On a Monday evening in October, people gathered for a public meeting on neutrality in Thurles, Co Tipperary. Some had been out canvassing for presidential candidate Catherine Connolly and arrived wearing “Connolly don Uachtaránacht” T-shirts and “CC” badges.
When asked what motivated them to canvass, one attendee – who had never been involved in politics before – said it boiled down to one thing: neutrality.
This week, Connolly was inaugurated as 10th president of Ireland, having received the highest number of first-preference votes in presidential election history.
Considering that a January 2025 Ireland Thinks opinion poll found that 75 per cent of people support maintaining Ireland’s neutrality, it is hardly surprising that the presidential election returned a landslide victory for a candidate whose political career and election campaign focused heavily on doing precisely that.
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Yet this simple truth – that neutrality is important to the Irish people – is repeatedly downplayed, dismissed or ridiculed by some voices in the media. This trend has ratcheted up since the beginning of the year in step with the Government’s embrace of escalating European militarisation. Much media commentary is critical of neutrality and supportive of Government policy. It frequently attempts to normalise a fundamental reorientation of the Irish State, whilst casting those who support neutrality as out of step with respectable, even rational, opinion.
Joining EU or Nato-led military missions makes it far more likely that Ireland will be exposed to attack because Ireland will become a combatant in their wars
This media commentary has expanded to include more voices from outside Ireland – including from former Nato commanders on RTÉ Radio and the former head of the British army, Jock Stirrup, who suggested that Ireland’s relationship with Nato was “under threat” from Connolly’s election. Eoin Drea, senior research officer at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, the official think tank of the European People’s Party (EPP) of which Fine Gael is a member, wrote in Politico that “Catherine Connolly’s election as Ireland’s next president highlights just how delusional the country has become when it comes to security”, arguing that “only a defence union with Britain can save Ireland now”. In an article published in The Irish Times, Ben Tonra, a UCD professor and secretary (voluntary/non-remunerated) of the Irish Defence and Security Association (IDSA), a lobby group which counts US arms giant Lockheed Martin among its members, argued that an unmendable rift has opened between the US and Europe, which is threatening the interests and security of small states in Europe, Ireland in particular.
Only a fool would deny that the US is rapidly changing under president Donald Trump’s watch. But what we are witnessing is not the end of the transatlantic alliance but its “redefinition” to fit a longer-term reorientation of US geopolitical interest towards China. The US will maintain its military dominance over Europe through Nato, but will both cut costs, as European states pay their own way, and profit handsomely, as they invest in US arms.
For those critical of Irish neutrality, this geopolitical volatility demands Ireland jettison the fundamental principles that have historically guided its foreign policy. Tonra argues that while Ireland’s “historic neutrality was born of necessity, prudence and principle”, it must evolve into a readiness to co-operate closely with Europe, and that “embedding ourselves more firmly in the EU can be seen not as a loss of sovereignty but as a redefinition of it”.
But the Irish people already exercised their sovereign right by rejecting two referendums (Nice I and Lisbon I) because of justified fears they would see Irish involvement in EU military structures. To get both treaties over the line, the respective governments of the day gave legal and political commitments to protect Irish neutrality through the triple lock. The current Government’s plan to remove the triple lock seeks to “redefine” Irish sovereignty as taking part in EU and Nato missions overseas without a UN mandate. This would not represent a reclamation of Ireland’s sovereignty, but its betrayal.
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Joining EU or Nato-led military missions makes it far more likely that Ireland will be exposed to attack because Ireland will become a combatant in their wars. Strengthening our neutrality, on the other hand, would send a clear message that we are a non-militarily aligned State that poses a threat to no one. This is not an outlandish or delusional idea. It is provided for in customary international law and in international treaties including the Hague V Convention, which sets out “the rights and duties of neutral powers”, and it has kept Ireland safe through a world war, the cold war and the “war on terror”.
A 2017 UN resolution sets out that neutrality may be used to promote “preventive diplomacy, including through the prevention of conflict, mediation, good offices, fact-finding missions, negotiation, the use of special envoys, informal consultations, peacebuilding and targeted development activities”. But this is where Ireland’s strength could lie as an actively neutral country. It would resonate more with how a large majority of the Irish public want the country to act on the global stage than keeping up appearances with the so-called “coalition of the willing” and carving out partnerships with Nato.
We rarely see our neutrality framed in the media as a construct – anchored in democratic will, international law and decades of diplomatic practice – that provides a pathway to promote peace at a time of deepening global instability and the normalisation of genocide.
What of the legacy of Frank Aiken, who represented Ireland at the UN and advanced peace initiatives at the height of the cold war that directly challenged the interests of the global nuclear superpowers, the US and the USSR? As a Fianna Fáil minister, he spearheaded the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, still in place today, while also calling for demilitarisation zones in eastern Europe “underpinned by the neutrality of the surrounding states”. Aiken espoused a policy of active neutrality, demonstrating courage and leadership at a time of intense geopolitical tension. In her inaugural speech, President Catherine Connolly invoked this tradition, recalling that, as a sovereign, neutral nation, “Ireland is particularly well placed to lead and articulate alternative, diplomatic solutions to war”.
We need an honest debate on neutrality that reflects the opinions of the many Irish people who support it. The public have sought democratic avenues to protect neutrality by getting involved in Catherine Connolly’s presidential campaign and by pushing motions to keep the triple lock in their local councils (eight and counting). Let’s make space for a discussion of the opportunities arising from Ireland’s neutrality instead of deriding it.
Niamh Ní Bhriain is a programme co-ordinator at the Transnational Institute, an international research and advocacy institute. Patrick Bresnihan is associate professor in the Department of Geography at Maynooth University. Rory Rowan is assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Trinity College Dublin
