Irish Neutrality: A Tenuous Commitment Under Threat

Since the state’s formation, neutrality in international affairs has been a key tenet of foreign policy considerations in the 26 counties. With a semblance of independence gained, albeit with considerable neo-colonial ties after over 800 years of colonial occupation, and so soon after a global conflict, there was little appetite for war among the Irish people, especially for wars that were seemingly of no concern to them. This led us to be one of the few European nations to not participate directly in the Second World War, a conflagration we deemed fit to term only “The Emergency.”

This neutrality, as well as the lack of colonial past, gave the state an air of legitimacy in the newly emerged United Nations, independent as it seemed from the capitalist and communist blocs. The role of peacekeeper then, in conflicts many of them anti-colonial in character around the globe, began to be filled primarily by Ireland, as well as the Scandinavian nations, Sweden especially, the so-called fire-brigade states. This role diminished in importance as former imperial possessions won their independence, and took these roles over themselves.

Unfortunately, Irish neutrality is a tenet that has seen continuous challenges from successive governments, and has been eroded by measures such as the use of Shannon airport as a stop-over and refuelling site by the US military, the south’s participation in EU Battlegroups, and its involvement with the EU’s Permanent Structured Co-Operation, PESCO.

The war in Ukraine, with the subsequent refugee crisis and near universal global condemnation of Russia, has led to fresh calls by establishment figures for the south to abandon its neutrality and formally join NATO. The argument runs that as Ireland is culturally and economically part of the West, it should abandon any pretense of neutrality and embrace the West militarily as well. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has even stated the need for a citizens’ assembly on the matter.

Establishment media has been critical to this fresh push. Almost since the first tanks crossed the Ukrainian border, columnists in outlets such as the Irish Times, Irish Examiner, and Sunday Business Post, have called out for the south to row in behind NATO and its imperialist expansion. The Examiner for instance, on 5 March, published an article condemning neutrality as childish, with the adult solution being NATO membership. Similarly, a Times piece from 25 February, the day after the invasion, decried neutrality as nothing but a cover for tyrants, also claiming that the description of NATO as warmongers was inverting reality. Most egregiously, a piece from 7 March in the Times described neutrality as morally degenerate while also making the laughable claim that British imperialism is long gone.

It is not the case that 100% of coverage from these outlets is clamouring for NATO membership. However, it is enough to indicate a tendency among the Irish bourgeoisie to cosy up to western imperialism.

In reality, the south is not a neutral state, nor has it ever been. In 2021, the state celebrated the centenary of its independence, but this marked only the end of direct British rule, with the end of the south’s membership of the British empire not coming until 1949. 6 counties in the north of the island are still under this direct rule, a rule which makes them a NATO member, and to claim that a state can be neutral while this level of strategic pressure is being exerted by an enemy power is the true inversion of reality. Rather, it is a cog in the international capitalist system. Since the state’s formation up to the present day, it has preached neutrality, while simultaneously assisting imperialist powers in their global ventures. One need only look at the United States military’s use of Shannon airport as proof. However, it is the opinion of this writer that Ireland’s neutrality should be respected, enforced, and expanded. It is only through our breaking of the imperialist lock that this can be brought about.