Treaty Ports (Ireland)
As part of the settlement of the Anglo-Irish Trade War in the 1930s, the ports were transferred to Ireland (the Free State's successor) in 1938 following agreements reached between the British and Irish governments.
[a] The continued occupation by the United Kingdom of these bases was increasingly irksome, because Irish foreign policy had moved from a position of wanting some Royal Navy protection in 1922 to being a champion for neutrality in the 1930s at the League of Nations.
In September 1937 Malcolm MacDonald made it clear to de Valera that the United Kingdom was prepared to give up the ports if the Irish gave a guarantee that the British could use them in times of war.
[6] Shortly afterwards, the Irish Situation Committee chaired by Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain recommended a potential package deal for Ireland that would include returning the ports subject to the agreement of the chiefs of staff.
For the ceremony of taking over the fortifications the Government of Eire sent out a number of invitations, the guests including Ministers, members of the Dáil and Senate, and leaders of the old Irish Republican Army.
A decorated train brought the guests from Dublin to Cobh, and a tender carried them to Spike Island, where about 300 Irish troops had already landed under Major Maher.
Only a small party of British troops remained, and Captain O'Halloran, who was in charge, handed over the forts to Major Maher on behalf of the Eire Government at 6.20 p.m., and the Union Jack was lowered.
The troops were formed up around the flagstaff and Mr. de Valera ran up the tricolour national flag of Eire over Westmoreland Fort to the accompaniment of a salute of 21 guns.
The ports in question, Queenstown, Berehaven and Lough Swilly, are to be handed over unconditionally, with no guarantees of any kind, as a gesture of our trust and goodwill, as the Prime Minister said, to the Government of the Irish Republic.
Queenstown and Berehaven shelter the flotillas which keep clear the approaches to the Bristol and English Channels, and Lough Swilly is the base from which the access to the Mersey and the Clyde is covered ...
These ports are, in fact, the sentinel towers of the western approaches, by which the 45,000,000 people in this Island so enormously depend on foreign food for their daily bread, and by which they can carry on their trade, which is equally important to their existence.
It would be an easy step for a Dublin Government to deny their use to us once we have gone ... You are casting away real and important means of security and survival for vain shadows and for ease.Churchill also remarked that the concessions under the Agreements of 1938 were "astonishing triumphs" for Irish leader Éamon de Valera.
Churchill also asked would it not be "far better to give up the £10,000,000 [a one-off Irish payment under the Agreement], and acquire the legal right, be it only on a lease granted by treaty, to use these harbours when necessary?"
To compensate for the distance, allied convoys from North America had to be routed via Iceland to the ports in Northern Ireland in the early months of the Battle of the Atlantic.
However, this decision arguably proved more practical because the shorter sea lanes around Ireland's southern coast soon became vulnerable to German anti-shipping air attacks following the Fall of France in June 1940.
Nevertheless, many in the Royal Navy felt resentment towards the handover of the Irish Treaty Ports because they would have provided cover to convoys heading south to Gibraltar and North Africa.
[13] The Admiralty later estimated that ceding the ports led directly to the loss of 368 Allied ships and 5,070 lives during the war (Churchill was ridiculed for considering that de Valera might declare Ireland neutral).
