Irish neutrality
[1] Since the 1970s, some have defined Irish neutrality more broadly to include a commitment to "United Nations peacekeeping, human rights and disarmament".
[1][2] Although the republic is not part of any military alliance, it relies on a NATO member, the United Kingdom, to protect Irish airspace.
[23] At the outbreak of the First World War, James Connolly was president of the Irish Neutrality League[24] and was prosecuted for a banner reading "We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland".
[25] In the 1921 negotiations leading to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, Erskine Childers envisaged the Irish Republic having a neutral status guaranteed in international law on the model of Belgium and Switzerland.
In the Third Dáil debate on the draft constitution, the Provisional Government rejected a Labour Party amendment requiring assent of the electorate via referendum.
The Spanish Civil War (Non-Intervention) Act, 1937 made it an offence to travel from Ireland to Spain to fight for either side.
The Fianna Fáil government's position was flagged years in advance by Taoiseach Éamon de Valera and had broad support.
[35] De Valera said in his wartime speeches that small states should stay out of the conflicts of big powers; hence Ireland's policy was officially "neutral", and the country did not publicly declare its support for either side.
On at least one occasion, an Allied Air Force officer thanked his Irish counterpart for the honour they bestowed upon the repatriated airmen.
The American ambassador, David Gray, stated that he once asked de Valera, early in the war, what he would do if German paratroopers "liberated" Derry.
"[citation needed] Many German spies were sent to Ireland, but all were captured quickly as a result of good intelligence and sometimes their ineptitude.
Winston Churchill, the British wartime Prime Minister, made an attack on the Irish Government and in particular Éamon de Valera in his radio broadcast on VE Day.
[47] In 1962–63, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Seán Lemass authorised searches of aircraft that stopped over at Shannon while flying between Warsaw Pact countries and Cuba, for "warlike material".
Garret FitzGerald, who was Minister for Foreign Affairs 1973–77, claims that both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in the 1960s and 1970s accepted that European integration would eventually reach a point where Ireland would have to join in defence co-operation.
Ireland, then a member of the UN Security Council, voted "yes" to Resolution 1441, which warned of "serious consequences" if Iraq did not comply with weapons inspectors.
While the court held that the custom in international law was that "a neutral state may not permit the movement of large numbers of troops or munitions of one belligerent State through its territory en route to a theatre of war with another", it found this was not part of Irish domestic law, as Irish neutrality was "a matter of government policy only".
[56] In 2006, the Minister for Defence, Willie O'Dea, announced that the Irish government would open talks on joining the European Union battle groups.
Green Party foreign affairs spokesperson John Gormley condemned the decision, saying that the government was "discarding the remnants of Irish neutrality".
An early petition sought clarification of government policy in relation to the use of Irish airspace by foreign military aircraft.
"[61] It defined neutrality as "non-membership of military alliances and non-participation in common or mutual defence arrangements",[62] while working with international organisations for peacekeeping missions.
Fianna Fáil supported membership; Sinn Féin, the Greens, Solidarity, and People Before Profit opposed it; the Labour Party had reservations.
[68] In January 2022, during the buildup to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia controversially announced plans to hold naval drills about 150 nautical miles off the coast, within Ireland's exclusive economic zone.
Russia's Ambassador to Ireland, Yury Filatov, warned the fishermen to "refrain from any provocative actions which might endanger all involved".
[69] Eventually, in response to requests from the Irish government, Russia's Minister of Defence Sergey Shoigu agreed to move the naval drills further away from Ireland.
[70] In a Dáil discussion that month on the Russo-Ukrainian crisis, Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit asked:[71] Taoiseach Micheál Martin replied:[71] In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar stated that while Ireland is not militarily aligned, the country is "not neutral at all" in relation to this conflict and that "support for Ukraine is unwavering and unconditional".
[74][75][76] In March 2023 a bill to hold a referendum on Irish membership in a hypothetical European army was opposed by the government, who called it "unnecessary".
[82][83][84] The forum was disrupted by anti-NATO protesters from the Connolly Youth Movement; with Martin describing them as "undemocratic" and "trying to shut down debate".
[85] Boyd Barrett accused those involved in the forum of "trying to soften up public opinion to abandoning Ireland's neutrality.
A 2004 report by Forfás noted that the policy of neutrality is a factor in Ireland's lack of an arms industry and strict export controls on weapons.
[90][91] The 2004 Forfás report noted concerns about dual-use technology and the use as weapons components of products from major Irish export industries such as chemicals, telecommunications equipment, computer chips and software.
