Republic of Ireland
Government: Unitary parliamentary republic
Ruler: amon de Valera
Area: 27,133 square miles
Population: 3 million
Military Personal: 40,000 men A reserve force of 105,000
Navy: Six motor torpedo boats and four other craft
From the Act of Union of 1800, until December of 1922, the island of Ireland was part of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. During the Great Famine, in the mid 1840's the Irish
island population of over 8 million fell by nearly one third. One million Irish died of starvation
and disease and another 1.5 million emigrated, mostly to the United States. This is why during
the American Civil War you saw many Irish units fighting for both sides. As they would generally
be immediately thrust into the army after coming off the boat. This set the pattern of emigration
for the century to come, resulting in a constant population decline up to the 1960s. The local
government act of 1898 gave Ireland the same sort of local government control that existed
within the remainder of the United Kingdom. This act encompassed the whole island of Ireland even
though the Unionist movement had been on popular rise since the first home bill was issued in 1886.
A third home bill was to be done in 1914 but the war put that plan on hold. On Easter Sunday 1916,
an uprising occurred that attempted to break Ireland free from British control. It didn't gain
massive support but the execution of the leaders of the uprising as well as the conscription
crisis in 1918 swayed public opinion towards independence. At least outside of Ulster. A war
of independence then a civil war occurred shortly after but that will be discussed at a later time.
Tensions between the newly independent Irish state and the UK remained high
during the interwar period. On taking over power and coming into office in 1932, the
new Fianna F il government under amon de Valera enacted a protectionist policy with the ecomy,
and tariffs were introduced for a wide range of imported goods, mainly from Britain. This was
thought necessary to develop native industry, and move away from over-dependence on Britain,
while at the same time allowing Irish industry to be able to catch up on the free market. It
was also to compensate for the drastic fall in demand for Irish agricultural products on
international markets following the start of the Great Depression. A vigorous campaign was set
in motion to make the Free State agriculturally and industrially self-sufficient by Minister of
Industry and Commerce, Se n Lemass. Every effort was taken to add to the measures brought in by the
previous government to boost tillage farming and industry and to encourage the population
to avoid British imports and Buy Irish Goods. The government sought to go further and end the
repayment to Britain of land annuities. These originated from the government loans granted
to Irish farmers by the Land Commission from the 1880s, which had enabled farmers purchase
lands from their former landlords. The previous government had agreed that Ireland would continue
to pay these debts every year to the UK. Two years after that agreement was made, another one exempt
the Free State from the public debt in the UK, and this is where disagreement came once again. Valera
pitted that the land annuities were a part of the public debt and no longer the responsibility of
his government to pay. He also issued a series of claims against the British for over 450
million pounds in regards to back-payment that Ireland was owed since the 1800's.
Negotiations broke down in late 1932, and the British responded by imposing a 20%
tariff on Irish agriculture products which a large amount of the British public were
unwilling to pay for. The Irish responded by imposing a similar tariff on coal. This caused
significant hardship within the free state, as exports to Britain encompassed nearly 90%
of there exports. This only further worsened the economic situations of the free state,
and by 1935, action was taken by a cattle coal pact where Britain started to buy cattle in
exchange for coal, reducing the over-all tariffs on both of them. The resolution of the crisis
came after a series of talks in London between the British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
and de Valera. An agreement to reach an acceptable settlement was drawn up in 1938,
enacted in Britain as the Eire Act. Under the terms of the three-year Anglo-Irish Trade
Agreement all duties imposed during the previous five years were lifted. Although the period of the
Economic War resulted in severe social suffering and heavy financial loss for Ireland, its outcome
was publicized as favorable. Ireland was still entitled to impose tariffs on British imports
to protect new Irish industries. The treaty also settled the potential 3million-per-annum
land annuities liability by a one-off payment to Britain of 10 million, and a waiver by both sides
of all similar claims and counter-claims. It also included the return to Ireland of
the Treaty Ports which had been retained by Britain under a provision of the 1921 Treaty.
When was was declared in late 1939, the Irish government quickly proclaimed their neutrality,
attempting to get guarantees from the German ambassador that the embassy wouldn't be used
for attacks against Ireland. A guarantee was also established with the British domains commissioner
Anothony Eden who was a staunch defender of Irish neutrality in Parliament. Even still, There was a
reluctance on the part of the British to accept the policy of Irish neutrality. After the German
invasion of Norway in April 1940, Winston 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 for a little more then a year. 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 liability, and wished to be able to prevent this by stationing troops
and ships within the Ireland. The U.K had just relinquished control of three main ports called
the treaty ports back to Ireland in 1938, these were the ports of Lough Swilly in the north,
Berehaven and Spike Island in the south. The return of these ports actually made Ireland
Neutral, as otherwise having the British Navy within your ports kind of makes it to
where you need to side with them. After the fall of France a British ambassador
arrived to try and persuade Ireland to join the Allies, the terms were simple. Join the allies,
and you get Northern Ireland. Valera refused this proposal as he more then likely guessed
that creating a fully unified Ireland wasn't guaranteed. Ireland did give some very useful
information to the Allies through-out the war however, and over 15,000 Irishmen volunteered
into British Units. A large number of these were branded as traitors and deserters when they got
home since some of them left the army to join the Allies. The fascist elements in Ireland all
but vanished within the first year of the war, and by 1943, the IRA barely existed.
The nation did get attacked during the first two years of the war, German bombers launched
a dozen attacks against various cities. On Janurary first and second of 1941,
Germany dropped bombs on Meath, Carlow, Kildare, Wicklow, Wexford and Dublin,
resulting in five deaths and seventy wounded. The most fatal attack was on May the 31st where
bombs were dropped in North strand in Dublin, killing 28 people and wounding another 90.
Local anti-air defenses were rather weak, and the gunners poorly trained. The reason for the
bombing isn't one hundred percent known, some have suggested it was in response to the aid
given to the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland, and served as a warning to stay out of the war.
Plans were drawn up by both Germany and the U.K to invade and occupy Ireland, The Germany
one was called Operation Grun (not to be confused with an operation of the same name from 1938) and
it was originally intended to act as a way to the backdoor of Britain, This operation should
not be confused with Plan Kathleen which was a plan drawn up by Irish Republic Army chief
of staff Sean Russell, Russell had started a bombing campaign in Britain and went to
Berlin to get arms and support for the IRA. He was killed while coming back in the sub during
Operation Dove. From this a small amount of German agents were able to land in Ireland but they were
all quickly picked up and imprisoned. Russell had announced that if Germany were to invade England,
his army would take-over Ireland quickly, then aid in their own invasion. Grun didn't envision much
if any help from the IRA and pretty much left the soldiers and commanders on the ground to their own
devices. As you can imagine, the British Plan-W was much more realistic to happen since Germany
would have invaded Ireland as a feint and do it in combination with Sealion. Valera didn't have
any intention to fight against the British if they chose to invade. He understood that Ireland didn't
have the capacity to fight the larger neighbor toe to toe, and that German help would be minimal.