A Revision of “the Irish Exception”: Seán Murphy, Irish Recognition Policy and the Republic of France, 1944

Abstract

The article reframes Irish wartime neutrality. It posits that Ireland’s policy towards Vichy France conformed to the prevailing legal interpretations in the field of diplomatic recognition. This was consistent with the practice of Ireland’s longstanding recognition policy from the 1930s until the 1960s. An enigma, however, envelops Ireland’s retention of the Irish Minister to the Republic of France, Seán Murphy, after the fall of Marshall Philippe Pétain in August 1944. Charles de Gaulle’s Provisional Government demanded the replacement of all heads of missions who had served in France during the Vichy interlude. This violated the traditional practice of recognition law as understood by Ireland and other neutrals. But the neutrals, with the exception of Ireland, reluctantly complied with the demand. How did the Irish Department of External Affairs succeed in circumventing this? No evidence of an illusive “back channel”, that some authors speculate ended the accreditation crisis, has been found. There is limited evidence that secondary factors, such as the proposed establishment of an Irish Red Cross Hospital in Normandy, played a direct or significant role in senior French decision makers’ calculations to reverse their policy in the case of Murphy. This article offers a fresh explanation for France’s extension of a dispensation to Ireland: on petition from the Irish government, René Massigli, the new French Ambassador in London, made two decisive interventions which altered the climate of opinion in Paris and enabled Seán Murphy to remain. “We had no quarrel with any group of Frenchmen and our one desire with regard to France was to see her whole people united under one Government… We did not want quarrels between Frenchmen in Ireland1.”