Treaty Ports (Ireland) - Winston Churchill's Reaction

Winston Churchill's Reaction

Some in Britain, including Winston Churchill, considered the handover a short-sighted decision, since at the start of the Battle of the Atlantic in 1939, the convoy escort refuelling facilities Berehaven and Queenstown would have provided were 200 miles further out into the Atlantic than those in Northern Ireland and Great Britain. It is claimed that this is a common misconception. Allied convoys were routed to America via Iceland and the Northern Irish ports. A route via Ireland's southern coast was compromised due to the fall of French airfields, exposing convoys to German air attacks, which accounted for most British shipping losses early in the war. Also the Iceland route provided more air cover and escort refueling for allied convoys. The Treaty Ports were not at all valuable for protecting the Liverpool-Iceland-America traffic. Iceland, not Ireland, was the geographic key to the war in the Atlantic. However this would not apply to convoys to Gibraltar and the south, or across the Atlantic prior to mid-1940. Many in the Navy felt similar resentment. The following are extracts from Churchill's speech, one of the few MPs who was critical of the Agreement. Churchill warned of the folly of handing over the Treaty ports to the Irish Free State, but was supported by only a handful of Members of Parliament.

When I read this Agreement in the newspapers a week ago I was filled with surprise. On the face of it, we seem to give everything away and receive nothing in return...But then I supposed there was another side to the Agreement, and that we were to be granted some facilities and rights in Southern Ireland in time of war. That, I notice, was the view taken by a part of the Press, but soon Mr. de Valera in the Dáil made it clear that he was under no obligations of any kind and, as the Prime Minister confirmed ...On the contrary, Mr. de Valera has not even abandoned his claim for the incorporation of Ulster...

We are told that we have ended the age-long quarrel between England and Ireland, but that is clearly not true, because Mr. de Valera has said that he will never rest until Partition is swept away. Therefore, the real conflict has yet to come... Treaty has been kept in the letter and the spirit by Great Britain, but the Treaty has been violated and repudiated in every detail by Mr. de Valera....The ports in question, Queenstown, Berehaven and Lough Swilly, are to be handed over unconditionally, with no guarantees of any kind, as a gesture of our trust and good will, as the Prime Minister said, to the Government of the Irish Republic.

When the Irish Treaty was being shaped in 1922 I was instructed by the Cabinet to prepare that part of the Agreement which dealt with strategic reservations. I negotiated with Mr. Michael Collins, and I was advised by Admiral Beatty...The Admiralty of those days assured me that without the use of these ports it would be very difficult, perhaps almost impossible, to feed this Island in time of war. Queenstown and Berehaven shelter the flotillas which keep clear the approaches to the Bristol and English Channels, and Lough Swilly is the base from which the access to the Mersey and the Clyde is covered...If we are denied the use of Lough Swilly and have to work from Lamlash, we should strike 200 miles from the effective radius of our flotillas, out and home; and if we are denied Berehaven and Queenstown, and have to work from Pembroke Dock, we should strike 400 miles from their effective radius out and home. These ports are, in fact, the sentinel towers of the western approaches, by which the 45,000,000 people in this Island so enormously depend on foreign food for their daily bread, and by which they can carry on their trade, which is equally important to their existence.

In 1922 the Irish delegates made no difficulty about this. They saw that it was vital to our safety that we should be able to use these ports and, therefore, the matter passed into the structure of the Treaty without any serious controversy. Now we are to give them up, unconditionally, to an Irish Government led by men I do not want to use hard words whose rise to power has been proportionate to the animosity with which they have acted against this country, no doubt in pursuance of their own patriotic impulses, and whose present position in power is based upon the violation of solemn Treaty engagements.

But what guarantee have you that Southern Ireland, or the Irish Republic, as they claim to be and you do not contradict them will not declare neutrality if we are engaged in war with some powerful nation? Under this Agreement, it seems to me...that Mr. de Valera’s Government will at some supreme moment of emergency demand the surrender of Ulster as an alternative to declaring neutrality.

Mr. de Valera has given no undertaking, except to fight against Partition as the main object of his life. It would be a serious step for a Dublin Government to attack these forts while they are in our possession and while we have the right to occupy them. It would be an easy step for a Dublin Government to deny their use to us once we have gone...You are casting away real and important means of security and survival for vain shadows and for ease.

Churchill also remarked that the concessions under the Agreements of 1938 were “astonishing triumphs” for Irish leader, Éamon de Valera. Churchill also asked would it not be"far better to give up the £10,000,000, and acquire the legal right, be it only on a lease granted by treaty, to use these harbours when necessary?" Mr Churchill also made a remark concerning the name by which the Irish state would henceforth be described in the UK (Eire) - "I have not been able to form a clear opinion on the exact juridical position of the Government of that portion of Ireland called Southern Ireland, which is now called Eire. That is a word which really has no application at the present time, and I must say, even from the point of view of the ordinary uses of English, that it is not customary to quote a term in a foreign language, a capital town, a geographical place, when there exists a perfectly well-known English equivalent . It is usual to say Paris not Paree."