Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: v. 6: 1939-1941 - Hardcover

Keogh, Dermot; O'Halpin, Eunan

9781904890515: Documents on Irish Foreign Policy: v. 6: 1939-1941

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1904890512 ISBN 13: 9781904890515

Publisher: Royal Irish Academy, 2008

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Synopsis:

Never before have the actual documents been published that reveal how Eamon de Valera and a small group of Irish diplomats sought to protect Ireland during the Second World War. "DIFP Volume VI" shows in readable and gripping detail how Irish diplomats established and executed the state's neutrality in wartime Europe. Though Britain had tried to force Ireland to relinquish her neutrality through the winter of 1939, it was following the Nazi invasion of France in May 1940 that the first, and most important, crisis to face Ireland during the Second World War erupted. An invasion of Ireland by Germany was thought a real possibility during the summer of 1940; the threat of invasion by Britain was felt to be as likely."DIFP VI" explains how de Valera and his colleagues stood up to pressure to enter the war from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill while at the same time Dublin began to develop Ireland's 'pro-Allied neutrality'. The volume publishes, for the first time, complete transcripts of the British-Irish defence co-operation talks that took place in late May 1940.

It includes full reports on the progress of the war in Europe from Irish diplomats in London, Berlin, Paris, Rome and Washington and covers such areas as the Russo-Finnish Winter War, the invasion and fall of France, the invasion of Norway, Churchill's rise to power, the Blitz, daily life in Berlin during World War Two and Luftwaffe attacks on Ireland. Most importantly, it reveals in detail hitherto unknown, the increasingly complex and highly-charged nature of wartime British-Irish relations. The volume is the most comprehensive account ever published of Ireland's foreign policy during the first years of the Second World War.

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