New Ireland, Old Empire and the Outside World, 1922–49: The Strange Evolution of a ‘Dictionary Republic’

Abstract

The right to pursue a policy of neutrality in wartime has generally come to be considered in the twentieth century as the ultimate yardstick of national sovereignty. Yet within a year of the end of the Second World War, in which Irish neutrality had been so successfully asserted, and almost a decade after all monarchical forms had been expunged from the internal institutions of the Irish state, there took place in the Dail what must surely rank as one of the most extraordinary parliamentary exchanges in the history of national autonomy. In the summer of 1946, James Dillon, one of the few parliamentary critics of neutrality, read – to the embarrassment of the Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera – the letter of credence recently presented by the Irish Minister Plenipotentiary to the King of Sweden. The Irish Minister’s credentials opened with the words, ‘My Brother’, and concluded, ‘Given at my Court at Buckingham Palace, 20th day of June, 1946. I am, Sir, my Brother, Your Majesty’s good Brother George, Rex Imperator. Countersigned – Eamon de Valera’.1 Dillon alleged, moreover, that Dail deputies felt a greater sense of indignity when Joseph Walshe, the first Irish diplomat to hold the formal rank of Ambassador, was appointed as envoy to the Holy See with letters of credence signed by the British sovereign, who was also titled, of course, ‘Defender of the [Protestant Reformed] Faith’ (even if on this occassion the King did not include this title, in deference to Irish sensitivities).2