Irish neutrality policy 'not as traditional as often supposed'

THE FORMER secretary general at the Department of Foreign Affairs Noel Dorr has pointed out that Ireland’s policy on neutrality is not as traditional as some believe.

Emphasising that he was himself glad that Ireland was not in Nato or any military alliance, he explained that Éamon de Valera, Seán McBride, Seán Lemass and Jack Lynch had each indicated while in office they were prepared to abandon neutrality.

Mr Dorr was speaking last night in the Irish School of Ecumenics (ISE) in Dublin at a launch of Neutrality: Irish Experience, European Experience, a collection of papers presented at the conference on the same theme which took place in Dublin last May. It was organised by the ISE and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

He said that in July 1946 then taoiseach Éamon de Valera told the Dáil that had the League of Nations felt it necessary to intervene militarily when Italy invaded Abyssinia in 1935, he would have felt obliged to bring a motion before the Dáil supporting such action. Mr Dorr also recalled how, as minister for external affairs in 1949, Seán MacBride proposed a bilateral alliance with the US, but later changed his mind.

In July 1961 Ireland applied to join the EEC, then the only non-Nato state among the three applicant countries of Ireland, the UK and Denmark. At a press conference in September 1962 then taoiseach Seán Lemass said that “we do not wish, in the conflict between the free democracies and the communist empires, to be thought of as neutral. We are not neutral and do not wish to be regarded as such . . .”

In July 1969 taoiseach Jack Lynch told the Dáil “we have no policy of traditional neutrality in this country like countries such as Sweden, Switzerland and Austria.” He said, once in the EEC, “we would naturally be interested in the defence of the territories embraced by the communities.”

Mr Dorr’s paper said the policy today was a decision that Ireland should remain outside alliances while co-operating actively to advance our values and participating with EU partners and others in crisis resolution and in UN-mandated peacekeeping.