History:Scene: Buckingham Palace, March 1937. Occasion: a meeting between the Irish High Commissioner in London, John Dulanty, and the new king, George VI.
His late father (George V), according to the King, "had always a quiet but real admiration" for de Valera because, however much they differed politically, "you had to admire the President's rare gift of natural good manners", unlike some he could mention - Churchill, for example. He was one of the ablest men in the country but had no team spirit - "he is like the cat that walks alone".
The fifth volume of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy opens in 1936, just after the abdication of George VI's brother. De Valera, as Michael Kennedy writes in the introduction, was the dominant intellectual force behind Irish foreign policy in the late 1930s. He was supported not only by the older generation of diplomats - Joseph Walshe, John Dulanty and John Hearne - but also by an impressive younger generation, men such as Con Cremin, Michael Rynne and William Warnock, who reflected the energy within the department of external affairs in the last years of peace.
The Economic War with Britain was now entering its fifth year but, as Dulanty's conversation with George VI illustrated, relations with Britain were improving, largely thanks to the persistence of the young dominions secretary, Malcolm MacDonald, who emerges as one of the heroes of this book. Throughout 1937 the two governments were edging slowly towards agreement, but before negotiations could start several thorny issues had to be settled, notably the new constitution, which came into effect in December 1937, and the coronation of George VI in May 1937. De Valera did not attend the coronation, but the British nervously awaited his reaction as various noble nonentities emerged from the pages of Debrett's to claim at the ceremony ancient titles, such as High Constable and High Steward of Ireland. De Valera was remarkably laid-back about these Ruritanian folderols, accepting that they were "traditional".
In January 1938 the two governments embarked on protracted negotiations, which ended the Economic War and secured the unconditional return of the Treaty ports. On the eve of the talks one of MacDonald's officials commented that the 1921 Treaty was a damnosa hereditas in Anglo-Irish relations. The wheel had come full circle.
The inexorable march to war was already clear in the reports from Irish diplomats in Paris, Rome, Geneva, Berlin and Madrid. Some of the reports were incisive, notably those of Frank Cremins in Geneva and Michael MacWhite in Rome. In April 1939 MacWhite noted that Mussolini was "wearing a troubled look these days" and that fascism was "ageing fast". From Spain, Leopold Kerney was reporting on the antics of O'Duffy's Irish Brigade, which was fighting for Franco. O'Duffy was propping up the bars of Salamanca while one Francoist general complained that the "worst possible Irishmen" had been sent to Spain and "it would be a good riddance to pack them into aeroplanes and send them to the Reds". Other reports were plain footling. Art O'Brien, for example, wrote five moaning pages about the failure to play the Irish national anthem at an equestrian event in Paris (what was played instead was a "very bad gramophone record" of O'Donnell Abu).
The reports of Charles Bewley, Minister in Berlin almost right up to the start of the second World War, leave an altogether nastier taste. Kennedy politely describes him as the "most problematical" of Irish diplomats, but that is an understatement. In his December 1938 report on Kristallnacht, Bewley wrote that the measures against the Jews were justified and that the reports of violence were much exaggerated, anyhow. In February 1939 he believed there was little prospect of war, because of German actions. What was this raving anti-Semite doing in the Department and why did he stay en poste for so long? Bewley left in August 1939. The book ends sombrely with a report from the Irish chargé d'affaires, William Warnock. He was summoned to the Reichstag at 10am on September 1st, 1939 to hear Hitler, looking "worn and worried", announce the invasion of Poland and that "the testing time had come". Just how testing will be revealed in the next volume of this absorbing and impressive series.
• Deirdre McMahon is a history lecturer at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick
• Documents on Irish Foreign Policy Volume V Edited by Michael Kennedy et al. Royal Irish Academy/ National Archives/ Department of Foreign Affairs, 554pp. €45