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Introduction

Has Ireland a Significant

International Story to Tell?

The writing of international history always has an economic focus, even within strategic studies.1 Within this ‘macro-economic’ field, if the resources of all nations theoretically count, the politics of small nations usually figure only when they are deemed significant within the world of international finance.2 Reflecting this, most studies of Ireland on the world stage do not precede the country’s embrace of the Eurozone. Thereafter, the Irish experience was often treated as a case study of modernisation.3 Degrees of influence within international relations have often been equated with an ability to determine ‘whose story wins’.4 As small nations rarely figure prominently in international relations, their stories are even less likely to do so. This can produce defensive reactions. Some nineteenth-century Irish writers attributed the absence of studies of Ireland on the world stage to the fact that ‘our souls were not confined to the pages of a cheque-book’ and the Irish public’s belief that ‘we have not been exclusively created for the worship of the golden calf’.5 More recently, Irish foreign ministers have claimed a century of continuity in the Irish state’s sense of values.6 However, the fact that the first Irish policy document on foreign affairs dates only from the time of the country’s entry into the European Union indicates the relevance of the aforementioned scholarly consensus regarding the writing of international history.7

Up until at least the 1970s, knowledge of international affairs in Ireland was reputedly confined to ‘a small circle of cognoscenti’.8 This consisted mostly of diplomats who kept a very low profile, did not author books and believed that public discussion of Ireland’s role in international relations was best avoided, even in the country’s national parliament, because the geopolitical realities governing the Irish state were matters that ‘few Irish policymakers outside the military and diplomatic nexus understood’.9 In a curious parallel with the former eastern bloc, Irish state archives only began to be fully opened during the 1990s.10 Ireland may not have been worshipping the golden calf, but its inhabitants could have been forgiven if they wondered why their government was so secretive. Nevertheless, certain realities were self-evident. Ireland did not receive a state visit from any country until the 1960s; an event that is still in the living memory of much of its population.11 Reflecting this, during the storied political career of Éamon de Valera (1882–1975), Ireland went from a position of having no recognised ambassadors to a grand total of fourteen ambassadors, but this was still less than a quarter of the diplomatic representation of the smallest of mainland European states. Only in the last couple of decades has Ireland developed a diplomatic corps of a size comparable to that of a small European nation and, in turn, started to embrace a truly broad range of international concerns.12 What value, therefore, lies in a strictly chronological and historical study of the evolution of Ireland’s international profile?

Historians have a natural tendency to be preoccupied with the notion of roots and branches, even if they are not necessarily believers in the idea of canonical texts whose influence is felt throughout all ages.13 In the United States, for instance, this has been reflected by a deep preoccupation with the vision of the state’s founding fathers and the degree to which it either remains relevant or was ever truly coherent in the first place.14 Few have doubted A.J.P. Taylor’s belief that Britain’s quintessential role in international relations was rooted in the geopolitics underpinning the Congress of Vienna (1815).15 Nevertheless, practitioners of international history in Britain have often deemed it more important to look as far back as early-modern reformations or even to medieval statecraft.16 There are, of course, other examples. Not all contemporary theorists on international relations who speculate on the economic rise of Asia are blind to the fact that the history of Japan or India, let alone China, did not begin with the bombing of Hiroshima or the creation of Pakistan.17 Likewise, human rights theorists with a legal background understand that such ideas did not begin with the United Nations. Rather, theories of natural law and natural rights can be traced back to classical antiquity, while some have even suggested that the birth of a quintessentially modern notion of human rights, with a particular emphasis on racial equality, began with Catholic missionaries in early-modern South America.18 Norman Davies’ students of history in the College of Europe’s headquarters in Bruges and Warsaw have been keen to argue that the existence of centuries of writings on the idea of a European civilisation indicates that the Anglo-American, or ‘cold war’, consensus regarding an inherent geopolitical and ideological balance of power within Europe was largely artificial.19 Clearly, as Zara Steiner has pointed out, there are many different vantage points and approaches that can be adopted in the writing of international history.20

This study does not attempt to present Ireland’s story as having been pivotal in international relations. However, it does attempt to counterbalance the frequently insular narratives of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland by placing them in the context of a broader narrative on international history. Irish studies of international affairs and the early years of the Irish state receive much attention. However, the pages of International Organization and various European or UN policy documents are treated as no less important. Although it is a work of political history rather than a theoretical or macro-economic study, this book hopes to answer the call of the late Garret FitzGerald for the international economic context behind Irish political history to be fully integrated into the narrative of both the Irish state and its international relations.21 To the best of the author’s knowledge, ideological shortcuts have been avoided while attempting this.

After the establishment of Ireland’s International Financial Services Centre in 1987, debates on Ireland’s relationship with Europe became more vibrant and occasionally took a polemical turn.22 The post-1945 European integration project was closely related to developments in the world of international finance. Ireland’s initial reaction to this trend was fear of being drawn into foreign wars. This book suggests, however, that the European project was certainly of note from its inception for its evidently genuine commitment to embracing equally the concerns of both small and large nations in order to facilitate peace.23 For this very reason, Ireland’s international profile as a small nation has become tied into the greater European question of whether or not economics and questions of education can become the future determinant of the international order more so than military stratagem.24 In the light of this trend, some have asked whether or not there is room for the Irish state or, indeed, Europe to remould international debates through the exercise a degree of ‘smart power’ in international relations.25 If no conclusive answer can be offered to that question, this idea nevertheless mirrors very traditional Irish debates on questions such as pacifism, anti-belligerence and military neutrality.26 It also reflects broader trends in works of international relations theory, such as the relationship between economic change and human rights.27 This study surveys a wide selection of national and international literature on such themes to clarify when or where these debates have met and, in particular, how the Irish experience fits within the broader story of historical developments in international relations. In short, does Ireland have a significant international story to tell in the light of its own historical experience? It is hoped that readers of this book may find some original answers to that question or else discover grounds for drawing their own original conclusions.

Endnotes

1 Zara Steiner, ‘On writing international history’, International affairs, vol. 73 no. 3: globalisation and international relations (Jul. 1997), 531.

2 Paul Kennedy, The rise and fall of the great powers: economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York and London, 1988).

3 William Crotty, D.E. Schmitt (eds), Ireland on the world stage (New York, 2002); Ben Tonra, Global citizen and European republic: Irish foreign policy in transition (Manchester, 2006); B. Tonra, M. Kennedy, J. Doyle, N. Dorr (eds), Irish foreign policy (Dublin, 2012).

4 Joseph Nye, ‘The information revolution and soft power’, Current history, vol. 113 (2014), 19–22.

5 Owen McGee (ed.), Eugene Davis’ souvenirs of Irish footprints over Europe (1889, 2nd ed., Dublin, 2006), 179–80.

6 Charles Flanagan, ‘Identity and values in Irish foreign policy’, Irish studies in international affairs (2016), 1–5.

7 Department of foreign affairs, Challenges and opportunities abroad: white paper on foreign policy (Dublin, 1996).

8 E.M. Browne, ‘Ireland in the EEC’, The world today, vol. 31 no. 10 (Oct. 1975), 424–32.

9 Michael Kennedy, ‘Irish foreign policy 1919–1973’, in Thomas Bartlett (ed.), Cambridge history of Ireland, vol. 4 (Cambridge, 2017), 604–5, ft. 4 (quote).

10 Ciaran Brady (ed.), Interpreting Irish history (Dublin, 1994), 151–3.

11 Government of Ireland, A memory of John Fitzgerald Kennedy: visit to Ireland, 26–29 June 1963 (Dublin, 1964).

12 Department of foreign affairs and trade, The global island: Ireland’s foreign policy for a changing world (Dublin, 2015).

13 Martin Puchner, The written world: how literature shapes history (New York, 2017).

14 Joyce Appleby, Liberalism and republicanism in the historical imagination (New York, 1992).

15 A.J.P. Taylor, Europe: grandeur and decline (London, 1967).

16 Brendan Simms, Britain’s Europe: a thousand years of conflict and cooperation (London, 2016).

17 Richard Storry, A history of modern Japan (London, 1982).

18 Brian Tierney, The idea of natural rights (New York, 1997); F.A.M. von Geusau, Neither justice nor order: reflections on the state of the law of nations (Tilburg, 2014), chapter 4.

19 Norman Davies, Europe: a history (Oxford, 1996); F.A.M. von Geusau, Cultural diplomacy: waging war by other means? (Tilburg, 2009).

20 Zara Steiner, ‘On writing international history’, International affairs, vol. 73 no. 3: globalisation and international relations (Jul. 1997), 531–46.

21 Garret FitzGerald, Reflections on the Irish state (Dublin, 2003), ix.

22 John Cooney, Tony McGarry, Ireland and Europe in times of world change: Humbert International School chronicle and directory 1987–2002 (Ballina, 2002).

23 B.A. McKenzie, ‘The European Youth Campaign in Ireland: neutrality, Americanisation and the cold war 1950 to 1959’, Diplomatic history, vol. 40 no. 3 (2016), 421–44.

24 Frans Alting von Geusau, European unification into the twenty-first century (Tilburg, 2012); International organization: transnational relations and world politics, vol. 25 no. 3 (summer 1971).

25 Mark Leonard, J. Pisani-Ferry, E. Ribokova, J. Sharipo, G. Wolff, ‘Security Europe’s economic sovereignty’, Survival, vol. 61 no. 5 (2019), 75–98.

26 M. Kennedy, D. McMahon (eds) Obligations and responsibilities: Ireland and the United Nations (Dublin, 2005).

27 International organization: the global partnership: international agencies and economic development, vol. 22 no.1 (winter 1968); International organization: international institutions and environmental crisis, vol. 26 no. 2 (spring 1972); Ian Clark, Globalization and international relations theory (Oxford, 1999); Paul Collier, Wars, guns and votes: democracy in dangerous places (London, 2005).