The Emergency (Irish: Ré na Práinne / An Éigeandáil) was a state of emergency in the Republic of Ireland during World War II, throughout which the state remained neutral. It was proclaimed by Dáil Éireann on 2 September 1939, allowing the passage of the Emergency Powers Act 1939 by the Oireachtas the following day. This gave sweeping powers to the government, including internment, censorship of the press and correspondence, and control of the economy. The Emergency Powers Act lapsed on 2 September 1946, although the Emergency was not formally ended until 1976.
Background of the Emergency
On 6 December 1922, 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. On 7 December 1922, the parliament of the six north-eastern counties, already known as Northern Ireland, voted to opt out of the Irish Free State and remain in the United Kingdom. This Treaty settlement was immediately followed by the Irish Civil War between the pro-Treaty and anti-Treaty factions of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
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 and the Easter Rising). In 1937, de Valera introduced a new constitution, which distanced the state further from the United Kingdom, and which changed its name to "Ireland". He had also conducted the Anglo-Irish trade war between 1932 and 1938.
De Valera had good relations with the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. He resolved the two countries' economic differences, and negotiated the return of the Treaty Ports – Berehaven, Cobh, and Lough Swilly – which had remained under British jurisdiction under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921. The major remaining disagreement between the countries was the status of Northern Ireland. The Irish saw it as rightfully Irish territory, while the UK saw it as rightfully British territory. 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 a sabotage/bombing campaign, the S-Plan, exclusively in England from January 1939 to March 1940. These attacks consisted of approximately 300 explosions and acts of sabotage, resulting in 10 deaths and 96 injuries.
Declaration of the Emergency
On 1 September 1939, German troops invaded Poland from the west, followed by a Soviet Union invasion on 17 September from the east. The invasion precipitated war between Germany and the UK, France, and their allies. On 2 September, de Valera told the Dáil Éireann (the lower house of parliament) that neutrality was the best policy for the country. In this he was almost universally supported by the Dáil and the country at large (although many joined the British military). The 1937 constitution was amended to allow the government to take emergency powers, and then the Emergency Powers Act 1939 was passed that included censorship of the press and mail correspondence. The government was able to take control of the economic life of the country under the new Minister of Supply Seán Lemass. Liberal use was made of all of these powers. Internment of those who had committed a crime or were about to commit one would be used extensively against the IRA.
Censorship was under the charge of the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures, Frank Aiken. It was purportedly necessary to prevent publication of matters that might undermine the neutrality of the state and to prevent it becoming a clearing house for foreign intelligence, though over the period of the Emergency, the Act started to be used for more party political purposes such as preventing the publication of the numbers of Irish soldiers serving in the United Kingdom armed forces or industrial disputes within the state. The information made available to Irish people was also controlled. De Valera performed the duties of Minister of External Affairs, though the secretary for the Department of External Affairs, Joseph Walshe, was very influential.
Most emergency measures were made by secondary legislation in the form of statutory orders under the Emergency Powers Act; the only other emergency primary legislation was the General Elections (Emergency Provisions) Act 1943, which allowed the 1943 and 1944 general elections to be held without a preceding dissolution of the Dáil. This was to allow the old Dáil to continue in the event that the election could not be completed.
Neutrality policy
On the declaration of the emergency, Walshe asked for assurances from the German minister in Dublin, Eduard Hempel, that Germany would not use its legation for espionage nor attack Irish trade with Great Britain. He then travelled to London on 6 September where he met the Dominions Secretary, Anthony Eden, who was conciliatory and defended Irish neutrality in subsequent Cabinet meetings. In addition, the appointment of Sir John Maffey as a British representative in Dublin was agreed.
For the Irish government, neutrality meant not displaying alignment with either side. On one hand, that meant the open announcement of military activity such as the sighting of submarines or the arrival of parachutists and the suppression of any foreign intelligence activity. Ireland's geographic position meant that this policy tended to benefit the Allies more than Germany. For example, British airmen who crash-landed in the State were allowed to go free if they could claim not to have been on a combat mission; otherwise they were released "on licence" (promise to remain). Many chose to escape to Great Britain via Northern Ireland. Also, Allied mechanics were allowed to retrieve crash-landed Allied aircraft. There was extensive co-operation between British and Irish intelligence and the exchange of information such as detailed weather reports of the Atlantic Ocean; the decision to go ahead with the D-day landings was influenced by a weather report from Blacksod Bay, County Mayo.
On the other hand, in the first few years of the war, the government did not show any overt preference for either side. This is partly because de Valera had to keep national unity, which meant accommodating the large swathe of Irish society that rejected anything to do with the British, some of whom admired Germany (which had failed in an attempt to supply a small cache of arms to the rebels of 1916) to some extent. These attitudes were shared by Aiken and by Walshe. Many, including de Valera and Richard Mulcahy, estimated Irish popular sympathies as favouring Germany due to anti-British hostility, and de Valera feared that joining the Allies would drive public opinion completely towards the Germans. The Fianna Fáil government, headed by de Valera, ruled alone and did not accommodate any other party in decision making.
The Defence Forces and the Emergency
At the start of the Second World War, the Defence forces were less than 20,000 men but increased to almost 41,000 by mid 1941. In addition by June 1943 the Local Defence Force increased to 106,000. A second line reserve force 26th Infantry Battalion was formed from former members of the IRA who had fought in 1916 and the War of Independence.
The IRA and the Emergency
In the early months of the emergency, the greatest threat to the State came from the IRA. In the Christmas Raid in 1939, one million rounds of ammunition were stolen from the Irish Army by the IRA (though it was mostly recovered in the following weeks) and there were a number of killings, mostly of policemen. In addition, the existing emergency legislation was undermined by the obtaining of a writ of habeas corpus by Seán MacBride which resulted in the release of all those who had been interned. The government responded with the 1939 and 1940 Offences Against the State Acts, which established the Special Criminal Court, and rearrested and interned IRA activists.
During this time two IRA men died as the result of hunger strikes – demanding free association and to have two prisoners (IRA Volunteers Nicky Doherty of County Meath and John Dwyer) moved from the criminal wing to the Republican area within the prison (Mountjoy Jail). On 17 February 1940 Tony D'Arcy was arrested and sentenced to three months for refusing to account for his movements and for not giving his name and address. IRA volunteer D'Arcy died as a result of a 52 day hunger strike (16 April 1940) at the age of 32. D'Arcy left a wife and three young children.
On 29 December 1939 Jack McNeela and several others were arrested in south Dublin at a location where an illegal radio transmitter was operating. McNeela and three other IRA men were imprisoned in Mountjoy Jail, tried (and found guilty) by a military tribunal for "conspiracy to usurp a function of Government" by operating a pro-Irish Republican pirate radio station, with McNeela being sentenced to two years imprisonment. With no concessions from the Irish Free State government, McNeela died on 19 April 1940 after 55 days on hunger strike in the Military Wing of St Bricin's Military Hospital, Dublin.
Two IRA men (Patrick McGrath and Thomas Harte) were executed for the murder of two policemen in September 1940. The IRA became increasingly ineffective in the face of the resolute use of internment, the breaking of hunger strikes, and the application of hanging for capital offences. A total of seven IRA men were executed in Ireland between September 1940 and December 1944: Patrick McGrath, Thomas Harte, Richard Goss, George Plant, and Maurice O'Neill were executed by firing squad, while two others were hanged – Tom Williams in Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast and Charlie Kerins in Mountjoy Jail, Dublin. Maurice O'Neill and Richard Goss were the only people executed by the Irish state for a non-murder crime.
During 1941, the IRA's hopes of a German invasion had faded and funding from the United States had been cut off. The IRA leadership were mostly interned within the Curragh Camp, where they were treated increasingly harshly, or on the run. Most internees accepted release on parole. The IRA remained barely active in Northern Ireland, but they were not a threat to the stability of Ireland. The IRA fostered links with German intelligence (the Abwehr) and the German Foreign Ministry, with men such as Francis Stuart travelling to Germany to talk, though these attempts were largely ineffectual due to a combination of Abwehr and Foreign Ministry incompetence and IRA weakness. Germans also came to Ireland, including Hermann Görtz, who was captured in possession of "Plan Kathleen", an IRA plan that detailed a German-supported invasion of Northern Ireland.
Ireland and the United Kingdom 1939–1941
There was a reluctance on the part of the British to accept the policy of Irish neutrality. Anthony Eden, Dominions
Secretary in the new British war cabinet, said "we do not want formally to recognise Eire as neutral while Eire remains a member of the British Commonwealth" as this he said would be in conflict with the "constitutional theory of the indivisibility of the crown". A prevalent view in the UK was that Ireland was obliged to support the UK in the war. Winston Churchill said at the time that "Southern Ireland is at war, but skulking".
After the German invasion of Norway in April 1940, Churchill became the British Prime Minister. The fall of France in June 1940 brought the war close to Ireland, as German troops occupied the French coastline across the Celtic Sea.
The United Kingdom was now the only major impediment to Germany. A major British concern was now whether Germany would invade Ireland. The British view was that the Irish Army was not powerful enough to resist an invasion for long enough for reinforcement from the UK, particularly with the IRA as a potential fifth column, and wished to be able to forestall this by stationing troops and ships within the Irish state. In addition, this view made the UK reluctant to provide military supplies because of the risk of their falling into German hands after an invasion. The Irish government's view was that they would be more successful against the Germans than the states already occupied, and there could be no agreement for joint military measures while partition continued, and would not commit themselves beyond neutrality for the whole island should it end.