to grant the Soviet Union “most-favoured nation status” in order

to enable the company to export tractors built at its Cork factory to the Soviet Union. The company's lack

of sensitivity about the Irish government's concerns over its economic sovereignty clearly annoyed

ministers and officials. After discussing the various options open to it, the Irish government decided

against using the provisions of the existing Anglo-Soviet trade agreement which permitted the agreement

to be extended to include any Commonwealth country if its government so desired. Instead, the Irish

government offered to extend “most-favoured nation status” to the Soviet Union if the Soviet government

was willing to sign a separate trade agreement with the Irish Free State. However, Irish policy-makers

were probably rather relieved that the Soviet government never took up this invitation, because they

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20. “Memorandum by Patrick McCartan on hopes of recognition of the Irish Republic from the USSR,”

June 1921, in DIFP i, 148–56. On British foreign economic policy towards Russia, see Anne Orde,

British Policy and European Reconstruction After the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1990), 161–3.

21. David W. Harkness, The Restless Dominion: The Irish Free State and the British Commonwealth of

Nations, 1921–31 (New York: New York University Press, 1970), 68–9.

22. “Letter from Michael MacWhite to Joseph P. Walshe,” 30 November 1927, in DIFP iii, 162.

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feared that a trade agreement would lead to the establishment of a Soviet trade mission in Dublin which

might fund and orchestrate communist activities in Ireland.23 At the same time, the Irish government's

reluctance to open its economy to international trade meant that Ford and other large Irish companies

started to move their production to Britain in the early 1930s.24 As this episode shows, Irish policy-

makers attached considerable importance to establishing the right of dominions to conclude their own

international trade agreements rather than such agreements being negotiated by the British government

for the Commonwealth and Empire. At the same time, neither the Irish nor the Soviet government

pursued a trade agreement with any vigour. During the discussions of the Soviet accession to the League

of Nations in September 1934, de Valera (now back in office as president and minister for external

affairs) criticised the Soviet Union for restricting religious freedom within its borders. This step

reinforced the coolness in relations between the two countries long before the Second World War.25

After a years of abstentionist politics, the leader of the Dáil Éirann government and the anti-

Treaty opposition, Éamon de Valera, returned to power in 1931 to head a Fianna Fáil administration. One

of the new government’s first actions was to repeal the oath of fidelity to the British King from the Irish

constitution and announce that Ireland would no longer pass on the annual land annuity payments to the

British Treasury. The British government reacted by imposing retaliatory tariffs on Irish exports in an

attempt to recover the revenue arising from the withheld land annuity payments. The resulting protracted

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23. “Memorandum by the Department of External Affairs to Diarmuid O'Hegarty on the Irish Free State

commercial relations with the USSR,” 7 April 1930, in DIFP iii, 522–4; and “Extracts of the minutes of a

meeting of the Cabinet,” 8 April 1930, in DIFP iii, 524. See also Harkness, Restless Dominion, 173–4.

24. Mary E. Daly, Industrial Development and Irish National Identity, 1922–1939 (Syracuse: Syracuse

University Press, 1992), 100–101.

25. Michael Kennedy, Ireland and the League of Nations, 1919–1946: International Relations,

Diplomacy and Politics (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1996), 194–201.

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conflict between Ireland and Britain lasted until both governments reached a comprehensive settlement in

1938 not before de Valera had replaced the 1922 constitution with a constitution which eliminated all

references to the British King.26

As a part of this comprehensive settlement, Britain relinquished its control of its three treaty ports

in Ireland. The return of the ports enabled de Valera to adopt a position of neutrality following the

outbreak of the Second World War. All political parties in Ireland supported this policy throughout the

war. Even after the horrors of the Nazi regime’s atrocities had been revealed, relatively few Irish voices

criticised the wisdom of Ireland’s wartime neutrality in the immediate postwar period. As Geoffrey

Robert has noted, historians have generally accepted and retold the conventional narrative of Irish

neutrality which had emerged in the immediate postwar period. He ably summarised this conventional

narrative in a recent essay:

The Irish Free State’s [sic] declaration of neutrality in 1939 was undoubted the wisest and safest

course of action. It protected the Irish people from the perils of war, asserted the country’s

sovereignty and independence from Britain, and, crucially, maintained the unity of the state at a

time of great national danger. Neutrality was supported across the political spectrum and had the

backing of the great majority of the population. Any other policy, such as joining the war on the

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26. This British-Irish conflict is oftern referred to as the economic war. On the acrimonious British-Irish

relationship in the 1930s, see Deirdre McMahon, Republicans and Imperialists: Anglo-Irish Relations in

the 1930s (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984); Paul Canning, British Policy Towards Ireland

1921–1941 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985). On the economic impact, see Kevin O’Rourke, “Burn

Everything English but Their Coal: The Anglo-Irish Economic War of the 1930s,” Journal of Economic

History 51, no. 2 (1991): 357–66; Cormac Ó Gráda, Ireland: A New Economic History, 1780–1939

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 406–19.

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allied side, would have split the country and precipitated another civil war. Ireland remained

neutral throughout the war but it was a highly benevolent neutrality as far as the allies was

concerned. Not so much neutrality as non-belligerence on the allied side – an ambivalence which

reflected, in O’Faolain’s famous phrase, the anti-British but pro-allied attitudes of most Irish

people.

A frequent sub-text of this narrative is a sort of Irish version of the Churchillian wartime myth.

[Ireland’s wartime leader Éamon de Valera] didn’t just get away with it, as George Bernard Shaw

said at the time, he executed a brilliant balanced policy which kept Ireland out of the war but on

the right side of the conflict, thereby safeguarding the country’s postwar future. As T. Ryle

Dwyer put it, wartime neutrality ‘was truly Éamon de Valera’s finest hour.’27

The conventional narrative underlines the fact that the wartime experience affirmed neutrality as a symbol

of Irish independence and sovereignty much to the annoyance of the British and American policy-makers.

Despite Ireland’s tacit support of the allied war effort, the American minister in Dublin, David Gray,

repeatedly pressured the Irish government to abandon its policy of neutrality and to join the Allied war

effort. The aim of these interventions was to expose the Irish government’s position as misguided in the

eyes of the Irish-American community.28 In his essay, Roberts challenges the notion inherent in the

conventional narrative that wartime neutrality was the only politically possible option for the Irish

government by asking a similar question as to whether Ireland should have remained neutral in a

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27. Geoffrey Roberts, “Three Narratives of Neutrality and Ireland’s War,” in Ireland and the Second

World War: Politics, Society and Remembrance, ed. Brian Girvin and Geoffrey Roberts (Dublin: Four

Courts Press, 2000), 165.

28. Troy D. Davis, Dublin’s American Policy: Irish-American Diplomatic Relations, 1945–1952

(Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 14–28.

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righteous war against an evil dictator.29 Part of the answer to this question lies in the deep-seated

neutralist convictions of Irish nationalists which had shaped the previous twenty years of independent

foreign policy.30

At the same time, the open hostility to Irish wartime neutrality by some Allied voices reinforced

the view of many Irish politicians that great powers were responsible for armed conflicts. Ireland’s

response to the attempts of the allies to create a postwar international order reflected this conviction. Just

after the publication of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals for a united nations organisation, de Valera used a

speech to the College Historical Society at Trinity College Dublin in November 1944 to express his

concerns about the envisaged postwar international order. In his speech, de Valera attributed the failure of

the League of Nations and the outbreak of the Second World War to the rivalry between the great powers.

Given this conviction, he feared that the great powers would dominate the planned world organisation and

impose their policies on smaller nations. Therefore, he remained rather sceptical as to whether the new

international organisation would offer small states any real protection against any intervention in their

domestic affairs. His scepticism may have reflected the recent experience of the Anglo-Irish economic

war and the American diplomatic pressure on the Irish government. Therefore, de Valera feared that the

future UN would not protect Ireland against a future British (armed) intervention. Irish editorial writers

endorsed de Valera’s cautious stance about the Dumbarton Oaks proposals for the creation of a new

international organisation to insure international peace and stability.31

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29. Roberts, “Three Narratives.”

30. Mervyn O’Driscoll, “Concluding Thoughts,” in Ireland in World War Two: Diplomacy and

Survival, ed. Dermot Keogh and Mervyn O’Driscoll (Cork: Mercier Press, 2004), 286–90.

31. This episode is discussed a greater length in Till Geiger, “Ireland, Europe and the Marshall Plan:

The Legacy of American Power?” in Ireland, Europe and the Marshall Plan, ed. Till Geiger and Michael

Kennedy (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), 27–8.

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Despite de Valera’s scepticism, Ireland applied for UN membership in July 1946 after Britain and

the United States had indicated their support for an Irish application. Announcing the government’s

intention in the Irish parliament, the Dáil, in late July 1946, de Valera stated unequivocally that Ireland

would join the UN in order to protect its freedom as an independent country. As a small country, Ireland

remained vulnerable to the intervention of the great powers as during second world war. He reminded his

fellow TDs32 that Ireland’s independence had rested in the hands of two men (Churchill and Roosevelt)

during the war. While the current UN charter potentially enabled the great powers to dominate smaller

countries, the test remained whether membership would undermine Ireland’s ability to preserve its

independence in future. As other neutral countries such as Sweden and Portugal had recently intimated

that they were planning to apply for UN membership, Ireland should apply now rather than wait until it

become clearer what type of an organisation the UN was likely to become. De Valera also stated clearly

that Ireland would not take sides in the emerging cold war between East and West, in the following

affirmation:

This organisation was built up by a number of victor States, fresh from war, with all the passions

that are aroused in belligerent nations. Their main purpose was to try to make sure that the

sacrifices they had made in the war would not be lost and that they would redound to the benefit

of their own particular peoples. Anybody who read the papers could see that there were contests

going on between the victors to make sure, so far as they could, that their own particular nation

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32. Member of the Irish House of Representative the Dáil Éireann is officially "Teachta Dála" which in

English means "Deputy to the Dáil"; members are generally referred to as "TDs" or "Deputies"; see

Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas, “Teachta Dála - Deputy,” Houses of the Oireachtas,

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/a-misc/deputy.htm (accessed 11 September 2005).

15

would derive the best possible results from the victory which had been achieved. I do not think

that we were losing anything by being out of that particular type of conflict.33

Despite de Valera’s wish to keep Ireland out of the emerging cold war, the country was almost

immediately drawn into this conflict between the major powers, when the Soviet representative vetoed the

Irish application in the UN Security Council, because Ireland did not have diplomatic relations with the

Soviet Union. However, the real reason for the Soviet veto was the fact that Irish membership would have

strengthened the western bloc within the UN.34

The Irish electorate did not necessarily share de Valera’s commitment to a neutralist foreign

policy and elected a broad coalition of political parties standing on a programme of social reform and the

normalisation of the country’s relationship with Britain in February 1948. At its first meeting, the newly

formed cabinet of the Inter-Party government decided to send a message to the Pope expressing its

unquestioned loyalty and assuring the Pontiff that they would guided by the teachings of the Catholic

church in their actions.35 At the same time, the Inter-Party government under its new minister for external

affairs, Seán MacBride adopted a more pro-western foreign policy outlook. The government supported

the efforts of the Irish Catholic Church to assist the Christian Democrats financially in the Italian

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33. Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas, Official Report of the Parliamentary Debates of the Houses

of the Oireachtas: Dáil Debates (Houses of the Oireachtas, 1946), (hereafter: Dáil Deb.) vol 102, col.

1463–81 (quote col. 1469), 25 July 1946; see also Dáil Deb. vol. 102, col. 1308–26, 24 July 1946.

34. Deirdre McMahon, “‘Our Mendicant Vigil is Over.’: Ireland and the United Nations,1946–1955,” in

Obligations and Responsibilities: Ireland and the United Nations, 1955–2005: Essays Marking Fifty

Years of Ireland’s United Nations Membership, ed. Michael Kennedy and Deirdre McMahon (Dublin:

Institute of Public Administration, 2005), 11–7; Geiger, “Belated Discovery,” 27–30.

35. David McCullagh, A Makeshift Majority: The First Inter-Party Government, 1948–51 (Dublin:

Institute of Public Administration, 1998), 199.

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elections in April 1948.36 MacBride insured that the Department for External Affairs became

responsible for coordinating Ireland’s involvement in the Marshall Plan. At meetings of the OEEC

council of ministers, MacBride enjoyed representing himself as a committed European and supporter of

American plans for further European (economic) integration. Inspite of these protestations, Ireland nearly

rejected Marshall aid when it was offered to the Irish government in the form of a loan in May 1948. In

the end, the government was forced to accept the loans to finance the imports of fertiliser, coal and grain

needed to sustain its own agricultural exports. During the next few years, the first priority of the Inter-

Party government remained to re-establish close economic ties with Britain rather than championing

European integration and international cooperation. Indeed, they feared that the creation of a western

European customs union might undermine the favoured access of Irish exports to Britain by opening the

British market to agricultural exports from continental countries. In this period, Irish economic policy-

makers remained wedded to economic nationalism and a policy of import substitution.37

As this analysis shows, the primary objective of Irish foreign and foreign economic policy since

independence was securing the country’s independence by revising its constitutional status as a dominion.

The attempts to reduce the country’s dependence on the British market had remained largely

unsuccessful. Besides the overarching objective of regaining independence, Irish foreign policy reflected

the country’s identity as a post-colonial Catholic nation with links to the world through the Irish Diaspora.

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36. Keogh, “Ireland, the Vatican and the Cold War.”

37. Till Geiger, “The Enthusiastic Response of a Reluctant Supporter: Ireland and the Committee for

European Economic Co-Operation in Summer 1947,” in Essays in Irish Foreign Policy, 1919–1966:

From Independence to Internationalism, ed. Michael Kennedy and John Skelly (Dublin: Four Courts

Press, 2000), 222–46; Till Geiger, “Why Ireland Needed the Marshall Plan but Did not Want It: Ireland,

the Sterling Area and the European Recovery Program, 1947 - 1948,” Irish Studies in International

Affairs 11 (2000): 193–215.

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As part of this Irish self-image, Ireland’s policy-makers claimed to be committed to the spiritual and

moral values of the country’s ancient culture. As a consequence, they rejected the materialism of both

American and British capitalism and state socialism.38 By accepting Marshall aid, the Irish government

was soon forced to consider its trade with Eastern Europe. The following sections of this paper will

therefore explore in more detail the response of neutral Ireland to the emerging economic cold war in the

late 1940s.

Ireland and East-West trade, 1947-1955

In common with most western European countries, Ireland experienced a shortage of vital

materials such as coal, fertiliser and bread grain as well as consumer goods in the immediate postwar

period. While the worldwide shortages of these goods prevented Ireland from obtaining sufficient coal,

fertiliser and bread grain from the western hemisphere, Irish merchants started again importing consumer

goods from Eastern European countries as early as 1946. Continued transport difficulties meant that the

recovery of Ireland’s trade with Eastern European countries remained below its pre-war share of Irish

import trade. As Table 1 shows, Denmark and Iceland relied to a much greater extent than prior to the

Second World War on imports from Eastern Europe to meet their import needs. What is even more

noticeable is that other small Western European countries increased their exports to Eastern Europe in this

———————————

38. General considerations on Ireland’s position in relation to the European Recovery Program, undated

Memorandum by T.K. Whitaker, [mid-1948], National Archives of Ireland, Department of Foreign

Affairs (hereafter NAI, DFA) 305/57 I; On the Irish nationalist self-image on Ireland, see “Memorandum

by George Gavan Duffy: The position of Ireland’s ‘Foreign Affairs’ at the date of general election, 1922

(Confidential),” 21 June 1922, in DIFP i, 468–77; see also Lowry, “New Ireland,” 174.

18

period.39 Indeed, Iceland achieved a sizeable trade surplus with the Soviet Union. In contrast, Ireland’s

trade with Eastern Europe developed rather sluggishly and remained in deficit throughout the period of

the first cold war.

Table 2 shows that Ireland’s trade with most Eastern European countries recovered slowly after

1945 with the exception of its trade with Czechoslovakia. Imports from Czechoslovakia expanded

dramatically from £267,203 in 1946 to £1,430,088 in 1947 accounting for nearly 98 per cent of all

imports from Eastern European countries primarily consisting of textiles, glassware and a variety of other

consumer goods.40 As Marshall aid flowed to Europe, Ireland’s imports from Czechoslovakia dropped

considerably to £418,627 in 1948 and £258,402 in 1949. This development begs the question whether the

decline in trade with Eastern European countries was due to the Marshall Plan or whether the Communist

take-over of the Czechoslovak government in February 1948 led to a cooling down of Irish-Czechoslovak

trade relations. Table 1 suggests that there was a major expansion of Irish imports from Eastern Europe

between 1948 and 1950. However, this increase was due to the import of Polish coal to replace the sudden

drop in British coal exports.41 Polish coal accounted for almost two thirds of Irish imports in Eastern

Europe in 1950 and more than 40 per cent in 1951. The world wide raw material shortages due to the

Korean rearmament drive forced sudden increase in Irish imports of raw materials from Eastern Europe.

———————————

39. The sample of other small neutral countries in Table is rather limited, but consists of comparable

small countries whose foreign economic policy Irish policy-makers like to monitor in this period.

40. A detailed list of Irish imports from Eastern Europe can be found in an answer to a written

parliamentary question; see Dáil Deb., vol. 143, col. 799–801, 25 November 1953.

41. The massive decrease in the availability of British coal exports was due to poor weather affecting

coal production and increased demand from households and industry due to the Korean war rearmament

programme; see Economic Survey for 1951, Cmd. 8195 (April 1952), 12–13; Economic Survey for 1952,

Cmd. 8509 (April 1952), 27–29.

19

Besides Polish coal, Ireland imported large amounts of Eastern European timber and malt in 1951. As the

raw material situation eased in 1952, Irish imports from Eastern Europe fell in 1953 considerably to

below their level in 1948. This development raises the question whether this reduction in Irish imports

from Eastern Europe was due to improvements in the availability of raw materials or to new American

restrictions on East-West trade imposed by the Battle Act.

The available trade statistics for Ireland’s role in East-West trade also reveal that Ireland exported

little to Eastern Europe in this period. A detailed analysis of Irish exports to Eastern Europe is hampered

by the lack of similarly comprehensive statistics. The available figures for 1953 indicate that a large

proportion of Irish exports went to Czechoslovakia and mainly consisted of raw wool and ropes.42 In any

case, Table 1 confirms that Irish exports were comparatively small compared to the exports of other

Western European countries such as Iceland, Portugal, Denmark, and the Netherlands. As a consequence,

Ireland did not represent a major concern for American officials charged with enforcing the restrictions

on East-West imposed by Congress as part of foreign assistance legislation in the late 1940s and early

1950s. Indeed, the American State Department and ECA officials decided not to approach Ireland about

its attempts to curtail East-West trade in summer 1948, because of the insignificant volume of Ireland's

trade with the Soviet bloc.43 At the same time, Table 1 suggests that American restrictions on East-West

trade did lead to a reduction in Western European exports to Eastern European countries after the arrival

of the Marshall aid in the spring 1948 and the passage of Battle Act in 1952. Despite Ireland’s

insignificance in East-West trade, Ireland’s trade with Eastern Europe seems to follow a similar pattern

begging the question to what extent American restrictions on East-West trade shaped Irish foreign

economic policy in this period.

———————————

42. Dáil Deb., vol. 143, col. 422–3, 19 November 1953.

43. Ian Jackson, The Economic Cold War: America, Britain and East-West Trade, 1948–1963

(Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 24.

20

This analysis of available statistics suggests that there were three phases in Ireland’s trade with

Eastern Europe: the first phase roughly covers the period of the Marshall Plan (1947-195144); the second

phase that of the Korean War (1950-1953); and the third phase that of economic detente following

Stalin’s death in 1953. The remainder of this section will analyse Irish trade policy towards Eastern

Europe during these three periods.

1st phase: The period of Marshall aid (1947-1951). As the available statistics on Ireland’s trade

with Eastern Europe show, almost all this trade took place with Czechoslovakia in 1946 and 1947. This

expansion of trade between the two countries occurred as a result of the country’s export drive in order to

earn enough foreign currency to continue financing the country’s economic recovery after the aid

provided by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in spring 1947. Lacking the

reserves to finance continued imports of vital materials, this export drive faltered in the second half of

1947 as its economy started to experience growing shortages of raw materials and food stuffs. Prevented

from participating in the Marshall Plan by Soviet pressure, Czechoslovak foreign trade collapsed due to

increased competition from other countries. Despite the government calling for a further expansion of

exports, the quality of Czechoslovak exports deteriorated as exporters preferred to sell their products on

the domestic market.45 The mounting economic problems of Czechoslovakia illustrate why countries

———————————

44. Marshall aid to Ireland was suspended in May 1951; see the statement by the minister of finance,

Patrick McGilligan in the Dáil, Dáil Deb., vol. 125, col. 1907–11, 2 May 1951; see also Harry Bayard

Price, The Marshall Plan and Its Meaning (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955), 137. However, Irish

foreign economic policy towards Eastern European countries changed noticeably after the outbreak of the

Korean War in June 1950.

45. Karel Kaplan, Der Kurze Marsch: Kommunistische Machtübernahme in der Tschechoslowakei,

1945–1948 (München: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1981), 117–18.

21

needed Marshall aid in the late 1947. At the same time, the increase of Ireland’s imports of

Czechoslovakian goods reflects the worldwide shortages of consumer products. With limited supplies of

textiles available from other countries, Irish importers willingly bought from Czechoslovak firms under

pressure from the government to increase exports. In this period, the availability of goods remained a

major determining factor of the direction of Irish foreign trade. This is borne out by another example. In

summer 1947, the Irish government seriously considered purchasing a quantity of Polish coal to

overcome the country's persistent coal shortage.The government abandoned these plans when ministers

were able to negotiate the resumption of British coal exports as part of a bilateral trade agreement in the

wake of the sterling crisis of August 1947.46 This episode underlines the fact that the Irish government

remained primarily interested in restoring its preferential trading relationship with Britain in this period.

Another factor may have played a role in the expansion of Irish-Czechoslovak trade. Despite

large-scale nationalisation of the Czechoslovak industry, the Czechoslovak government sought to

maintain its trading links with Western European economies in the immediate postwar period. Until the

country became more integrated into the Soviet economic bloc, it continued to permit private trade

between firms in this period rather than relying on state trading like many other Eastern European

economies.47 As a consequence, the expansion of trade between the two countries occurred without both

governments being engaged in extensive trade negotiations. Indeed, relations between both countries

grew closer in this period. Both countries had established consular relations in 1929, which were

disrupted after the German invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak consul, Karel Kostel,

remained in Dublin and reopened the consulate in the name of the government in exile after the outbreak

———————————

46. Geiger, “Why Ireland,” 200–202.

47. Ji i Kosta, “Die Eingliederung der tschechoslowakischen Volkswirtschaft in die Wirtschaft

Osteuropas nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg,” in Der Marshall-Plan und die europäische Linke, ed. Othmar

Nikola Haberl and Lutz Niethammer (Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlaganstalt, 1986), 267–8.

22

of the Second World.48 In 1944, the foreign minister of the Czechoslovak government in exile, Jan

Masaryk, visited to Dublin and participated in a podium discussion with de Valera on the Dumbarton

Oaks proposals for a future world organisation.49 In January 1947, Czechoslovakia upgraded its consulate

in Dublin to a legation establishing full diplomatic relations between the two countries.50 At the same

time, the Irish government rejected the Czechoslovak proposal to sign a bilateral trade agreement in

spring 1947.51 The Irish government planned to open a legation in Prague, but postponed the opening

following the Communist putsch of March 1948.52 By the spring of 1948, the trade agreement between

Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union signed in the autumn of 1947 started to change the direction of

Czechoslovak trade eastward.53 At the same time, the Czechoslovak government adopted state trading in

———————————

48. Kees van Hoek, “Dublin Ceremony Crowns Diplomat’s Life-Work,” Irish Independent, 23 May

1947.

49. On this discussion, see Geiger, “Legacy,” 27–28.

50. “Czech Legation for Dublin,” Irish Press, 30 January 1947 For a wartime portrait of the first interim

chargé d’affaires, Karel Kostel, see Kees van Hoek, Diplomats in Dublin: A Series of Prose Portraits

(Dublin: Talbot Press, 1943), 103–6.

51. NAI DFA 348/11, “Revised Minute of a Meeting of the Foreign Trade Committee,” National

Archives of Ireland, Department of Foreign Affairs (Dublin, 1948), DFA 348/11.

52. Memorandum for the Government, Appointment of Dr Kostal as Minister of Czechoslovakia, 25

April 1947, NAI DT S14012A; Michael Kennedy, “The Challenge of Multilateralism: The Marshall Plan

and the Expansion of the Irish Diplomatic Service,” in Ireland, Europe and the Marshall Plan, ed. Till

Geiger and Michael Kennedy (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), 111.

53. Kosta, “Eingliederung,” 267–9.

23

line with other eastern European countries. This development started to disrupt the trading relations

between the two countries. The Czechoslovak minister, Pavel Ruzicka, resigned his post in September

1948 out of protest about the political developments in Czechoslovakia following the events of February.

After his resignation, the Irish government decided not to accept the appointment of a successor. There

continued to be a Czechoslovak legation in Dublin until August 1950, when the Czechoslovak foreign

ministry decided to close its representation. In the meantime, a young woman without an official

accreditation acted as an intermediary between the two governments.54 After Ruzicka’s resignation, most

of the trade negotiations were conducted between the Commercial Section of Czechoslovak embassy and

Dublin's High Commission, later Embassy, in London.

The first time, that Irish policymakers considered the issue of East-West trade at length, was

when an Irish firm won the tender to supply the Irish Army band with Czechoslovak musical instruments

in April 1948. After the competition, the matter was discussed by the Interdepartmental ERP Committee

and subsequently the cabinet. Despite the misgivings of some departments, the Irish government decided

that in principle goods should be obtained from the cheapest source even if that meant importing goods

from behind the Iron Curtain.55 After Czechoslovakia became a member of the Cominform in autumn

1948, the Department of Agriculture raised the issue whether Irish firms should continue to export

foodstuff to eastern Europe. The Department of Finance initially opposed this proposal, but MacBride and

the Department of External Affairs supported the Department of Agriculture arguing in its memorandum

to the government that:

———————————

54. “Break with Prague: Diplomat’s Statement in Dublin,” Irish Independent, 1948, 1 September 1948;

Revised Minute of a Meeting of the Foreign Trade Committee, 25 October 1948, NAI, DFA 348/11; “No

Diplomatic Relations with Czechoslovakia,” Irish Independent, 4 December 1950.

55. letter Moynihan to McElligott, 5 June 1948, NAI, DFA 348/11.

24

It is not desirable that our foreign trade relations should become mixed up with political

considerations. [Indeed,] the policy of restricting trade with Czechoslovakia on the grounds

suggested would run counter to one of the basic aims of the European Recovery Programme - the

restoration and development of trade between eastern and western Europe. The development of

this trade, as a means of diminishing abnormal European demands on the Western Hemisphere,

particularly for food and fuel, was specifically recommended by President Truman when he

presented the Economic Co-operation Bill to Congress last December. Congress empathically

endorsed the principle which is now generally accepted as a basic principle of E.R.P. Mr.

Hoffman, the E.C.A. administrator, has recently made it clear that the desire of the U.S.

Government to prevent the flow of military supplies and materials to eastern European countries

is not to be taken as implying any alteration in the American Government's view of the

importance of developing normal trade between eastern and western Europe.56

In the end, ministers sided with the predominant economic interest of the country's agricultural sector

since Czechoslovakia would not derive any special advantage out of this transaction.

In the months following this decision, the Irish government became aware of the negotiations

between the United States and Britain to co-ordinate western strategic embargo policy against the Soviet

bloc in autumn 1948.57 First, an official for the ECA representation in Dublin, William Taft III., contacted

the head of the ERP section of the Department of External Affairs, Thomas Commins, in November 1948

to enquire about the scale of Ireland's trade with eastern European countries. In his official letter, Taft

stressed that in line with the provisions of European Cooperation Act, the ECA sought to “discourage the

transfer of goods to eastern Europe which for security reasons would normally be barred from export

———————————

56. Draft memorandum to the government by the minister for external affairs, 4 November 1948, NAI,

DFA 348/11.

57. Jackson, Economic Cold War, 30–1.

25

from the United States. [...] Though such matters may be perhaps academic in Ireland.” Nevertheless, Taft

requested information about the extent of and the rules governing Ireland's trade with Eastern Europe.58

Concerned that Irish officials might take this request “in the wrong way”, Taft sent Commins a personal

letter stressing that ECA had to provide this information in order to be seen to enforce the provisions of

the European Cooperation Act. Therefore, Taft thought that it would be sufficient for the Irish

government to reassure the ECA that Ireland would not re-export strategic materials to eastern Europe.59

A fortnight later, the British government raised the issue of a strategic embargo against the Soviet

bloc at a meeting of the Commonwealth ERP Liaison Committee on 7 December 1948. British officials

told the committee that the United States had presented the British government with a list of goods the

export of which it would like to prohibit. In response, the British government had drawn up its own list of

strategic goods taking into account the American list which it distributed to the other Commonwealth

countries. At a meeting of the Interdepartmental ERP Committee a week later, Commins reported that

British officials expected the ECA to enter into bilateral negotiations on the issue with nine of the

countries participating in the ERP, but not Ireland. The same meeting decided that the Department of

External Affairs should furnish the ECA representation with a breakdown of Ireland's trade with eastern

Europe and reassure the American government that Irish export controls made the re-export of strategic

items impossible.60 After having received the trade statistics from the Department of Commerce and

Industry, Commins wrote to Taft assuring him that while Ireland did not normally discriminate against

eastern European countries, the Irish government undertook to operate its export controls in line with the

———————————

58. Letter Taft to Commins, NAI DFA 305/57/132.

59. Personal letter Taft to Commins, NAI DFA 305/57/132.

60. Trade between eastern and western Europe, extract from minutes of Commonwealth ERP Liaison

Committee, undated (7 December 1948), NAI DFA 305/57/132; Minutes of the 56th meeting of the Inter-

Departmental ERP Committee, 11 December, NAI DFA 305/57/132.

26

provisions of the European Cooperation Act. As far as the future was concerned, Commins pointed out

that Ireland exported primarily agricultural products to eastern Europe including a sizeable shipment of

tinned meat to Czechoslovakia. At the same time, he did not expect an expansion of Ireland's trade with

eastern Europe in the coming years. However, Commins defended Irish imports from eastern Europe as a

contribution to easing western Europe's dollar gap.61 Over the next few years, Irish officials had few

dealings with American officials over their trade with eastern Europe. However, Ireland’s diplomatic

representatives abroad monitored closely the negotiations between the ECA and other OEEC countries

such as Norway and Sweden.

In summer 1949, the editor of the literary magazine The Bell, the writer Peadar O’Donnell,

approached the Department of External Affairs asking for a visa to travel to eastern Europe in order to

secure a substantial order for Irish herring from Poland or Czechoslovakia. In his phone conversation,

O’Donnell assured the responsible official that his sole interest was to help the Donegal fishermen to find

a market for their fish. Given O’Donnell's left-wing leanings, the Department of External Affairs

remained unconvinced that O’Donnell's motives were as selfless as he claimed, a sentiment shared by

officials in the Department of Commerce and Industry who had rejected a similar request by O’Donnell a

year earlier.62 Arguably, O’Donnell's idea was not as outlandish as it seemed to these Irish officials. In

contrast to Ireland, Iceland massively expanded its trade with eastern Europe mainly by exporting fish at

this time.

Another factor soured the trade relationship with Ireland's most important Eastern European

trading partner, Czechoslovakia, in early 1950. There had been a gentlemen's agreement between Irish

and Czechoslovak trade officials in London that a rough 4:1 balance between Irish imports from and

exports to Czechoslovakia should be preserved. However, by 1950 Ireland imported 8 times as many

———————————

61. Letter Commins to Taft, 15 January 1949, NAI DFA 305/57/132.

62. Minute JAB to Cremins, 8 August 1949, NAI DFA 348/32

27

goods from Czechoslovakia as it exported. Concerned about the growing trade imbalance, Irish officials

pressed their Czechoslovak counterparts to import more Irish goods. Czechoslovak trade representatives

tended to dismiss the figures produced by the Irish officials. In order to press their case, Irish officials

tried to obtain undisputable figures to negotiate with Czechoslovak trade representatives about the

unbalanced pattern of trade between the two countries. However, their attempts to resolve this problem

were stymied by the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 and the subsequent tightening of the

American strategic embargo of eastern Europe.63

2nd period: Korean war (1950-1953). Following the outbreak of the Korean War, the Irish

government became less flexible in its dealings with Eastern European countries. The Irish government

normally refused to issue visas to officials and representatives from state trading bodies from Eastern

European countries in order to visit Ireland intending to negotiate trade deals in person. An exception was

occasionally made for employees of state-owned firms. On one such occasion a technician from Skoda

works was permitted to travel to Cork in October 1950 in order to advise O'Shea's Ltd about the assembly

of 150 Skoda cars from imported parts.64 In the same month, the Irish government granted a visa to a

representative of the Czech paper industry, Karel Navratil, to visit Ireland in order to find a local agent for

Czech paper goods.65 This restrictive practice ruled out direct negotiations between Irish government

officials or firms and representatives from Eastern European countries adding to the difficulties arising

———————————

63. Minute 1335: Trade with Czechoslovakia, extract from minutes of the Foreign Trade Committee, 16

February 1951, NAI DFA 348/11A.

64. Letter Hurley (O'Shea's Ltd.) to Secretary, Department of Justice, 13 October 1950, NAI DFA

348/11A; Letter Svec to Biggar, 18 October 1950, NAI DFA 348/11A; Letter Biggar to Svec, 25 October

1950, NAI DFA 348/11A.

65. Letter Svec to Biggar, 21 October 1950, NAI DFA 348/11A.

28

from the lack of diplomatic relations with any Eastern European country following the closing of the

Czechoslovak legation in August 1950. All negotiations with Eastern European countries had to be

conducted through the Irish High Commission and later Embassy in London. However, the primary role

of Irish officials in London was to promote Irish exports to Ireland's most important market, Britain,

rather than conduct intricate trade negotiations with Eastern European countries. Therefore, the High

Commission tended to refer all approaches by Eastern European trade representatives back to Dublin for

decision. This procedure further complicated Ireland's trade relations with Eastern Europe. At the same

time, Irish officials expressed a degree of unease about the sudden unexplained disappearances of trade

officials from Eastern European countries. On the whole, Irish officials refused to accommodate the state

trading arrangements of Eastern European countries and remained deeply suspicious of officials from

Eastern European state trade organisations.

In March 1951, the Interdepartmental Foreign Trade Committee decided that the government

should not promote the attendance of Irish firms at trade fairs in Eastern Europe. In the words of one

Department of External Affairs official, Francis Biggar, while the government had no objections to trade

with Eastern European countries,

I feel that it would be injudicious to do anything which might suggest that we were encouraging

Irish firms to participate in a fair behind the Iron Curtain. If any Irish firms desire to participate in

the Fair we would not, of course, raise any objection.66

In line with this view, the Department of Industry and Commerce simply forwarded the publicity material

it had received for the Prague Trade Fair to the major trade associations without comment.67 At the

instigation of Biggar, the Interdepartmental Foreign Trade Committee decided no longer to include three

major trade fairs in Eastern Europe in the official list of international trade fairs for which the government

———————————

66. Letter Biggar to Connolly, 14 March 1951, NAI DFA 348/11A.

67. Letter Connolly to Biggar, 28 March 1951, NAI DFA 348/11A.

29

had received publicity material. The committee was persuaded by his argument that their inclusion might

suggest the government expected Irish trade associations to be represented at these fairs.68

During the Congressional debates of the Kem Amendment in May 1951, Irish diplomats in

Washington warned the government not to proceed with the planned further sale of lorry engines to

Czechoslovakia. Such an action might mean that the United States would discontinue financial aid to

Ireland.69 However, a month later, a member of the Irish Embassy staff, Hugh McCann, told two State

Department officials that Ireland should be in a position to certify that it was not exporting any of the

strategic materials set out in the Kem amendment. As most countries would be unable to comply with the

provisions of the Kem amendment, the American officials wondered aloud whether Ireland might not be

the only country which would not require a waiver. If this eventuality were to arise, then Irish diplomats

thought that such a development would be noticed by Ireland’s friends in Congress.70 These developments

prompted a senior official, William Fay, to minute the new minister of external affairs, Frank Aiken71,

recommending that Ireland fully comply with the provisions of the Kem amendment and impose “… a

complete embargo on any exports to the U.S.S.R. and its satellites while at the same time maintaining at

least to some extent a façade of non-discrimination.” Fay pointed out that the provisions of emergency

legislation dating from the second world war would allow the government to restrict exports to eastern

Europe based on the decision of a single minister.72 Initially, Aiken consulted with the cabinet at the next

———————————

68. minute 1351: International Trade Fairs, 1951, extract from the minutes of the Foreign Trade

Committee, 21 March 1951, NAI DFA 348/11A.

69. Letter McCann to Nunan, 24 May 1951, NAI DFA 305/57/132.

70. Letter McCann to Nunan, 12 June 1951, NAI DFA 305/57/132.

71. Fianna Fáil had just been returned to government on 13 June 1951.

72. Minute Fay to Aiken, 28 June 1951, NAI DFA 305/57/132.

30

meeting of the government to consider implementing a total embargo of exports to Eastern Europe. In the

meantime, the Department of External Affairs contacted a number of its embassies to find out more about

the policy responses of other Western European governments. Irish policy-makers soon discovered this

matter did not warrant quite the urgency that they had first assumed, because they were confident that

Ireland would be able to obtain an temporary exemption for already contracted Irish exports to Eastern

European countries from the American National Security Council. However, they were less confident that

American offiicals would regard Irish trade with Eastern Europe as being on balance advantageous to the

West in the longer term.73

Even though the government considered introducing a total embargo on exports to Eastern

Europe, Irish policy-makers were nevertheless determined to preserve Ireland’s neutrality in the cold war.

While Marshall aid to Ireland had been suspended in May 1951, the country continued to receive some

aid to complete a number of technical assistance projects. Under the Mutual Security Act, it became a

requirement that recipient countries gave an assurance that it would “take such action as may be mutually

agreed upon to eliminate causes of international tension.”74 This requirement touched a raw nerve in

Ireland. Given the public criticism of American technical assistance programmes in Ireland, the

government feared accepting this statement might be interpreted as abandoning neutrality under American

pressure. As a consequence, further aid to Ireland was discontinued.75

———————————

73. Letter Commins to Hogan, 5 July 1951, NAI DFA 305/57/132.

74. Price, Marshall Plan, 168.

75. Price, Marshall Plan, 168, particularly n. 12; Whelan, Ireland, 310; on this episode, see also Ronan

Fanning, “The United States and Irish Participation in NATO: The Debate of 1950,” Irish Studies in

International Affairs 1, no. 1 (1979): 46–47. In her book on Ireland and the Marshall Plan, Bernadette

Whelan discusses American technical assistance to Ireland in some detail; see Ireland, 315–54; on the

public debate about American technical assistance, see Till Geiger, “‘What Does America Hope to Gain?’

31

By refusing to sign the aid agreement, Ireland never agreed to abide by the provisions of the

Battle Act regarding East-West trade. However, the Irish offcials continued to comply with its provisions

on the export of strategic materials. In spring 1952, the Czechoslovak commercial attaché in London

approached his opposite number in the Irish embassy with a view to discussing increasing trade between

the two countries. The reason for his approach was the currency restrictions imposed by the Irish

Department of Finance which made it difficult for Irish importers of Czechoslovak goods to obtain the

necessary foreign currency to pay for them. In reply, the Irish embassy official, Michael Barry, said that

these restrictions had been imposed because of Ireland’s current balance of payment difficulties, but also

used the occasion to highlight the growing imbalance in Irish-Czechoslovak trade arguing that

Czechoslovakia should increase its imports from Ireland. The Czechoslovak commercial attaché said that

Czechoslovakia was particularly interested in purchasing scrap metal from Ireland. As scrap metal was a

strategic material on the American strategic export lists, the Irish offical replied that Ireland was currently

not exporting scrap metal. This reply must have struck the Czechoslovak counterpart as disingenuous as

he was aware that Ireland had exported a small amount of scrap lead to Germany. Having received

Barry’s report, the department ruled out a visit to Dublin by the Czechoslovak commercial attaché to

explore improving trade relations and pass on a list of Irish agricultural goods for export.76 As this

episode shows, the Irish government used its currency controls not only to control its trade with Eastern

Irish Left-Wing Intellectuals and the Marshall Plan,” in Ireland, Europe and the Marshall Plan, ed. Till

Geiger and Michael Kennedy (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2004), 154–81. The weight of historical

evidence disproves Gunnar Adler-Karlsson’s claim that the Truman administration did not resume aid to

Ireland in 1951, because the country failed to co-operate with American policy on trade with eastern

European countries; see Western Economic Warfare, 1947–1967: A Case Study in Foreign Economic

Policy (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1968), 59.

76. Letter Biggar to Hogan, 5 May 1952, NAI DFA 348/11A.

32

European countries, but also surreptitiously to comply with the American controls on the export of

strategic materials. By adopting this measure, Irish policy-makers hoped to curry favour with the Truman

administration in order to gain its support in ending partition.77 Therefore, the minister for industry and

commerce, Seán Lemass, issued an Emergency Powers Order following an American request in June

1952 making the export of certain goods subject to export control.78

At the same time, the Irish government turned down the invitation of the United Nations

Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Secretariat to participate in the forthcoming discussion on

East-West trade in September 1952.79 The general consensus among Irish officials was that Ireland “had

no economic interest in attending the proposed Conference; our political interest would be against it.”80 In

the end, the proposed trade talks did not take place, because the Soviet Union and its allies decided not

even to respond to the invitation.81 Nevertheless, Aiken decided in consultation with the minister for

finance, Seán MacEntree, that the government should, as a matter of policy, discourage all trade with

———————————

77. Teleprinter message 1237: Biggar to Barry, 19 April 1952, NAI DFA 348/11A

78. Memorandum for the Government on "Trade with Communist-controlled countries" by the

Department of Industry and Commerce and the Department of External Affairs, 18 September 1954, NAI

DFA 305/57/132/4.

79. Depite not being a member of the UN, Ireland had been invited to participate in its work as an

observer since its inception in 1948. However, Irish government did not participate in the work of the

commission; see Geiger, “Belated Discovery,” 38–40.

80. Minute Biggar to Fay, 22 July 1952, NAI DFA 408/137/19.

81. On the these trade negotiations, see David Wightman, Economic Co-Operation in Europe: A Study

of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (London: Stevens & Sons, 1956), 222–3.

33

Communist countries in order to avoid any discord with the American government. In a letter to the Irish

embassy in London, Biggar explained the minister’s thinking:

A fundamental principle of our foreign policy is to preserve our good relations with the

United States and in the opinion of the Minister for External Affairs, we should discourage

be careful to avoid anything which might lead to friction. The Minister does not think that

there is any possibility of developing trade with Czechoslovakia or indeed any Communist

country which would outweigh the disadvantage of the unfavourable reactions it might have

in the United States. In general therefore he feels that our purchases from Communist

countries should be confined to goods which are literally indispensible in the sense that we

could not get them elsewhere; he would not be regard as indispensible, goods which, even

though of an essential nature, can be obtained from other countries.

Applying this logic, the Irish government rejected the offer of the Czechoslovak trade representatives to

supply drainage pipes from Czechoslovakia as these were freely available from suppliers in the

Netherlands.82

In considering an embargo on all trade with Eastern Europe, Irish foreign policy-makers hoped to

curry favour with the American government. However, not all ministers supported this emerging policy

consensus in favour of a total embargo. The minister for industry and commerce, Seán Lemass, argued

that the emerging policy interpreted the provisions of the Battle Act overly restrictively. While the Battle

Act restricted the trade of certain strategic goods, the Act permitted trade of other goods. Indeed. Lemass

pointed out that the United States itself had increased its imports from the Soviet bloc in 1951. Therefore,

he argued that countries receiving American aid were free to engage in some non-strategic trade without

“endangering the receipt of aid.” As a consequence,

———————————

82. Letter Biggar to Barry, 8 October 1952, NAI DFA 348/11A.

34

[it] scarcely makes sense, therefore, to suggest that Ireland, which receives no aid, should

restrict its trade more severely than those countries which do receive aid in order to be sure

of preserving ‘good relations’.83

Given his divergent views, Lemass sought Aiken’s support for the matter to be put to the government for

a decision. After the British press reported that the president-elect, Dwight D. Eisenhower, favoured an

increase in East-West trade, Aiken revised his position now arguing that rather than reducing the essential

trade with Eastern European countries such as Czechoslovakia, Ireland should take steps to increase its

exports to redress the imbalance in this trade. However, while not objecting to increasing Irish exports to

Eastern Europe, he continued to oppose negotiating trade agreements with Eastern European countries or

granting visas to Eastern European trade officials. Tending now towards a similar position to that of

Lemass, Aiken encouraged him to submit a memorandum on East-West trade to the cabinet for

consideration.84

While Aiken and Lemass seemed to move towards a moderate position on East-West trade, the

hardliners received support from the editorial writers of the Irish Independent and the Catholic Standard.

In its leading article, the Irish Independent condemned Ireland’s trade with Eastern European countries as

supporting regimes based on slave-labour. Before highlighting the deeply imbalanced nature of this trade,

the editorial pointed out that besides enslaving its population, Communist China had been persecuting

Irish missionaries since the Communist victory in 1949.85 These persecutions particularly incensed the

Standard editorial writer, who castigated Irish importers as heartless businessmen with an eye only on

their profits.

———————————

83. Letter Murray to Fay, 14 October 1952, NAI DFA 348/11A

84. Letter Fay to Murray, 20 November 1952, NAI DFA 348/11A

85. “What Ireland Buys from the Reds,” Irish Independent, 13 January 1953.

35

Surely if they can close their hearts to the sufferings of their fellow Christians in East

Europe, they should, at least, have some doubts in their dealings with the persecutors of their

own countrymen – bishops, priests, brothers and nuns – in the Far East.86

The paper did not merely condemn the trade with Eastern European countries, but urged its readers to join

the Catholic Church’s campaign against the enslavement and persecution of the peoples living under

Communist rule.

While shocked Irishmen and women expressed their outrage about Ireland’s trade with

Communist countries in the letter pages of the Irish Independent, the Soviet Union indicated to the

UNECE Secretariat in January 1953 that they favoured a resumption of East-West trade negotiations

under the umbrella of the commission. Therefore, the Secretariat reissued its invitation to trade talks.87 A

senior official in the Department of External Affairs, William Fay, advised Aiken that Ireland should not

attend the conference, because of the government’s policy “... to have as little as possible to do with the

Communist countries.”88 Aiken agreed that Ireland should not be represented at the meeting of the trade

committee in April 1953. As a consequence, Ireland was the only European country besides Yugoslavia

not attending the trade committee meeting.89 Since the issue of East-West trade had caught the

newspapers’ interest, Irish politicians and officials may well have felt that attending the trade talks would———————————

86. “Trading with the Reds,” The Standard, 16 January 1953.

87. The reason for this change of heart is not known, but David Wightman attributes it to the failure of

Soviet bloc countries to negotiate directly with western firms or governments not bound by the provisions

of the Battle Act; see Economic Co-Operation, 222–3. Irish officials speculated that the approach by the

Czechoslovak commercial attaché in spring 1952 reflected this strategy of trying to circumvent the

American system of export controls; see Letter Biggar to Hogan, 5 May 1952, NAI DFA 348/11A.

88. Minute Fay to Aiken, 2 February 1953, NAI DFA 408/137/19.

89. Wightman, Economic Co-Operation, 223, n. 12.

36

expose the government to criticism by Catholic groups. Given the strong anti-Communist sentiments

among these groupings, such criticism might become a mass protest against events in Eastern Europe

similar to the demonstrations following the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.90

In the meantime, the arrival of a shipload of Russian timber further fuelled the public debate

about the desirability of trade with Communist countries. When asked in the Dáil, MacEntree dismissed

the oral question of an opposition TD by arguing that the timber could not have been purchased as

cheaply elsewhere. Therefore, the government approved its purchase in line with the policy adopted by

the Inter-Party government now in opposition.91 MacEntree’s rather weak defence of the government’s

continued policy, based on their predecessors’ decisions in 1948, reflected his view that trade with

Eastern European countries should be reduced to the absolute minimum. When it became known that

MacEntree planned to bring the matter before the cabinet, Fay asked Barry to put off the Czechoslovak

trade attaché until after ministers had had a chance to discuss the issue.92 At MacEntree’s behest, the

department of finance submitted a memorandum to the government on 23 February. The memorandum

proposed that the Irish government should subject all applications for foreign currency to purchase

imports from Eastern Europe to close scrutiny and only approve such requests if the proposed imports

were essential and could not be obtained from another source even at a higher price. Under this proposed

policy, the only permissable imports would be spare parts for existing Eastern European machinery. The

memorandum acknowledged that this embargo might be easily circumvented through Irish importers

purchasing Eastern European goods through British merchants. Even though the Irish economy might

suffer by adopting these restrictive controls, MacEntree argued that imports from Eastern Europe would

———————————

90. Patrick Keatinge, The Formulation of Irish Foreign Policy (Dublin: Institute of Public

Administration, 1973), 172–75.

91. Dáil Deb., vol. 136, col. 189–90, 5 February 1953.

92. Letter Fay to Barry, 7 February 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A.

37

support Communist regimes bent on destroying Ireland’s Christian culture. Moreover, he noted that while

other western countries continued to trade with Eastern European countries, they also had increased their

military capabilities to resist a Communist attack; Ireland had not. Given the small scale of Ireland’s

imports from Eastern Europe, he suggested that Ireland “has less excuse for not acting on its declared

principles.”93 After the memorandum had been circulated to the other government departments, officials

in the Department of External Affairs assumed that they would have time to respond before the issue

came up at the next meeting of the cabinet in early March.94 However, before they completed their

memorandum, ministers decided at their meeting on 27 February 1953 to adopt MacEntree’s proposed

policy of using exchange controls to reduce imports from Eastern Europe to a bare minimum.

Despite the cabinet’s decision, a memorandum from the department of external affairs

summarising Aiken’s concerns about this policy decision was circulated to government for information

on 3 March. The memorandum set out the position of other western countries in favour of expanding

East-West trade, while controlling the export of strategic goods. By adopting a more restrictive policy,

Aiken feared that Ireland’s relations with other western countries might needlessly become more

complicated. In particular, Ireland’s position might be used by anti-Communist zealots in the United

Sates to embarrass the Eisenhower administration. At the same time, it “could give rise to the jibe that the

Irish government was seeking to obtain, at little cost in trade or cash, kudos for anti-Communist

measures, while refusing to” improve the country’s military capabilities and incur the heavy cost of

rearmament. The memorandum went on to dispute that besides a vocal minority, the Irish public opposed

the East-West trade. Therefore, the consideration influencing the allocation of foreign currency for

imports should be Ireland’s balance of payments position. While Aiken continued to oppose Ireland

———————————

93. Memorandum for the Government on "Trading with countries under Communist rule" by the

Department of Finance, 23 February 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A.

94. Minute Fay to Rynne, 27 February 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A.

38

actively participating in the UNECE talks on East-West trade, he counselled that ideological

considerations should not inform trade policy. In his view, the government should not impose any

restrictions on private trade with Eastern European countries, but the government and state-owned trading

organisations should not engage in such trade.95

While Aiken promoted a more pragmatic policy which would not isolate the country from the

West, his position still argued for a policy of government non-involvement in East-West trade thereby

keeping this trade to minimum. Therefore, despite the submission of what appeared to be a dissenting

memorandum, Aiken’s more pragmatic policy did not differ radically from the policy adopted by the

government at the end of February. Indeed, department of finance officials stressed in a memorandum to

the foreign trade committee that Aiken’s view on imports from Communist countries was in line with the

government’s decision. Therefore, they argued that Communist China should now be included among the

countries for which Irish merchants required approval of foreign currency prior to beginning negotiations

with Chinese exporters about the purchase of goods.96

Despite the apparent consensus among ministers that government bodies should not purchase

goods from Eastern Europe, the Irish Catholic castigated the government for purchasing chairs from

Poland to be used at ceremonial functions at Dublin Castle. The article likened Irish civil servants to

Soviet bureaucrats for considering only price in purchasing decisions, while disregarding “national pride

or prestige, or [...] historical associations.” The author of the article was particularly incensed that the

chairs had been bought through a British merchant in London. From his perspective, the faceless

bureaucrats in Dublin had callously forgotten the centuries of British domination of Ireland from Dublin

———————————

95. Memorandum for the information of the Government on "Trade with countries under Communist

rule" by the Department of External Affairs, 3 March 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A.

96. Memorandum on "Trade with countries under Communist rule" by the Department of Finance, 14

March 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A.

39

Castle in their attempt to safe a few pennies. Their misdemeanour was made worse by buying Polish

chairs tainted by the blood of Communist slave labourers. While people living in Eastern Europe might

not have the right to protest against the excesses of Soviet bureaucracy, the author called on Irishmen and

women to call on the government to “STOP THIS FILTHY TRADE IN SLAVE LABOUR PRODUCTS”

(capitals in the original).97 By appealing to Irish Catholics to break their silence, the author indirectly

acknowledged that the continued trade with Eastern Europe was not a major issue for the general public.

The aversion of both a majority of government ministers and segments of the Irish public to a

continuation of Ireland’s trade with Eastern Europe reflected a deep-seated animosity to Communism

reflecting the ideological views of the Catholic Church. Given this antagonism, some Irish politicians led

by MacEntree favoured adopting a more hard-line policy than those of other western countries for

primarily domestic political reasons. Having left the issue of East-West trade largely to the deliberations

of the foreign trade committee, MacEntree made this an issue at a time when Ireland faced a deepening

recession and severe balance of payments problems. By embracing a tough policy on trade with

Communist countries, he could curry favour with members of his party at a time when Lemass and others

more or less openly criticised MacEntree’s economic policies.98 In contrast to MacEntree, those ministers

such as Aiken and Lemass who were actively shaping Irish foreign policy, argued for a more nuanced and

less openly aggressive policy of limiting imports from Communist countries. In particular, Aiken was

concerned that an embargo of all direct imports from Communist countries would be seen as a cynical

gesture by other western governments to demonstrate Ireland’s opposition to Communism without

incurring the heavy cost of rearmament. Given the small scale of Ireland’s trade with Eastern Europe, the

cost of ending trade with Communist countries would have been relatively minor, particularly as Irish

politicians at no point suggested preventing the indirect import of such goods via Britain or another non-

———————————

97. “Bloodstained Chairs in Dublin Castle,” The Irish Catholic, 19 March 1953.

98. John Horgan, Seán Lemass: The Enigmatic Patriot (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1997), 158–9.

40

Communist country. At the same time, this exchange also reveals that the Irish government was oblivious

to the conflict between United States and its allies over East-West trade in this period.99 To some extent,

the lack of awareness of these conflicts reflected the fact that the department of external affairs primarily

monitored the policies of the United States and other neutral countries on East-West trade rather than

using their contacts with British officials to elicit information about the British position in this period. As

a consequence, the deliberations of Irish politicians occurred against the background of domestic protests

primarily driven by ideological convictions, but in isolation from the wider international debate over East-

West trade.

3rd phase: Signs of economic detente (1953-). At the same time as Irish politicians tightened the

rules on imports from Eastern Europe, many western European policy-makers hoped that Stalin’s death

on 5 March 1953 would lead to an easing of cold war tensions and pave the way for an increase in East-

West trade. Over the next year, British policy-makers pushed the Eisenhower administration to relax the

existing restriction on East-West trade. Under British diplomatic pressure, the Eisenhower administration

did agree to a reform of the CoCom lists in early 1954.100 On an international level, the trade talks

———————————

99. Jackson, Economic Cold War, 111–27; Alan P. Dobson, US Economic Statecraft for Survival, 1933–

1991: Of Sanctions, Embargoes and Economic Warfare (London: Routledge, 2002), 120–34; Gunther

Mai, “Osthandel and Westintegration, 1947–1957. Europa, die USA, die OEEC und die Entstehung einer

Hegemonialen Partnerschaft,” in Vom Marshallplan Zur EWG: Die Eingliederung der Bundesrepublik

Deutschland in die Westliche Welt, ed. Ludolf Herbst, Werner Bührer, and Hanno Sowade (München: R.

Oldenbourg, 1990), 218–21.

100. Jackson, Economic Cold War, 128–48.

41

organised by the UNECE Secretariat cleared the way to the negotiation of bilateral trade agreements

between most western and eastern European countries over the next two years.101

After the government’s decision to prevent imports from Communist countries, Ireland chose to

remain on the sidelines of these developments by not attending the UNECE organised conference on East

West trade in April 1953. Over the next six months, the issue disappeared out of the headlines of the Irish

press. At the same time, Irish officials noted that other Western European countries relaxed their

restrictions on trade with Communist countries and readily entered into bilateral trade agreements with

Eastern European countries.102 Indeed, several Irish firms reported the growing interest of Communist

countries in Irish exports, particularly canned meat. While the government’s decision did not restrict the

export of non-strategic goods, officials of the department of agriculture held off replying to an inquiry

from a meat exporter about an export license for canned meat to the Soviet Union in order to seek

ministerial approval for such exports. Before submitting a memorandum to the government, the

department of agriculture sought the agreement of the other departments directly concerned. The

department of external affairs and the department of industry and commerce both indicated that they saw

no objections to exporting canned meat to Eastern European countries. After considering the matter for

several weeks, even the department of finance decided not to comment on the proposal. When the matter

was discussed in the Foreign Trade Committee, officials of the various departments agreed that as the

export of non-strategic goods was not restricted by the provisions of the Battle Act, other western

European countries would meet the obvious demand for canned meat, if Ireland chose to prohibit such

exports. Moreover, the department of agriculture pointed out in its memorandum for the the government

———————————

101. Wightman, Economic Co-Operation, 224–7.

102. Danish-Soviet Trade Agreement, 4 September 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A.

42

that it was in Ireland’s commercial interest to increase its meat exports to other markets. The cabinet

approved the proposal by the department of agriculture at its meeting on 18 September 1953.103

The arrival of a shipload of Russian timber in September 1953 led to renewed correspondence by

concerned citizens to the press.104 These reports prompted one TD to submit a written question by the

right-wing Fine Gael TD, Oliver Flanagan, to Aiken about Ireland’s trade with the Soviet Union and the

extent of the government’s involvement in this trade. Standing in for Aiken, the minister for health and

social welfare, James Ryan, reassured the Dáil at the end of October that Ireland’s trade with the Soviet

Union was confined almost totally to the import of timber. Furthermore, he stressed that no official trade

correspondence between the two countries had taken place at any level.105

While this clear statement reflected the government’s policy, Ryan neglected to tell TDs that the

government had decided to lift the currency restrictions on all trade with Eastern Europe a few days

earlier. In their meeting on 20 October 1953, ministers had been pursuaded that these restrictions had

proved ineffectual, because as long as Britain continued to trade with Eastern bloc countries, Irish firms

would be able to purchase goods from Eastern Europe from British importers without needing prior

approval for foreign currency from the Irish government. As a consequence, the restrictions imposed by

the cabinet in February put Irish importers at an disadvantage in competing with the re-exports of Eastern

———————————

103. Minute 1351: Exports to Communist Countries, extract from the minutes of the Foreign Trade

Committee, 28 August 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A; Memorandum for the Government on "Proposed export

of meat to Soviet Russia" by the Department of Agriculture, 10 September 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A;

Letter Moynahan - Nunan, 18 September 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A.

104. “Pro Integrity”, “Trade with Russia, Letter to the Editor,” Irish Independent, 11 September 1953.

105. Dáil Deb., volume 142, col. 777, 28 October 1953.

43

European goods purchased from Britain or other western countries.106 Nevertheless, this decision caused a

certain amount of disquiet. The Apostolic Nuncio informally raised with de Valera the issue of whether

restriction should be imposed on trade with Soviet bloc countries. In a response to a request from the

department of the taioseach, Fay submitted a memorandum which stressed the very limited nature of

Ireland’s East-West trade and the difficulty of imposing restrictions on the imports of goods from

Communist countries.107

In theory, the relaxation of the currency restrictions for trade with Eastern Europe liberalised all

private trade between Ireland and Communist countries. However, most Eastern European countries

conducted their trade with Western countries through state trading organisations and tended to send

purchasing missions to conclude deals. This reliance on state trading presented a major obstacle to

normalising Ireland’s trading relationship with Eastern Europe, because the Irish government remained

opposed to entering into any formal trade agreement with Eastern European countries or allowing state

officials from Communist countries to enter Ireland. After the recent question in the Dáil, some ministers

felt uneasy about any formal contacts with state officials from Eastern European countries, because of the

potential political fall-out. As a consequence, Irish officials faced a conundrum as to how to inform

Eastern European governments of the change in its trade policy and indeed government’s desire to

increase Irish exports to Eastern European countries. In contrast to the elected politicians, officials on the

———————————

106. Memorandum for the Government on "Trade with Communist-controlled countries" by the

Department of Industry and Commerce and the Department of External Affairs, 18 September 1954, NAI

DFA 305/57/132/4.

107. Letter Moynahan - Nunan, 2 November 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A; Letter Fay - Moynahan, 19

November 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A; Draft memorandum for the Government on "Considerations

affecting the question whether any restrictions should be imposed on the import or export trade with the

U.S.S.R. and associated countries" by Fay, 9 November 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A.

44

Foreign Trade Committee favoured an Irish official in London approaching the Czechoslovak embassy to

inform them that the currency restrictions had been lifted. Despite the unease of Lemass, Biggar argued in

an internal memorandum that this position was nonsensical because increasing trade between Irish firms

and Eastern European countries would require some contacts between Irish officials and purchasing

missions from Eastern European countries. Therefore, he felt that Barry should tell the Czechoslovak

trade attaché about the recent change in policy.108

When the Anglo-Irish Bloodstock Agency approached the Irish government to allow a Russian

purchasing mission to enter Ireland in order to inspect and potentially buy Irish horses, Aiken

spearheaded an attempt to lift the prohibition on such contacts and the visits of purchasing missions in

January 1954.109 However, the government decided to adhere to its policy of not permitting such visits.110

A few weeks later, the Irish Catholic congratulated the government for heeding public opinion and

refusing to grant visas to the Russian purchasing mission.111 Despite this hardline position, the Foreign

Trade Committee approved the semi-governmental Sea Fisheries Board underwriting the export sale of

herrings to Czechoslovakia. However, the private exporter declined the offer as the firm was unwilling to

pay the small commission demanded by the Sea Fisheries Board.112 In early March, the Russian Embassy

in London submitted the passports of the bloodstock purchasing mission to the Irish Embassy in order to

obtain visas for the delegation. Given the government’s decision, Barry saw the Soviet Trade

———————————

108. Memorandum Biggar - Fay, 18 November 1953, NAI DFA 348/11A.

109. Memorandum for the Government on "Trade with Communist Countries” by the Department of

External Affairs, 28 January 1954, NAI DFA 348/11A.

110. Telegramme Fay - Boland, 29 January 1954, NAI DFA 348/11A.

111. “This Time Ireland Says ‘NO’,” The Irish Catholic, 11 February 1954.

112. Memorandum Biggar - Fay, 24 February 1954, NAI DFA 348/11A.

45

Commissioner, Andrienko, in order to explain the Irish position and communicate its regret at having

been placed in a position having to refuse the visa applications. In reply, Andrienko told Barry that Soviet

imports of western goods particularly food was expanding rapidly and Ireland stood to lose out if it did

not permit the inspection of goods prior to export.113 Nevertheless, the government again formally

rejected the request of the Soviet delegation.114 At the same time, officials in the Department of External

Affairs approved the export of Irish meat to the Soviet Union as long as no Soviet official had to inspect it

before loading, but they would have accepted a Soviet ship picking up the meat.115

In May 1954, the Irish electorate returned the second Inter-Party government under the leadership

of John Costello. However, the change of government did not change public hostility towards trade with

Communist countries. In early June, both Dun Laoghaire Borough Cooperation and the annual conference

of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union called on the government to end all trade with Soviet

bloc countries.116 Despite continued public opposition to trade with Eastern Europe, the officials on the

foreign trade committee nevertheless decided to resubmit the issue of whether semi-government bodies

such as the Sea Fish Board could sell pickled herrings to Eastern Europe and of whether in future trade

representatives from Communist countries would be permitted to enter Ireland.117 After lengthy

discussions, the minister for external affairs, Liam Cosgrove, submitted a memorandum to the

———————————

113. Letter Drummond - Fay, 24 March 1954, NAI DFA 348/11A.

114. Letter Fay - Haughey, 5 April 1954, NAI DFA 348/11A.

115. Telegramme Biggar - Barry, 6 April 1954, NAI DFA 348/11A.

116. “Call for Ban on Russian Imports,” Irish Independent, 9 June 1954; “Objection to Russian

Imports,” Irish Times, 9 June 1954; Letter Cahill - Biggar, 5 June 1954, NAI DFA 348/11A.

117. minute 2008: East/West Trade - Proposed Export of Herrings, extract from the minutes of the

Foreign Trade Committee, 11 June 1954, NAI DFA 348/11A

46

government asking for an easing of the current policy.118 After a lengthy discussion, the memorandum

was withdrawn from the agenda, but ministers decided that the policy outlined in the mmemorandum

might serve as a guide for future policy on a case by case basis.119

Given the hostile public opinion to continued trade with Communist countries, Irish ministers

remained extremely reluctant to adopt policies which might encourage an expansion of trade with

Communist countries. In particular, politicians opposed to formal contacts between Irish officials and

trade representatives from state trading organisations from Communist countries. Officials continued

calling for a relaxation of this policy, because they realised that Ireland might be losing out on potential

export markets for meat and herrings. In the end, government ministers, rather than formally reversing

existing policy decided instead to allow officials to meet with their counterparts as long as this did not

lead to protests from the general public. With the easing of tensions in the cold war, Irish officials did

assist in the negotiation of individual transactions, but Ireland remained the only Western European

country which did not enter into any trade agreements with eastern European countries until the early

1970s.

Conclusions

As this paper shows, a number of different forces profoundly shaped Ireland's foreign economic

policy on East-West trade. In the 1940s, policy decisions were largely left to officials in the

———————————

118. Memorandum for the Government on "Trade with Communist-controlled countries" by the

Department of Industry and Commerce and the Department of External Affairs, 18 September 1954, NAI

DFA 305/57/132/4

119. Letter O’N - Nunan, 28 September 1954, NAI DFA 348/11A; Memorandum on “Trade with

countries under Communist rule” by O’N, 5 November 1954, NAI DFA 348/11A.

47

Interdepartmental Foreign Trade committee. On balance, these officials took steps to discourage East-

West trade as much as possible in line with American strategic embargo policy and the policy responses

of other small western European countries. Despite the small scale of this trade, the issue of Irish trade

with eastern Europe did become contentious in the early 1950s. Ministers were sensitive to the suggestion

that goods from communist countries were manufactured by slave labour and that therefore the only

moral policy for the government would be to ban the import of these goods. Foreign policymakers tended

to adopt a more cautious approach not wanting to be seen as taking sides in the cold war and openly

discriminating against eastern European countries. This position was not always consistent.

As a neutral country, Ireland refused to sign the new agreement for continued economic aid under

the Mutual Security Act in early 1952. Nevertheless, this analysis suggests that Ireland largely complied

with the provisions of the Battle Act, because compliance did not involve any significant costs to the Irish

economy. At the same time, Irish policy-makers hoped to curry favour with successive American

administrations through complying with the strategic embargo policy. Moreover, by adopting a strategic

embargo policy, the Irish government could be seen as having sound anti-Communist credentials in

outside world, while at home this stance might assuage the strong Catholic voices advocating a total

cessation of trade with eastern European countries. Interventions such as these by the Catholic hierarchy

and organisations strengthened the Irish government’s resolve to keep trade with Communist countries to

a minimum. As a consequence, Irish governments continued to reject the periodic approaches by Eastern

European governments to conclude a bilateral trade agreement.

The debates over East-West trade provide historians with a novel perspective of the nature of

Irish foreign policy and neutrality during the the early cold war. On the one hand, foreign policy was

characterised by quixotic ideas about Ireland as an independent Catholic nation wedded to moral ideals

and the principles of liberal non-interference in private trade. This idealistic stance is reflected in the

refusal to accept further aid under the Mutual Security Act as this demonstrated the government’s

independence from the outside pressure of potential hegemons such as the United States or Britain. On

the other hand, the country’s foreign economic policy was marked by a certain degree of realism,

particular a realisation that Ireland depended on the export of agricultural products. Therefore, Irish

48

foreign policy-makers accepted that they could not be seen as totally out of step with the western

community if they wanted to secure American support for resolving the issue of the country’s continued

division. At the same time, it remains clear that Irish foreign policy was primarily shaped by the

nationalist agenda for an independent Ireland rather than the expansion of international trade in order to

spur economic growth in this period.

49

50

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