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By Root 821 0

it had developed, what it meant to live in the vast territory it covered, to what degree it was not just a nation but a society that drew its very being from the idea of Empire, each of these has been subjected to reinvigorated scrutiny. As one of these texts has effectively argued, Britain was actually never 'a convincing Imperial society' and this seemed particularly true during the inter-war years.10 Even within this the role and place of the Dominions only occasionally feature; the references are extremely scarce, and when they do appear, they are of an almost entirely secondary nature.

This study makes no specific reference to Eire and its position within the alliance. Britain's wartime relationship with its neighbour is a complicated issue, one that has merited an ever-expanding literature of its own as more information becomes available about the relationship that existed during the war years.11 In December 1936, the Irish government passed the External Affairs Act and, thus, only recognized the British monarch for certain limited purposes in external affairs. The following year a referendum accepted the proposal of a new constitution and a new country came into existence. The effect of the Eire Constitution of 1937 and earlier pieces of legislation was to remove all mention of the king and to abolish the office of governor-general, substituting as head of the state an elected leader. That same year the other Dominions declared that they did not regard the new Constitution as affecting the position of Eire as a member of the British Commonwealth, and this attitude was maintained, for all intents and purposes, throughout the war.12 Even so, with this the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 ceased to have any real meaning. The governor-general was duly replaced with a president elected by national suffrage, while the British high commissioner in Dublin's title also changed. However the government of Eire, headed by Eamon de Valera, neither acknowledged any allegiance to the Crown nor would it accept the Dominion conception of the unity of the Commonwealth.13

Neutrality was emphatically reiterated by de Valera at the earliest opportunity. A number of contemporary observers pointed to the decision not to support the rest of the Dominions in September 1939 as the most conclusive evidence that this equated fully with independent status in action. The memorandum handed to the British government by Eire's high commissioner in London less than ten days after the war had begun setting out his country's position could not be criticized by the secretary of state for Dominion affairs. He hoped that some effort could still be made to see it modified so that it was less embarrassing to the British Empire, but most other neutral countries had released similar documents clarifying their respective positions. What would not be done, however, was for any formal recognition of neutrality to be offered, an act that would formally dissolve the idea of the indivisibility of the Crown. Nor would it be accepted in London that Eire was no longer a member of the British Commonwealth.14 Winston Churchill, as the First Lord of the Admiralty up until May 1940, was at the forefront of those who went further and questioned Eire's neutrality and the strategic limitations it placed on the British Empire. The denial of the deep-water ports of Berehaven, Lough Swilly and Queenstown could play a critical role in the coming war against the German U-boats and was pointed to as justification for a possible military response. Dublin's decision was actually of uncertain value as was made clear to the American readership of Time magazine with the report of an official who had released the crew of a British seaplane forced down in a remote harbour. As he said to the correspondent, 'sure, we're neutral, but who are we neutral against?'15 At the end of war aside from Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, Eire had managed to remain an officially recognized and respected non-belligerent yet up to 200,000 Irish citizens had actually contributed to the Allied war effort.