The Emergency (Ireland) - Background

Background

In 6 December 1921, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty that ended the War of Independence, the island of Ireland became an autonomous dominion, known as the Irish Free State. However, on 8 December 1921, the six north-eastern counties, already known as Northern Ireland, voted to opt out of the Irish Free State and rejoin the United Kingdom. This Treaty settlement was immediately followed by the bitter Irish Civil War (between the pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty factions of the Irish Republican Army), which was strongly to affect Irish society and politics in subsequent years, but specifically in its responses to the coming global war.

After 1932, the governing party of the new state was the republican Fianna Fáil, led by Éamon de Valera (a veteran of both Irish wars). In 1937, de Valera successfully introduced a new constitution, which had distanced the state further from the United Kingdom, and which changed its name to "Ireland" (in Irish, Éire). In 1932-38 he had also conducted the Anglo-Irish Trade War.

De Valera had good relations with the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain and not only had been able to gain British recognition of the new constitution, but had negotiated the return of the Treaty Ports (three Irish ports – the coastal defences at Cobh Harbour and Bere Island in Co. Cork, and Lough Swilly in Co. Donegal that had remained under British jurisdiction after the Treaty), and resolved their economic differences. The major remaining disagreement between the countries was the status of Northern Ireland. The Irish saw it as an integral part of the nation of Ireland, while the British were unwilling to coerce the Unionist majority there into a united Ireland. Within Ireland itself, armed opposition to the treaty settlement took the name of the anti-treaty IRA, seeing itself as the "true" government of Ireland. This IRA mounted armed attacks both in Great Britain (most notably the S-Plan in 1939) and Ireland.