Sir, – Prof Geoffrey Roberts takes Diarmaid Ferriter (Opinion & Analysis, February 4th) to task on the issue of Ireland’s wartime neutrality, accusing him of making a political, rather than a historical, assessment of the reasons behind de Valera’s stance in the period. He goes on to put Prof Ferriter’s opinion in what he calls the “long tradition of attempts to justify neutrality”.
I would have thought neutrality was a self-evident good, and one should not go to war unless the alternative is more unpalatable for one’s country. This cynical attitude was, after all, the one struck by the Allied Powers themselves prior to the outbreak of war. Britain and France only declared war on Hitler when they realised that selling Austria and Czechoslovakia down the river wouldn’t be enough to assuage him; the Americans only came in when they were bombed.
Quite what Prof Roberts finds objectionable in de Valera being more successful in pursuing Allied policy than the allies themselves is hard to fathom.
There is, of course, another “long tradition” in Irish history, one much more rarely spoken of than the one he accuses Prof Ferriter of being part of, but one which has been present since the foundation of the State and which hasn’t gone away.
It is an attitude of mind which, at its core, has never really accepted the right of this State to exist, and consequently, cannot accept its right not to support “real” countries such as Britain, France or America when their national interests require that we do so. It is the same attitude exhibited in Churchill’s contemptuous address toward the State at the end of the second World War, and the same attitude which has lead to the craven collapse of our politicians before the troika today.
Perhaps as a historian, Prof Roberts might like to address it. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Prof Geoffrey Roberts (February 8th) seems to me to miss the real historical point in his response to the article by Prof Diarmaid Ferriter. The policy of neutrality in 1939-1945 had nothing essentially to do with the war against Nazi Germany (however morally justified that war may have been) but was determined by internal divisions within the 26 counties in the wake of the Civil War.
These divisions imposed a moral imperative of their own. It is perhaps hard for the British to realise how much they were hated in Ireland in 1939. But an historical perspective ought not to be difficult in this respect even for British historians.
The British betrayed the act of its own sovereign parliament in 1914 by failing to stand over the constitutional settlement of Home Rule at the end of the war in 1918 after many of John Redmond’s supporters had given their lives in support of the British during the war.
In 1920 the Welsh prime minister Lloyd George, together with the Ulster Scot deputy prime minister Bonar Law, sent the Black and Tans into Ireland with catastrophic consequences. Even today, as I discovered in a conversation in the Berkeley Hotel as recently as last Saturday, it is difficult to discuss this subject with any degree of calmness or historical objectivity. In 1921 the British partitioned Ireland. If, for example, the Irish had partitioned England in 1921, I as an Englishman would find it difficult to forgive them.
In keeping the 26 counties intact through the Emergency, Eamon de Valera deserves our praise not our censure. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – What your caption describes as the undated photograph of Éamon de Valera being greeted by Winston Churchill was taken at a Downing Street lunch in September 1953 (Opinion Analysis, February 8th).
Although their mutual antagonism dated back at least to 1921, this was the first meeting of the two men. Although de Valera made an appeal to Churchill on Irish unity, this was essentially a courtesy meeting of two old adversaries whose positions on Anglo-Irish relations were well-entrenched.
As I quote in my De Valera and the Ulster Question: 1917-1973, it is probably best summed up in the private exchange between two retired diplomats who, having represented their countries in Dublin during the second World War, were well placed to comment. Britain's Lord Rugby wrote to his American counterpart, David Gray: "I wonder how Winston and Dev got on! No warmth I'll bet."
The figure on the right of the photograph is Dr FH Boland, then Irish ambassador in London. – Yours, etc,