Trading with the Enemy: Ireland, the Cold War and East–West trade, 1945–55

Abstract

Using Ireland's foreign economic policy on East-West trade as a case study, this article challenges the claims by other historians that Ireland became the object of American hegemonic pressure in the early Cold War. The analysis shows that the Irish government remained a minor, but fiercely independent actor in the Cold War confrontation. While Irish policy-makers resisted entering into any agreement with the United States that would force Ireland to support its Cold War strategy or restrict trade with the Soviet bloc, they also rejected the advances of communist countries to expand bilateral trade. Nevertheless, domestic political considerations rather than external pressure shaped Irish foreign economic policy on East-West trade. This stance reflected countervailing conceptions of Irish foreign policy: the idealistic notion of Ireland as a Catholic country pursuing a moral foreign policy, its commitment to neutrality and a realistic appraisal of Ireland's embeddedness within the West.