Chicanery and candour: the Irish Free State and the Geneva Protocol, 1924–5

Abstract

The foreign policy of the Irish Free State under the Cumann na nGaedheal administrations of 1922–32 was a far more complex issue than has generally been realised. Policy had a greater scope than simply Anglo-Irish relations. It had two basic foundations. Through the 1921 treaty, the state reluctantly joined the British Commonwealth. Then, with great deliberation, the Free State joined the League of Nations, being admitted on 10 September 1923. By developing an active multidimensional foreign policy using these structures, the new state sought to show its ‘international’ and European credentials. The Irish Free State was to carve out a small niche for itself in the post-Versailles world order. An analysis of the Free State’s response to the Geneva Protocol of 1924 provides a case study of this multifaceted foreign policy in action.As the foundations of Irish foreign policy in the 1920s, the League and the Commonwealth were played off against each other. A prominent stance at the League indicated that although the Free State was a dominion, it was not tied to the imperial line and could act independently to secure its own interests. The Free State’s position as a radical dominion was emphasised through League membership as the state used its independence at the League in the 1920s to develop the concept of the Commonwealth as a looser international grouping of equals. This approach to foreign policy served to benefit both core aspects of the state’s foreign relations. Generally these two core aspects of foreign policy complemented each other.