Irish Foreign Policy

This essay examines the role of the Italian Navy in facilitating Italy’s transition from an enemy to an ally of the Anglo-American powers during and after World War II, emphasizing its strategic and diplomatic contributions. The study adopts a historical approach, drawing on primary documents and secondary sources to evaluate how the Navy influenced Italy’s international repositioning, particularly during the co-belligerence period (1943-1945) and subsequent peace negotiations. The central question is whether the Navy’s contributions were sufficient to reshape perceptions of Italy from a defeated adversary to a cooperative power. The findings demonstrate that the Navy’s alignment with the Allies – through logistical support, operational missions, and collaboration in joint operations – mitigated Allied naval burdens in the Mediterranean, earning recognition from the Anglo-Americans. However, post-war peace negotiations imposed significant reductions on Italy’s naval forces, reflecting continued distrust, particularly from France and the Soviet Union. Despite these limitations, the essay concludes that the Italian Navy played an influential role in fostering trust with the United States and the United Kingdom. This trust proved pivotal during Italy’s admission to the Atlantic Alliance in 1949, marking the completion of its transition to a valued Western ally. The Navy’s contributions thus served as a foundation for Italy’s reintegration into the international system, underlining its importance in shaping Mediterranean security within the emerging Cold War order.

I recently finished teaching a second-year course in International Communication. And when preparing for one of the tutorials, I checked to see how regularly New Zealand’s Minister of Foreign Affairs (and then Deputy Prime Minister), Winston Peters, had referenced Gaza on his X/Twitter account...

According to the United Nations Charter, the Security Council can opt for various coercive measures of a non-military or military kind it considers necessary to preserve international security and world peace. In terms of the Charter system, non-violent sanctions are regarded as a milder means than the use of military measures.  This thesis examines whether and to which extent the UN sanctions have indeed had characteristics of a peaceful policy tool in pursuing desirable goals.

This paper analyzes the marginalization of Operation Barbarossa (1941-1944), the Eastern Front's defining campaign in World War II, in Western educational curricula through Michael Cunningham's Theory of Educide, as outlined in his 2023 AGBU Armenian Virtual College Master's thesis. Educide, defined as the systematic genocide of education and historical truth via controlled narratives, provides a framework to explore why Barbarossa's battles, Soviet resistance, and Germany's defeat are underrepresented in Western historical education. The paper examines seven key phases of Barbarossa, including the initial invasion, Stalingrad, Kursk, Soviet counteroffensives, the final push, Western bias toward D-Day, and the genocide of Belarus, to underscore their global significance. A lessons learned section illustrates how Barbarossa's erasure enables educide, reinforcing Anglo-centric narratives. Applying Cunningham's five-point educide framework, the study argues that Western education deliberately sidelines Barbarossa to prioritize narratives aligned with Western geopolitical interests, perpetuating historical genocide. Primary sources, such as wartime diaries and military reports, support the analysis, exposing educide's operation through curriculum design and narrative control. The conclusion advocates for educational reform to include Barbarossa's history, fostering a more inclusive understanding of World War II.

This paper analyzes the marginalization of Operation Barbarossa (1941-1944), the Eastern Front's defining campaign in World War II, in Western educational curricula through Michael Cunningham's Theory of Educide, as outlined in his 2023 AGBU Armenian Virtual College Master's thesis. Educide, defined as the systematic genocide of education and historical truth via controlled narratives, provides a framework to explore why Barbarossa's battles, Soviet resistance, and Germany's defeat are underrepresented in Western historical education. The paper examines seven key phases of Barbarossa, including the initial invasion, Stalingrad, Kursk, Soviet counteroffensives, the final push, Western bias toward D-Day, and the genocide of Belarus, to underscore their global significance. A lessons learned section illustrates how Barbarossa's erasure enables educide, reinforcing Anglo-centric narratives. Applying Cunningham's five-point educide framework, the study argues that Western education deliberately sidelines Barbarossa to prioritize narratives aligned with Western geopolitical interests, perpetuating historical genocide. Primary sources, such as wartime diaries and military reports, support the analysis, exposing educide's operation through curriculum design and narrative control. The conclusion advocates for educational reform to include Barbarossa's history, fostering a more inclusive understanding of World War II.

In 1925, the Government and Dáil of newly independent Ireland decided to build 1) what was then the largest hydroelectricity project 2) the first national electricity network, in the world.  This committed 20% of the Government revenue budget to the Shannon Scheme/Ardnacrusha. This was contrary to the then orthodox laissez-faire economic policy. Thomas J. McLaughlin, a 27-year-old Irish engineer working for Siemens, promoted the project with strong support from Patrick McGilligan, a 34-year-old newly elected TD(MP) and Minister for Industry & Commerce. Arthur Griffith (1872-1922) -  long-time campaigner for Irish independence, Sinn Féin founder and President of the Dáil - inspired both men.  In 1927, McGilligan set up the Electricity Supply Board(ESB) as a state-owned enterprise and monopoly for electricity. McLaughlin was Managing Director and a Board member. Franklin D. Roosevelt was influenced by these developments for his New Deal measures when elected US President in 1932 eg. Tennessee Valley Authority(TVA)

The purpose of this article is to present the already observed and possible threats to Northern Ireland as a result of the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union. The analysis will focus mainly on the socio-political and potentially paramilitary/terrorist dimensions, and to a lesser extent on the economic dimension, although of course this factor is also very important here. The author will not present in detail the reasons for the referendum on leaving the EU by the United Kingdom or the positions of the major parties represented in Westminster, as this would exceed the size of a scientific article. It will focus strictly on Northern Ireland, and the positions of the central government in London, as well as the government of the Republic of Ireland, will be treated marginally, only to the extent necessary to understand the problem.

This article questions the prevailing historiographical view that the approach of the Irish Free State to the Boundary Commission was lax and passive. It argues that the Free State adopted a strategic and tactical approach, not as a technicality to fulfil their Anglo-Irish Treaty obligations, but out of a genuine desire for national union. The North-Eastern Boundary Bureau distributed publicity demonstrating the wishes of the inhabitants and outlined international comparisons. Officials visited Northern Ireland and Britain to ascertain the views of stake-holders. The suggestions for creating all-Ireland institutions as an alternative to the commission show that the Free State leaders were motivated by a desire for ‘national union’. The dissemination of publicity internationally, the bureau’s role in applying for League of Nations membership, and the registration of the treaty at Geneva challenged potential British claims that the boundary was a domestic matter and demonstrates consideration of a potential appeal to the league.

The UK general election has done Ireland and its northern neighbour one immense favour. A hard UKEXIT, defined as the entire UK leaving the customs union and the single market, is off the agenda for now. Brendan O'Leary argues that Theresa May's difficulties in enforcing such a uniform mode of leaving the EU will prove an opportunity for Ireland's new Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar. Dublin's hand has therefore been strengthened by what has just happened Dublin's hand has therefore been strengthened by what has just happened. It will have to keep a laser-like focus on ensuring no restoration of a hard border as the first item of business, and then all of its other interests may fall into place. The conjunction of May's folly and Corbyn's successful campaign may be much better for Irish nationalists of all stripes than the grinning faces of the DUP's 10 MPs currently suggest.

Public discussions about how the UK is to exit from the European Union have been too simplified, and have failed to come up with any solution that recognizes that only England and Wales in fact voted to leave. Brendan O'Leary outlines a way forward where those nations wanting to remain in the EU might be able to do so. There has as yet been no Brexit, and there will not be-because there is no such entity as 'Britain'. There could, however, be a UKexit. But those who insist that a 52-48 vote is good enough to take the entire UK out of the EU would trigger a serious crisis of legitimacy. England and Wales have voted to leave the European Union, but Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Gibraltar have voted to remain. These differing outcomes have to be the central focus of political attention while we wait for the debris of broken expectations to settle. First things first: saving the UK But there is a constitutional compromise that would avoid the genuine prospect that a referendum on Scottish independence-promoted by the SNP and the Green Party-will lead to the break-up of the union of Great Britain. The Scots have every right to hold such a referendum, because the terms specified in the SNP's election manifesto have been met: a major material change in circumstances has occurred. The same constitutional compromise could diminish turbulence spilling into Northern Ireland. The same day that Nicola Sturgeon publicly indicated preparations for a second Scottish referendum, the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness (Sinn Féin), demanded that a poll be held to enable Irish reunification. Sinn Féin has a point. Many in Northern Ireland fear that a UK-wide exit would restore a border across Ireland, and strip away core components of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. Does the narrow outcome of a UK-wide

Writing in Monday's Telegraph, putative Conservative leader and, accordingly, as the party currently in government, 77 th Prime Minister (PM) of the United Kingdom (UK), Boris Johnson states his belief that in order that the UK leaves the European Union (EU) by the deadline of 31 st October, it is essential that the country develops a sense of "national self-belief". As Johnson claims, technology provides an answer to the challenge of finding a solution to avoiding a border between the Republic of Ireland and the North of Irelandan essential component of the 'Good Friday Agreement'. The issue of this border bedevilled Theresa May in achieving a Parliamentary majority for the withdrawal deal (WA) her government painstakingly negotiated over a considerable period of time following the triggering of the process to leave (Article 50). Johnson, ever savvy, employs the retrospective zeitgeist of anniversary of the first human beings to walk on the moon 50 years ago to suggest that leaving the EU, something regarded as extremely difficult, can be considered to the Apollo 11 mission. As he asserts, in his Telegraph column those who have argued that it is going to be extremely difficult to use innovative methods to resolve the issue of checks on goods on the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland-"technological pessimists"are wrong and should be inspired by what NASA achieved in successfully achieving missions that allowed human beings to walk on the moon and return to earth: "It is absurd that we have even allowed ourselves to be momentarily delayed by these technical issues. If they could use hand-knitted computer code to make a frictionless re-entry to Earth's atmosphere in 1969, we can solve the problem of frictionless trade at the Northern Irish border…"

Proposals from backbench Brexiteer MPs as to how to resolve the border question in Northern Ireland fail to address the problem of maintaining a common set of standards with Ireland post-Brexit. Sean Swan argues that, given public opinion in England, a customs border in the Irish Sea, with divergence between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is a likely outcome. A Sinn Féin protest against a customs border, Stormont. Picture: Sinn Féin, via a (CC BY 2.0) licence The European Research Group, the Brexiteer group of Conservative MPs currently led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, last week published a paper, 'The Border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland post-Brexit', which was intended to cut the Gordian knot of Brexit and the Irish border. It was something less than brilliant. The Irish Times' London Editor, Denis Staunton, quickly dismissed it as offering 'little more than the same administrative and technological fixes that have been doing the rounds for two years and have been rejected by the EU and Ireland as both unrealistic and inadequate'. Nevertheless, it deserves consideration. The ERG ague that there will be no need for sanitary or phytosanitary checks on cross-border trade post-Brexit 'Since UK and EU standards are identical and will remain identical at the point of departure, determining equivalence after Brexit should be straightforward. [our emphasis]'. Leaving entirely aside the question of whether or not the mechanisms suggested are feasible, this is not good enough. There is nothing in its proposals to prevent a future post-Brexit UK government from diverging from EU standards. In fact, if the dream of a trade deal with the US is to be fulfilled, it will surely come at the cost of the UK accepting US chlorinated chicken and GMO foods. Michael Gove conceded exactly-if inadvertently-this point when he declared that 'here's one critical thing: a future prime minister could always choose to alter the relationship between Britain and the European Union'. For Ireland what is required is not simply that there be no hard border at 'the point of departure' but in future too.

A positive and open attitude toward developing a strategic national plan for reunification is politically imperative. To plan is not to harass or to presume that a referendum can only go one way. The existing simple majority rule to decide the referendum should remain as against the suggestions for forms of qualified majority made by Bertie Ahern, Leo Varadkar and the late Seamus Mallon. Those who reasonably wish to increase those favouring Irish reunification in the north should focus for now on cultural Protestants, and on 'the others'. Persuading unionists to become nationalists is an improbable project. Fundamental clarity is required on the model of a united Ireland, and/or on the process of constitutional reconstruction that will follow a reunification vote in the north. Securities and power-sharing provisions for British people, and Protestants, need to be built into the model of a united Ireland, or the design of a constitutional convention.

A positive and open attitude toward developing a strategic national plan for reunification is politically imperative. To plan is not to harass or to presume that a referendum can only go one way. The existing simple majority rule to decide the referendum should remain as against the suggestions for forms of qualified majority made by Bertie Ahern, Leo Varadkar and the late Seamus Mallon. Those who reasonably wish to increase those favouring Irish reunification in the north should focus for now on cultural Protestants, and on 'the others'. Persuading unionists to become nationalists is an improbable project. Fundamental clarity is required on the model of a united Ireland, and/or on the process of constitutional reconstruction that will follow a reunification vote in the north. Securities and power-sharing provisions for British people, and Protestants, need to be built into the model of a united Ireland, or the design of a constitutional convention.

Bo¨sch turns next to adulterous and extramarital sexuality, finding no German equivalents to the outrage surrounding the Charles Dilke and Charles Stewart Parnell affairs in Britain. A discussion of colonial scandals then places Henry Morton Stanley's African exploits and the Jameson Raid next to the crimes of Carl Peters and the controversies preceding the Reichstag elections of 1906-7. After a much briefer treatment of the interface between the new journalism and official press policy, the author gives more sustained attention to the journalistic debunking of monarchy, matching Edward VII's sexual affairs and weakness for gambling to Wilhelm II's 'personal rule' and the Daily Telegraph Crisis of 1908. A final case study focuses on the anti-plutocratic campaigning in each country during the build-up to the First World War. With these accounts Bo¨sch sheds much new light, mining an abundance of archival documentation to excellent effect. The inner workings of the various newspaper campaigns and the efforts of governments to influence them are especially illuminating. On the other hand, the German treatments are notably more original than the British, where the existing scholarship is much thicker on the ground. In some cases the significance of a particular scandal also remains disappointingly undercontextualised, as in the Daily Telegraph Affair, where the damaging consequences for Pan-German and other radical nationalist loyalties to the monarchy go largely undiscussed. But overall, Bo¨sch fully accomplishes his purposes. The scandals concerned reveal the respective polities to have been importantly in motion, registering the arrival and effects of the new mass press, while themselves helping to redraw the boundaries of acceptable behaviour on the part of politicians, rulers, and governments. Here the comparison works unexpectedly in favour of the Kaiserreich: if the vaunted liberalism of the British polity emerges from the account considerably more tarnished, then the outcome of the scandals in Germany brought authoritarianism under much stronger public and parliamentary constraint.

K roughout the 6 rst years of Salazar’s Estado Novo regime, Portugal was the object of particular attention in Ireland. Re ecting this general tendency, the pro-treaty nationalist newspaper " e Irish Independent and its republican rival " e Irish Press both painted a mostly positive picture of Portugal’s dictator. In their eyes, the Portuguese leader’s chief merit was, besides having contributed to Portugal’s 6 nancial recovery, to provide “a striking example of what God demanded”, as the Irish Independent then put it. K is article analyzes the perspective on the Portuguese dictator presented by these two Irish newspapers and the arguments on which they relied to express their support for his dictatorial regime. Based on an analysis of contents of the most signi6 cant articles devoted to Salazar and the Estado Novo over the period, its main conclusion is that both newspapers, while disagreeing on most issues on the Irish scene, basically shared the same positions towards S...

examine how Sinn Féin responded to Brexit. They argue that its pursuit of 'Special Status' for Northern Ireland represented an attempt to mitigate Brexit's risks, rather than to leverage its opportunities. This approach came with political costs for the party, whose recent electoral surge has arguably been in spite of rather than because of it. On 31 January 2020, during a speech to the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin, Sinn Féin Party President, Mary Lou McDonald, described Brexit as the 'opportunity of a lifetime' to complete the Republican project of Irish (re)unification. The speech came in the midst of a dramatic and transformative general election campaign, which would eventually see Sinn Féin returned to the Dáil with 37 members of parliament-just one less than the largest party, Fianna Fáil-and, for the first time, the highest share of first preference votes in an Irish general election.

This work is the second and last sequel to Major Naval Operations, published by the Naval War College Press in 2008 as Newport Paper 32. The first sequel, Major Fleet-versus-Fleet Operations in the Pacific War, 1941–1945, was published (as Historical Monograph 22) by the Naval War College Press / Government Printing Office in 2014; a second edition came out in 2016. The focus of that volume was on the description and analysis of three major fleet-versus-fleet operations. In contrast, this work, Major Naval Operations in European Waters, 1939–1945 (twenty-seventh in the Naval War College Press’s Historical Monograph series), looks at three different types of major naval/joint operations: an attack on enemy maritime trade, the defense and protection of friendly maritime trade, and a major amphibious/anti-amphibious operation. The principal purpose is to impress on commanders and their staffs the critical importance of studying the theory and practice of major naval/joint operations. A...

Milan Vego T he resupply convoy to Malta in August 1942 (Operation PEDESTAL) was in operational terms a major defensive naval and joint operation. It was also the largest of the many Allied efforts to ensure the survival of Malta against relentless Axis air attacks. Italian accounts referred to the Axis attempt to destroy the convoy as operation "Mid-August" (Mezzo Agosto). The Allies were well aware of the enormous risks in making a decision to mount an all-out effort to bring badly needed supplies to the besieged island. Yet the consequences of failing to do that would have been even more disastrous for the Allied campaign in North Africa and possibly the entire Mediterranean theater. The execution of Operation PEDESTAL resulted in horrendous losses for the Allies. However, the ships that reached Malta brought sufficient quantities of fuel and food to keep the island alive until the great Allied victory at El Alamein in November 1942, which turned the tide of the war in North Africa. Despite the passage of time, the planning, preparation, and execution of this major naval operation by both sides offer many lessons on how to employ one's naval forces in the littorals that remain valid even today. OPERATIONAL SITUATION The fifteen-mile-long island of Malta played a vital role in British strategy for the Mediterranean since its

Koch was Patton's G-2 throughout World War II. He wrote his memoirs G-2: Intelligence for Patton (Koch & Hays, 1999) 25 years after the war. His explanation of intelligence procedures and organization is very enlightening, and he also describes staff work in Third US Army HQ which gives a good idea about how things worked. It provides leads for research in archives. Organization And Operation Of The Theater Intelligence Services In The European Theater Of War (Schow et al., 1945) gives a good overview of the US intelligence services in Europe in WWII. This was an official and classified evaluation report. Combat Intelligence: A Comparative Evaluation (Kirkpatrick, 1993) is a summary of 12 th Army Group's After Action Report on the European Theatre of Operations. It discusses the value of different sources of information, e.g. POW interrogation, Air-and Photo Reconnaissance, SIGINT, Captured Documents and Agents (HUMINT).

Ireland found itself centre stage during the process of German reunification in 1989 and 1990. It held the European Community (EC) Presidency for six months from 1 January 1990 and was an unqualified supporter of German unity. Taoiseach (equivalent to Prime Minister), Charles J. Haughey, and many in the Irish government and state apparatus savoured the international stage and desired to leave a lasting but constructive legacy. This chapter argues that the Irish Presidency mediated the reconciliation of its EC partners with German reunification and assisted in advancing the negotiations that led to the European Union (EU). The positive Irish contribution to the complex process of easing German reunification and brokering a new course for European integration is reviewed.

While there has been much coverage of the influence of the British Commonwealth on the Chamberlain government's foreign policy, there has been little on the impact of European events on the dominions themselves, especially relating to the particular contexts in which they existed. Yet it is these contexts which were crucial in determining how they perceived events in Europe. This study therefore aims to consider the developing attitudes of the Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and South African governments towards the idea of war with Germany between the Munich Settlement and Canada's declaration of war on Germany on 10 September 1939. The Irish Free State is deliberately excluded from consideration, as its circumstances were sufficiently distinct from those of the other dominions to render its inclusion meaningless, and there was consequently never any realistic prospect that it would enter the war at Britain's side, as the others did. The first chapter of this thesis examines the underlying imperatives which defined the dominions' perspectives on Europe, while succeeding ones trace the effect of the key developments in the approach of war, such as Kris. ris.tallnacht and the march into Prague, on the Commonwealth's evolving views of the international situation during the eleven months after Munich. The methodology follows the Agents & Structures model laid down in M. G. Fry's 1999 article `The British Dominions & the Munich Crisis.' Sources for this study include dominion government records, the personal diaries of participants, their private correspondence & newspaper coverage of their activities, as well as the secondary literature dealing with the wider picture of the prelude to war and the Commonwealth's role within that, as outlined above.

Slides of my presentation on "The Italian Navy and the Mediterranean in the Second World War: a strategic reassessment". The paper showed the weakness of some current trends in historiography, according to which surface superiority and predominance by the Axis led to a stalemate in the naval war in the Mediterranean until Operation Torch.

The intention was to reinforce the principle of power-sharing embodied in the Northern Ireland Constitution Act by proportionately representing all shades of opinion. This should be set in the context of the commonly held official view that not only was there a substantial 'moderate centre' which had previously been underrepresented by the simple plurality system, but that the more vocal splinter groups whose policies tended towards either extreme did not command widespread support. This was not a view which was to be vindicated by the results. STV is designed to select a set of most-preferred candidates taking into account the votes of as large a section of the electorate as possible. It is therefore, on the face of it, somewhat surprising that it should ever produce a result which provides proportional representation ofparties in any given situation. When it is operated in the context of a more or less established party system it does, however, appear to do so. This tendency is dependent on the degree to which a number of relatively straightforward conditions are met. These conditions basically relate to the way in which people cast their votes, and to the configuration of the constituencies which are in practice essential for the operation of the system.

Belfast and L. Bates Lea Global Law Professor at the University of Michigan Law School My focus in this comment is on the interpretation of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement ('the Agreement'). Or, rather, on the interpretations (plural) of the Agreement, depending on whether the interpreter considers it primarily a legal, political, or historical document. The study and interpretation of texts such as the Agreement is called hermeneutics, named after the Greek god Hermes who served as the guide between the gods on Mount Olympus and ordinary mortals, interpreting their ways. Whilst not sharing the penchant of the denizens of Mount Olympus for arbitrariness, the Agreement does share with the gods a certain sacred quality, and frequently an air of mystery. My comments on this topic are stimulated by, rather than directly responding to, Professor Brendan O'Leary's detailed and thought-provoking article. O'Leary is correct to point to the political importance of the Agreement generally, and particularly in the context of a referendum on Irish unity since the agreement

The Wealth, Health and Wellbeing of Ireland's Older People Before and During the Economic Crisis The economic crisis of 2008/9 was felt more acutely in Ireland relative to elsewhere and culminated in the international bailout in 2010. Given the economic collapse, Ireland provides an ideal case-study of the link between wealth collapses and movements in variables such as health and well-being. Using nationally-representative samples of older people collected before and during the crisis, we show that mean net assets fell by 45 percent between 2006/7 and 2012/13. In spite of this massive fall in wealth, measures of health and well-being remained broadly unchanged. However, expectations about future living standards became less optimistic. The results tend to support the findings of other recent studies that recessions do not have widespread negative effects on health and well-being.

The researchers would like to thank all of those who contributed to this research: Members of the Advisory Committee, individually and as a group, who added considerably to the value of the research with their highly relevant and at times acute analysis and comments.