Ireland, Africa and the end of empire: Small state identity in the Cold War 1955–75 9781526130549

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Ireland, afrIca and the end of empIre Small State identity inold the old W, ar , 1955–75 Small State identity in the C WCar , 1955–75 Small State identity in the Cold W ar 1955–75

K evIn o’S ullIvan

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire Small state identity in the Cold War 1955–75 K E VIN O ’ SU LLIV A N

Manchester University Press Manchester

Copyright © Kevin O’Sullivan 2012 The right of Kevin O’Sullivan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA, UK www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available ISBN 978 0 7190 9544 3 paperback First published by Manchester University Press in hardback 2012 This paperback edition first published 2014 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction 1

vi ix 1

Unmistakably European: Ireland and the decolonisation of Africa

12

2

Ireland comes of age: Congo, peacekeeping and foreign policy

35

3

On the side of the angels: The birth of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement

61

4

Biafra: Ireland, Nigeria and the politics of civil war

83

5

Concern for Africa: The Biafran humanitarian crisis

107

6

‘Boks Amach’: Southern Africa, popular protest and foreign policy

132

Re-shaping the relationship: Ireland, the EC and southern Africa

158

‘If we’re Christians at all’: Irish foreign aid

182

7 8

Conclusion References Index

204 215 226

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to the many individuals who contributed to the completion of this book. A number of friends, colleagues and fellow researchers offered important insight and advice at various stages in its gestation: Peter Yding Brunbech, Anna Bryson, Nicholas Crowson, Marc Dierikx, Mark Duncan, Julia Eichenberg, Diarmaid Ferriter, Joël Glasman, Brian Hanley, Matthew Hilton, Michael Holmes, Juhani Koponen, Tom Lodge, Deirdre McMahon, Eve Morrison, Mary Muldowney, William Mulligan, John Mulqueen, Claus Kjersgaard Nielsen, Thorsten Olesen, Kate O’Malley, Helen O’Neill, Terry O’Neill, Helge Pharo, Peter Rigney, Paul Rouse, Lauri Siitonen and Bernadette Whelan. Michael Kennedy and Eunan O’Halpin both lent an open ear and welcome commentary on many of the themes of this book. Special thanks are due to David Dickson, without whose support and suggestions in its early stages this book would have been very different indeed. Colleagues, past and present, at the NUI Galway, University of Birmingham, University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin provided conversation, comments and an escape – where necessary – from the fishbowl of writing and research. Niamh Cullen, Ciara Meehan and Patrick Walsh listened, read and made invaluable suggestions on earlier drafts of the text (though any errors or omissions are, of course, my own). My fellow travellers at Pue’s Occurrences, Juliana Adelman, Lisa-Marie Griffith and Christina Morin, offered friendship, debate and a space to explore new ideas. Thanks also to Ian Campbell, Eamon Darcy, Susan Grant, Tomás Irish, Annaleigh Margey, Elaine Murphy, Léan Ní Chléirigh, Christopher Prior, Daniel Steinbach and Ciarán Wallace for their support and regular doses of sanity. Historians owe much to those at the coalface in the libraries and archives in which we spend many of our working hours. I would like to thank the staff of the National Archives of Ireland, the National Library of Ireland, UCD Archives, Trinity College Manuscripts Department, and the National Archives of the United Kingdom at Kew. I am indebted

Acknowledgements

vii

to Brother Ignatius Curry at the Holy Ghost archives in Dublin for his assistance in locating material and for offering personal insight into the order’s involvement in Biafra; to Seamus Helferty of the UCD Archives for his assistance with the Barry Desmond papers; to Tom Desmond of the National Library of Ireland for locating the microfilmed copies of the IAAM papers; and to Sally Corcoran, Mark Tynan and the staff of UCD Development Studies Library for their help in locating materials on Irish foreign aid. I am also grateful to a number of individuals who helped in gaining access to privately held materials: Desmond Lamont for granting use of his uncle Bishop Donal Lamont’s papers; Tony Ffrench for his insight and for allowing me to consult his private collection of papers from the IAAM; the late Professor Kader Asmal for kindly copying documents relating to that movement; and Professor Eunan O’Halpin for providing access to documents in his possession. The art of conversation is another of the great privileges of being a contemporary historian. Tom Arnold, Noel Dorr, John O’Loughlin Kennedy, Kay Kennedy, Joseph Small and the late Fr Aengus Finucane all commented on my work, assisted in tracking down interviewees, and brought an enthusiasm to the project that proved invaluable. They, and many others, also gave over their time and wisdom in the interviews conducted for this book. Although it is not possible to thank each of them individually, I am ever grateful for the generosity and interest they showed (along with the accompanying cups of tea, sandwiches, lunches, fruit-cake and other culinary delights). They bring critical insight and no small degree of colour to the narrative. Special thanks are also due to a number of friends on whose support (and willing resort to distraction) I continue to rely: Jonathan Gray, Greg Kerr, Oisín Loftus and Andrew McKeown. Peadar King was a source of discussion on Africa, aid, and more besides, and it was under his influence that I visited the continent for the first time: a twoweek documentary-making spell in Angola in 2007 that had a profound impact on the research and writing of this book. Then there are those without whom this book would simply not exist. The Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences and Trinity College Dublin provided generous funding at various stages of its gestation. The professionalism and warmth shown by the staff at Manchester University Press has made them a pleasure to work with from the beginning to the end of the process. This book is dedicated to my family. My in-laws Deirdre, Vincent and Anne Marie provided encouragement and accommodation at important stages in the book’s gestation. My brother Declan remains a source of unfailing good humour – and occasional technical assistance. My

viii

Acknowledgements

parents, Dave and Phil, have always been a source of inestimable inspiration, assistance and support. But it is to my wife, Jane, that I owe the most: she put up with a lot in the course of researching and writing this book, and offered observations, improvements and, above all, unending patience and love for which I am eternally grateful.

Abbreviations

AAM ACP ANC ATGWU CARE CMS CTT DAC DEA DEVCO DFA DO DT EC EDF EPC FAO FCO FFHC FO FRELIMO HGPA BP IAAM ICJ ICJP ICRC ICTU IDAF IPA IRFU ITGWU

Anti-Apartheid Movement African Caribbean and Pacific African National Congress (South Africa) Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere Church Missionary Society Córas Tráchtála (Irish Export Board) Development Assistance Committee (of the OECD) Department of External Affairs Development Co-operation Organisation Department of Foreign Affairs Dominions Office Department of the Taoiseach European Community European Development Fund European Political Co-operation Food and Agriculture Organisation Foreign and Commonwealth Office Freedom from Hunger Campaign Foreign Office Frente de Libertação de Moçambique Holy Ghost Provincialite Archives, Biafra Papers Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement International Court of Justice Irish Commission for Justice and Peace International Committee of the Red Cross Irish Congress of Trade Unions International Defence and Aid Fund Institute of Public Administration Irish Rugby Football Union Irish Transport and General Workers Union

x JBFA JCA MMM MPLA NAI NGO NLI OAU ODA OECD

Abbreviations

Joint Biafra Famine Appeal Joint Church Aid Medical Missionaries of Mary Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola National Archives of Ireland Non-governmental Organisation National Library of Ireland Organisation of African Unity Official Development Assistance Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ONUC United Nations Operation in the Congo OPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries PAC Pan-African Congress (South Africa) PAIGC Partido Afrikano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde PMUN Permanent Mission to the United Nations RTÉ Radio Telefís Éireann (Irish state broadcaster) SANROC South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee SMA Society of African Missions SWAPO South West African People’s Organisation TCD Trinity College, Dublin TCD MS Triniy College, Dublin Manuscripts Department TD Teachta Dála (Member of Parliament) TNA The National Archives of the United Kingdom UCDA University College Dublin Archives UDI Unilateral Declaration of Independence UN United Nations UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNETPSA United Nations Educational and Training Programme for Southern Africa UNGA United Nations General Assembly UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund UNORGA United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly UNTFSA United Nations Trust Fund for South Africa WFP World Food Programme WHO World Health Organisation ZANU Zimbabwe African National Union ZAPU Zimbabwe African Peoples’ Union

Introduction

Kwame Nkrumah said it best. On the evening of 18 May 1960 the Ghanaian Prime Minister digressed from his speech to a packed meeting of the Irish United Nations Association at Dublin’s Shelbourne Hotel to address the links between Ireland, Africa and the rapidly disappearing lines of empire. He spoke of his admiration for the Irish people’s campaign for freedom and its parallels to events in the emerging African states. He paid tribute to ‘those Irish leaders of the last century who realised that the struggle of Ireland for independence was not the struggle of one country alone, but part of a world movement for freedom’.1 The desire of Africa’s majorities to be liberated from foreign rule, he stated, in essence replicated the Irish experience. To an outsider, Nkrumah’s words might have appeared out of place  –  or at the very least exaggerated to suit his audience. (And, given that Irish officials supplied some of the material, that may have been the case.)2 Yet in Ireland they resonated far beyond the simple platitudes of a visiting dignitary. At a time when Irish support for decolonisation played a central role in constructing the state’s identity at the United Nations (UN), the arrival of Africa’s most prominent politician afforded a further opportunity to link Ireland’s past with Africa’s present. The welcome was shaped accordingly. The Irish Press described Nkrumah’s doctrine as one ‘familiar in Irish history – “self government with danger is better than servitude in tranquillity”’.3 The Ghanaian premier, it assured its readers, would find ‘sympathy and understanding’ among a people who had ‘known the rigours, bigotry and stupidity of colonial rule’.4 But there was more to Nkrumah’s speech than a celebration of the countries’ shared colonial heritage. In a year of considerable importance to Africa – when seventeen states gained their political freedom – his very presence in Dublin underlined the respect in which the Irish Government was held, four-and-a-half years after it joined the UN. His words spoke loudly to the vision of international politics shared by

2

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

Ireland and its counterparts among the ‘fire brigade’ states – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, a group of small and middling powers valued by the international community for their support for collective security and the primacy of international law. In addressing the relationship between Africa and the UN, Nkrumah emphasised the need for the world organisation to take a greater responsibility in bringing peace and security to the continent. He pointed to the important role played by small states as a counter-balance to the diplomatic weight of the superpowers: ‘the collective and concerted voice of the smaller nations must be heard. It is wrong that the rest of the world should sit idly by and allow the fate of mankind to be decided by the political manoeuvring between four Powers, however important individually they may be’.5 Nkrumah’s visit was brief – he departed on 19 May having spent less than two days in Dublin. Yet in the snapshot it offered of Ireland’s world role at the beginning of the 1960s, his speech at the Shelbourne Hotel prefigured the themes at the heart of this book. The book’s central narrative – the story of Ireland’s emergence from postwar isolation, from its membership of the UN (which it joined in 1955) to its first presidency of the European Community (EC) twenty years later – owed much to the influence of African states, and African concerns, in shaping the international agenda. Empire, its disintegration and its many legacies also played an important role – in defining Ireland’s identity, in creating a common space (and accentuating the differences) between that country and the developing world, and in strongly informing the Irish approach to international affairs. In referring to the role of small states, Nkrumah also spoke to the need for an alternative narrative of the Cold War of the kind recounted in this book – one told through the eyes of the small and middling powers who operated on the edge of the struggle for superpower supremacy. Small states and the Cold War – the search for a new narrative There is a familiar history of international relations in the second half of the twentieth century – of superpower rivalry, East versus West, capitalist versus communist, a battle for political and economic influence. There are its subplots – two waves of decolonisation (Asia in the 1940s and 1950s, Africa in the 1960s), the rise of the EC and the shifting fortunes of the UN. There are its sideshows – the story of the non-aligned movement, the influence of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), and the rise of the foreign aid regime. And in every telling there are its individual twists and turns, heroes and villains.

Introduction

3

Yet to see the world through any one of these narratives alone – through American or Soviet, European or Arab, Asian or African eyes – is not enough to explain the world’s fortunes in a period of dramatic change. It is in the places where their histories meet that the daily reality of international relations is to be found. The ‘fire brigade’ states lived out their diplomatic lives at these crossroads. They thought and acted in terms not only of their response to the Cold War conflict that surrounded them but also of their commitment to international law (through the UN), justice (in their support for decolonisation) and a strong sense of national morality (foreign aid). Their decisions in the foreign policy arena were driven not by a stark choice between realism and idealism – though they undoubtedly played a part – but by a complex set of overlapping factors that produced an equally complicated response. To unpack their story fully we must also look to what goes on outside the corridors of diplomacy. National histories, cultures, and social structures played a strong role in shaping their statesmen’s response to international affairs. Beyond the state, the thirty years after the end of the Second World War saw a radical re-shaping of the arena of global politics. The spread of globalisation and the weakening of the state as the focus of human action prompted the rise of new forces in international relations. The emergence of a truly global media – and one medium above all: television – brought international issues into the homes of millions of middle-class citizens in the West. Interest in subjects like apartheid gave rise to a shared international discourse and a new global language of rights. The growth of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), particularly in the field of foreign aid, contributed further, by helping to bridge the gap between peoples from across the globe. These lessons are equally applicable to Ireland’s re-emergence on the world stage in the twenty years after it joined the UN in 1955. In place of a long-dominant and overly simplistic narrative – of a flame that burned brightly in the five years that followed Ireland’s arrival at the UN, faded in the decade that followed, and has flickered intermittently ever since – this book argues for a more nuanced reading of the country’s role in the world. We need to understand why Irish reactions to events on a continent thousands of miles from home (Africa), often taken in an equally distant city (New York), continued to shape the state’s identity for two decades (and beyond). We need to look at a world in which traditional relationships – between Ireland and Britain, Ireland and the United States, and Ireland and its partners in the EC – were played out under the rules of a society of independent states, not just those of bilateral

4

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

diplomacy. And we need to explore the less-observed places where the public and official worlds meet – to seek out the missionaries, volunteers and activists who helped to shape the policy agenda. These narratives unfolded in a rapidly changing international environment. In the twenty years after 1955, the emergence of a vocal Afro-Asian group and evolving patterns of superpower politics lent increasing complexity to the conduct of international relations. Issues of decolonisation and freedom from outside interference dominated the UN in the late 1950s. But victory in the campaign for independence – by the mid-1960s the majority of Africa’s states were self-governed – was followed by a new, if familiar, struggle: for political and economic influence. Africa, like much of the developing world, became a location for the proxy battles of the Cold War. The repression of the colonial era was replaced by a race to control natural resources and efforts by the major powers – East and West – to shape the continent’s political landscape in their favour. The 1960s also saw the acceleration of more familiar conflicts: against the imposition of minority rule in South Africa and Rhodesia and the continued Portuguese presence in Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau. When African political elites brought these issues before the international community, they helped to re-focus the debate at the UN and in other global fora like the International Labour Organisation. But by the mid-1970s the agenda had shifted once again. The emphasis placed by developing world states on the promotion of equality and economic development had by then been transformed into calls for the creation of a radical ‘New International Economic Order’. Though its principles remained fundamentally the same, Irish foreign policy evolved to reflect this changing situation. In October 1957, almost two years after Ireland’s admission to the UN, G. D. Anderson of the British Embassy in Dublin reported his view of the state’s contribution to the organisation. The Irish delegation, he felt, had reached the stage where it is prepared to make independent initiatives, in the hope no doubt that they may prove to be constructive contributions to the work of the UN. It would be out of character for the Irish to become, or to give the appearance of becoming, docile camp followers of any bloc, even of a Western bloc, but . . . providing the appearances of independent initiative and decision are preserved, Irish delegations can be expected to work not to get too seriously out of step with the policies of the Western countries.6

Anderson’s assessment proved remarkably accurate, not only in the short term during what has become known as the ‘golden age’ of Irish

5

Introduction

UN membership (to the early 1960s) but in the changing dynamics of a General Assembly increasingly dominated by the independent African and Asian states. Built on a desire to maintain the state’s diplomatic independence, to pursue international stability (and, by the same token, its own security) through co-operation, and a natural sympathy for the policies of the Western powers, the Irish Government retained a commitment to its principles even as the context and direction of its foreign policy adapted to a changing international environment. The manner in which it was articulated and, equally importantly, received, shaped the state’s move from postwar isolation on the periphery of Europe to membership of the world’s most important regional grouping, the EC, which it joined in 1973. Just as influences from outside the state’s boundaries helped to shape its role on the international stage, changes from within Ireland also affected the official attitude to foreign affairs. The evolution of Irish society in line with the country’s economic growth and broader patterns of social change sparked a relative increase in interest in international issues. The public agenda changed accordingly. Pressure groups like the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement (IAAM) and development NGOs like Gorta, Concern and Trócaire assumed a prominent role in re-defining the state’s relationship with the developing world. Their advocacy of social justice, equality and economic development came increasingly to define the direction of government policy. By the 1970s, foreign aid had emerged to become the primary channel of contact between the Irish Government and its counterparts in the developing world. But its growing importance could not be divorced from broader changes to the political context. In February 1975, during the state’s first presidency of the EC, Irish officials oversaw the final negotiation of the Lomé Convention, a trade agreement between the Community and the developing world. The status Ireland courted as a former colony, able to empathise with the concerns of the developing world but unavoidably European in character, had by then been re-cast and there were hints of a new role for the state in international politics. Ireland and the ‘fire brigade’ states Ireland was not alone in its experience of change. In December 1959, the Economist praised the role played by Irish diplomats in establishing a strong reputation for the UN, arguing that the General Assembly ‘needs a few more Irelands of this kind. Moderation is certainly gaining ground; but moderation can slide imperceptibly into inertia’.7 Yet that newspaper saw Ireland not as a solitary crusader but as a new addition

6

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

to a group already established at the forefront of international support for the world organisation: ‘It is good to see how many of the newer member states have rallied to help the by now old established “fire brigade” – of which the Scandinavians are the main nucleus – that can usually be counted on to work for conciliation and to ease the assembly out of futile deadlocks’.8 More than its reactionary League of Nations predecessor, the UN afforded the ‘fire brigade’ states the opportunities to pro-actively shape the terms of engagement in international affairs. Building on what Christian Reus-Smit termed the League’s ‘idea that a society of civilised states should be governed by fundamental institutions of reciprocally binding laws and multilateral diplomacy’, the UN created the kind of diplomatic space in which a country like Ireland could thrive.9 In the late 1950s, when commitment to these ideals was still fresh in the minds of the Cold War’s main protagonists, the predominance of morally straightforward issues like decolonisation afforded the ‘fire brigade’ the opportunity to take up a leading position in shaping the international agenda. Things changed in the 1960s. The conditions that lent themselves to such an assertive role were altered irrevocably by the realities of African independence. In alliance with their Asian counterparts, the new African governments generated a worldview that put the needs of the developing world to the forefront, and immediately changed the climate for debate at the UN. The acceleration of Cold War tensions, including the superpowers’ involvement in a number of conflicts on the African continent and the assertion of their political power in New York, further sidelined the small and middling powers. The result was the gradual displacement of the ‘fire brigade’ vision of a global society based on international law and centred on the institutions of the UN. Yet the constructivist model of international relations embodied by their actions – of a society of states governed by a set of norms and rules of behaviour generated from within the international community – did not disappear.10 Instead it found expression in new norms and new patterns of behaviour that emerged in the 1970s: the rise of the foreign aid regime, renewed international dialogue on human rights and the near-universal denunciation of apartheid and minority rule. At each turn, the decline of imperial power and its legacies haunted the ‘fire brigade’ states. Their diplomatic identities owed much to their vocal support for the goals of self-determination and political independence. Frequent references were made to the ‘special’ understanding that they, free from the baggage of imperial designs and an expansionist past (or so they argued), had of the difficulties facing the

7

Introduction

developing world. Support for the anti-apartheid movement and liberation movements in Rhodesia and Portuguese Africa was framed in terms of a national revulsion to injustice and the immorality of minority rule. National-cultural traits found expression in attitudes to humanitarian relief and foreign aid, both of which were framed as natural extensions of society’s concern for the less fortunate. Why Ireland and Africa? This book uses Africa as a framework through which to examine this process of change. It compares the Irish experience with, and relates it to, that of a number of comparable moderate social democratic polities  – the Nordic states (particularly Sweden and Finland), the Netherlands and Canada – to gain a more nuanced understanding of the patterns and processes that informed decision-making. It sheds light on the construction of Ireland’s diplomatic identity and asks to what extent the Irish case should be regarded as unique. And, by addressing the relationship between civil society and foreign policy in a similar manner, it examines how social change and the encroachment of Western ideas of social protest affected Irish perceptions of international affairs and the developing world. Yet the question remains: why Africa? There are a number of reasons. The Africa of this book is the one most easily identifiable in the popular imagination in Ireland and beyond – the vast area south of the Sahara, noticeably different in focus from its North African neighbours who had more in common with the Middle East and the Mediterranean, but no less diverse in its cultural, social, political and economic make-up. It is the Africa described in the works of nineteenth-century explorers like Henry Stanley, in films like King Solomon’s Mines (1950) and The African Queen (1951) and, most importantly, in the experiences of the thousands of Irish missionaries who worked in remote parishes from Sierra Leone to Uganda, Nigeria to Rhodesia. Of necessity this regional emphasis means leaving aside the Irish reaction to Algerian independence and the growth in Irish trade with Libya and Egypt. But in a period in which the Irish Government established a role for the state at the UN and later as a member of the EC, it was the emergence of an independent and diplomatically vocal group of sub-Saharan African states that exerted the greatest influence (directly and indirectly) on the Irish public and official imaginations. More than the earlier decolonisation of Asia, this process in Africa caught the attention of the Irish Government from the moment it joined the UN. The issues that subsequently arose from the continent’s independence – the spread of the

8

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

Cold War, abortive economic development and foreign aid – continued to provide significant tests for policy-makers and the public alike. There were also important direct links between Ireland and the African continent. The relationships with South Africa established during the Boer war carried important connotations for Irish nationalism. Irish missionaries had a long history of involvement in Africa, dating back to at least the mid-nineteenth century. It became particularly important in Catholic discourse, through the large numbers of missionaries who operated there and whose reach into every parish and home in Ireland made them centrally important in shaping Irish perceptions of the developing world. This dominant Catholic missionary tradition is reflected in the attention afforded to it in this book, yet it should not be allowed to mask the important contributions made by Irish Protestant missionaries. From the Irish men and women who departed for far-flung corners of the British Empire to the visible links between Irish Protestants and groups like the IAAM (through individuals like the Rev. Dr Terence McCaughey) and Africa Concern (the Methodist Rev. Ian Biggs was the organisation’s first secretary), to organisations like Christian Aid and the Church Missionary Society, both of which helped to stimulate action in the field of foreign aid, the Protestant churches played an important role in shaping Irish attitudes to the developing world. The combination of their activities, Catholic and Protestant, informed Irish perceptions of Africa, however vague and unrelated to social and political boundaries (see Chapter 1). But on occasion they also had a more direct impact. Irish clergymen (for those with influence were mainly men), for example, played a particularly important role in stimulating the Irish reaction to the Nigerian civil war, and also in promoting the concept of foreign aid with the public and in official policies. It was no coincidence that the Irish Government responded to calls to provide aid to the developing world in 1960 with a scheme entitled ‘Assistance for newly-independent African countries’, and this emphasis was repeated in its later concentration on Africa in the bilateral aid programme set up in the mid-1970s. Writing the history of Ireland, Africa and the end of empire It is clear that Africa and the myriad consequences of the end of empire had a significant influence on world politics in what was a formative period in Ireland’s re-integration into the world polity of states. Yet the tendency among Irish historians to focus on the country’s relationship with Europe, the UN, Northern Ireland, Britain and the United States has

9

Introduction

largely over-shadowed the role played by the continent in shaping Irish fortunes.11 Authors like Patrick Keatinge, T. Desmond Williams, Joseph Skelly, Aoife Bhreatnach, Greg Spelman and Ben Tonra touched briefly on some of its dominant themes – decolonisation, peacekeeping, Irish missionaries, the role of foreign aid and the principles that informed the state’s diplomatic identity.12 The work of the retired former diplomat Noel Dorr has offered considerable insight into the subtleties of the policy-making process.13 In 1993 Michael Holmes, Nicholas Rees and Bernadette Whelan produced The Poor Relation: Irish Foreign Policy and the Third World, the only in-depth study of Ireland’s relationship with the developing world published to date.14 But there has been little attempt to pursue in depth the kind of nuanced interpretation of Ireland’s world role hinted at by these studies. For inspiration we must turn instead to northern Europe and North America, and in particular to the histories of the West’s relationship with the developing world that have appeared over the last decade. The growing volume of research on foreign aid and the fruits of the Uppsala-based Nordic Africa Institute’s ‘National Liberation in Southern Africa: The Role of the Nordic Countries’ project – particularly the two excellent volumes on Sweden authored by Tor Sellström – have shown the way by combining the history of civil society’s engagement with an international issue (or issues) with the history of official government policy and the broader international dimension.15 The lesson from these studies is simple: in the conduct of international relations, a small state like Ireland can never escape the demands and pressures placed on it by actors at all levels of the domestic and international environment. It is in their path that this book follows: drawing together patterns of activity at national level with trends and decisions taken in a broader global context. As Williams noted, ‘states are never wholly free in relation to the policy which they follow’.16 So too histories of the foreign relations of individual states must be situated in relation to those of their contemporaries and to the proliferation of influences that act upon them, ranging from inter-state communications to social change in the domestic environment and the construction of individual identity. To date these lessons have all too infrequently been applied to the history of Ireland’s relationship with the outside world. This book forges a new path. Notes 1 ‘Africa Could Be Threat to Peace: Nkrumah Calls for Positive Action by United Nations’, Irish Times, 19 May 1960.

10

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

2 The Department of External Affairs (DEA) official Noel Dorr undertook part of the preparatory research for the speech in the National Library of Ireland; interview with Noel Dorr, Dublin, 12 April 2005. 3 ‘Dr Nkrumah’, Irish Press, 18 May 1960. 4 Ibid. 5 ‘Africa Could Be Threat to Peace: Nkrumah Calls for Positive Action by United Nations’, Irish Times, 19 May 1960. 6 The National Archives of the United Kingdom (hereafter TNA), Dominions Office (hereafter DO), 35/10625, Anderson to Preston, 12 Oct. 1957. 7 ‘Afro-Irish Assembly’, Economist, 19 Dec. 1959. 8 Ibid. 9 Christian Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State: Culture, Social Identity, and Institutional Rationality in International Relations (Princeton, 1999), p. 149. 10 For a description of the constructivist approach to international relations, see Hedley Bull, ‘Society and Anarchy in International Relations’, in James Der Derian (ed.), International Theory: Critical Investigations (London, 1995), pp. 75–94; Alexander Wendt, ‘Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics’, International Organization, 46: 2 (1992), pp. 391–425; and Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State. 11 For a brief discussion of recent trends in Irish historiography, see Kevin O’Sullivan, ‘Irish Diplomatic History in the Twenty-first Century: After the Gold Rush’, Irish Economic and Social History, 37 (2010), pp. 105–16. 12 See Patrick Keatinge, The Formulation of Irish Foreign Policy (Dublin, 1973); Patrick Keatinge, A Place Among the Nations: Issues of Irish Foreign Policy (Dublin, 1978); T. Desmond Williams, ‘Irish Foreign Policy, 1949–69’, in J. J. Lee (ed.), Ireland 1945–70 (Dublin, 1979), pp. 136–51; Joseph Morrison Skelly, Irish Diplomacy at the United Nations 1945–1965: National Interests and the International Order (Dublin, 1997); Aoife Bhreatnach, ‘A Friend of the Colonial Powers? Frank Aiken, Ireland’s United Nations Alignment and Decolonisation’, in Michael Kennedy and Deirdre McMahon (eds), Obligations and Responsibilities: Ireland and the United Nations, 1955–2005 (Dublin, 2005), pp. 182–200; Greg Spelman, ‘Ireland at the United Nations, 1965–69: Evolving Policy and Changing Presence’, in Kennedy and McMahon (eds), Obligations and Responsibilities, pp. 224–52; and Ben Tonra, Global Citizen and European Republic: Irish Foreign Policy in Transition (Manchester, 2006). 13 Noel Dorr, Ireland at the United Nations: Memories of the Early Years (Dublin, 2010). 14 Michael Holmes, Nicholas Rees and Bernadette Whelan, The Poor Relation: Irish Foreign Policy and the Third World (Dublin, 1993). 15 This approach to the history of foreign aid is best embodied by two recent texts: Carol Lancaster, Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics (London, 2007); and Helge Pharo and Monika Pohle Fraser (eds), The Aid Rush: Aid Regimes in Northern Europe During the Cold War

Introduction

11

(Oslo, 2008). There are five volumes in the Nordic Africa Institute series: Tore Linné Eriksen (ed.), Norway and National Liberation in Southern Africa (Uppsala, 2000); Christopher Munthe Morgenstierne, Denmark and National Liberation in Southern Africa: A Flexible Response (Uppsala, 2003); Tor Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume I – Formation of a Popular Opinion (1950–1970) (Uppsala, 1999); Tor Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume II – Solidarity and Assistance (1970–1994) (Uppsala, 2002); and Iina Soiri and Pekka Peltola, Finland and National Liberation in Southern Africa (Uppsala, 1999). 16 Williams, ‘Irish Foreign Policy’, p. 137.

1

Unmistakably European Ireland and the decolonisation of Africa

The year 1960, the ‘year of Africa’, marked an important shift in international politics. At the UN, the arrival of seventeen newly independent African states radically altered the dynamics of the General Assembly. With their Asian counterparts, they brought developing world issues and developing world concerns to the forefront of the international agenda. At successive Non Aligned conferences at Belgrade (1961) and Cairo (1964) they cemented their role as a diplomatic counter-balance to the ideological conflict of the Cold War. Yet their efforts did not make them immune to the machinations of the superpowers. Civil war in the former Belgian Congo (later Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo) – and later in Angola, Mozambique and Nigeria – re-drew the boundaries of international conflict, inviting American, Soviet and Chinese interference and an extension of East–West hostilities to the African continent. The growing influence of the developing world also had an effect on the ‘fire brigade’ states. As the decade progressed, Afro-Asian demands, and the radical agenda they pursued, became increasingly at odds with the latter’s conciliatory approach. The equation was simple: with larger voting numbers and greater influence in shaping the agenda at the UN, the developing world had less recourse to moderate Western states to secure support for their policy goals. Yet Africa’s importance in shaping the policies of the ‘fire brigade’ states was nothing new. In the late 1950s, support for decolonisation became important in carving out independent identities for the small and middling powers in the ideological battleground of the Cold War. National interests became international interests, allying the creation of successful sovereign nations in the developing world with the promotion of a stable international system and the protection of security at home. In that environment, Irish anti-colonialism and strong support for the UN became important identifiers for a state emerging from a long period of diplomatic isolation following the outbreak of the Second

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World War. Irish policy-makers and public commentators looked to the UN as a way of protecting their own interests while re-engaging with the principles that their country had embraced as a member of the League of Nations twenty years before – ‘by doing good for others, we will do even greater good for ourselves’.1 But support for African self-determination was important in another sense: as an indication of Irish anti-colonialism and its role in defining Irish diplomatic identity. Officials in the Department of External Affairs (DEA) agreed. Ireland’s history, they argued, placed it in a unique position to act as a bridge between Europe and Africa. There was little new, of course, in drawing on the founding myths of a nation to construct a state’s present identity. And in the ‘year of Africa’, it was clear that these ideas carried a particular resonance for Ireland. Yet a number of questions remained. What did these ideas mean in practice? What kind of identity did they create for the Irish state? And how did Ireland’s role change in the reality of African independence? The decolonisation of Africa The world that Ireland returned to when it joined the UN in 1955 was in a state of considerable flux. The destruction wrought by the Second World War inspired the UN’s efforts to provide for collective security and the negotiated resolution of conflict. But it also created the space for two competing ideologies – East versus West, communist versus capitalist – that through the Cold War came to define the practice of international relations for more than four decades. In the developing world, the politics and geography of that conflict served to re-define metropolitan attitudes towards the colonies. The first battles between East and West took place not in Europe but in Asia: in Korea and in former colonies like Malaya, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. In the following decades, these proxy wars would spread easily to Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. Yet there was something more at play on these continents than the simple exigencies of superpower politics. In the late 1940s and early 1950s Asia witnessed an outpouring of national sentiment, the creation of new nations and the division of others. Africa was no different. While in many regions the immediate aftermath of the Second World War saw a strengthening of imperial control, the emergence of new political ideas, the surfacing of new (and old) grievances and the shoots of Asian independence built ever-greater pressures for political freedom. When allied to the new geopolitics of the Cold War – not least the rapid technological advances it precipitated – these political realities

14

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

helped to re-define metropolitan attitudes towards empire. The British Government, inspired by Commonwealth Office officials like Andrew Cohen, was to the forefront. It adapted its attitudes to African participation, self-rule and finally independence in reaction to international changes in the postwar period. In 1956 Sudan was granted independence, followed in March 1957 by Ghana – led by the charismatic Nkrumah. Within a few short years, the ‘wind of change’ that the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan warned a Cape Town audience in February 1960 was ‘blowing through this continent .  .  . whether we like it or not’, had re-drawn the political culture of Africa.2 Ghana, and particularly Nkrumah’s vision for a successful, united and non-aligned continent, led the way. Its early success had an influence beyond its counterparts in the British-held territories. In 1958 Guiné took advantage of the French Government’s reconstitution of its relationship with its colonies to declare its independence. Preoccupied with the revolt in Algeria and concerned at the threat posed by independent former British colonies to its sphere of influence, the French Government granted further concessions in 1960, leading to the independence of the majority of its territories on the African continent. The UN played no small part in this process – from its association with the Atlantic Charter to the work of its Trusteeship Committee in highlighting colonial issues. Yet the organisation itself emerged radically changed by decolonisation. Strong co-operation among the new African states and co-ordination with their Asian counterparts provided them with a voting strength that kept developing world issues to the fore. Macmillan’s speech, therefore, came not at the beginning of a process of decolonisation but in the midst of the break-up of empire in Africa. In October 1960, after years of debate about its future constitution, Nigeria became independent and immediately assumed the mantle of one of the region’s most important political and social actors. By 1964 all African states outside the settler colonies (the Portuguese territories, South West Africa, Southern Rhodesia and South Africa), Gambia (which became independent in 1965), Equatorial Guinea (1968) and the British Trust Territories of Basutoland (renamed Lesotho), Bechuanaland (Botswana), and Swaziland (whose independence followed later in the decade) had gained their independence. Decolonisation and Irish diplomatic identity It was in this rapidly changing political landscape that Ireland took its seat at the UN for the first time in 1955. It was a daunting step. What

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Patrick Keatinge termed a process of ‘tentative internationalisation’ was accentuated by the isolation imposed by Irish neutrality during the Second World War and the country’s prewar protectionist economic policies.3 Like Finland, which joined the UN at the same time, Irish policy-makers had little contact with the minutiae of international politics prior to then. And – again like Finland – its isolation was particularly acute in the case of the developing world. Only one group successfully bridged that gap between Europe’s peripheries and the heartlands of the Third World: Christian missionaries. In Finland the Lutheran Missionary Society was the first to bring conditions in South West Africa – where it had been active since 1870 – to the attention of the Finnish public. Another religious body, Finnchurchaid, concentrated attention on the humanitarian and development needs of Africa.4 Yet the influence of both institutions paled in comparison with the situation in Ireland. By 1965 there were 6,517 Irish Catholic missionaries – priests, brothers, nuns and laity – working in the developing world, where they were joined by hundreds of others from the various Protestant congregations.5 Through relatives, neighbours, ‘penny for a black baby’ collections and the distribution of missionary magazines like Africa, African Missionary, the Far East and Catholic Missions, most households had some relationship with Ireland’s ‘religious empire’. Africa assumed a central role. The continent accounted for 4,122 – nearly two-thirds – of Irish Catholic personnel in the developing world.6 In the public mind, too, black Africa became synonymous with missionary activity abroad – even if there was little effort made to distinguish Nigerians, Kenyans, Ugandans and Congolese from a mass of ‘Africans’. What the Irish public lacked in understanding the subtleties of that world, however, was made up for in an overwhelmingly positive attitude and pride in Ireland’s role. Missionary endeavour was offered as ‘living proof that even if Ireland lacked a vast material empire, yet she was great as a mother nation, sending her sons to all points of the globe’.7 As Africa changed, these connections were adapted to suit contemporary agendas. For much of the twentieth century, the presumed moral superiority of Ireland’s ‘spiritual empire’ was contrasted with a mercenary greed and hunger for power associated with the imperial project, while conveniently ignoring the role Irish missionaries had played in the construction of empire.8 As Africa moved towards independence, this Christian agenda was added to by the correlation of Ireland’s colonial past with its missionary present. Missionary work in education and health was quietly linked to the task of building the new

16

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

societies as they moved towards political freedom. Ireland, the Irish Press suggested in 1960, could ‘justly claim to have played a significant role in the development of African independence. Not merely by the example of our own struggle but through the toil of our missionaries, which has given spiritual and material assistance to the nations of Africa.’9 The effect of this discourse was twofold: it fostered an interest in and a sense of responsibility towards areas where Irish missionaries were present, and it created a link, however tenuous, between the activities of Irish men and women and African nationalist aspirations. It was, by its very formulation, an imbalanced account of Ireland’s role. It tended to ignore the view from the African side, and the differing experiences of colonisation and imperial rule. In spite of the relatively large numbers of Africans who studied at Irish institutions – particularly Trinity College Dublin and the Royal College of Surgeons – and the formative role played by missionaries in the education of leaders like Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, it was also debatable how much African elites knew – or cared – about Ireland. Whether this mattered in the construction of attitudes within Ireland was another question. The perception that Ireland, if not a ‘Third World’ state, was certainly a post-colonial society, entered easily into official discourse. Liam Cosgrave, Minister for External Affairs in the coalition Government between 1954 and 1957, told an audience in 1956 that Irish foreign policy was ‘to a large extent determined by our own national history’.10 His successor Frank Aiken was even more explicit in linking Ireland’s past to its present identity. He spoke, he told the UN General Assembly in October 1960, on behalf of a people that knew ‘what imperialism is and what resistance to it involves’.11 If this rhetoric led analysts to assume too readily an Irish exceptionalism, its purchase on the official mind and subsequent impact on policy formulation should not be underestimated. What Stephen Howe later termed the ‘perceived colonial legacy’ articulated by Aiken and others had a significant effect in shaping the principles on which Ireland’s foreign policy was based.12 More than the Nordic states, Canada or the other middling powers that adopted a similar political stance, Ireland was portrayed as having a ‘natural’ sympathy with the cause of the developing world. Ireland’s past, the Taoiseach (prime minister) Seán Lemass told a Washington audience in 1963, made it ‘particularly conscious of the needs of countries following our path to freedom’.13 Not that it was quite that straightforward. In the same speech, mindful of Ireland’s desire to join the EC, Lemass simultaneously described the state as ‘unmistakably European’ in its outlook.14 Ireland could not

Unmistakably European

17

escape its European origins. Its high ‘anti-colonial’ score at the UN put the country ahead of most Western states, but behind the Latin Americans, Soviet-influenced Eastern Europeans and the Afro-Asian group.15 Ireland was, to paraphrase its influential Ambassador to the UN, Freddie Boland, a Western European state but one that by virtue of its own past, however over-emphasised and exaggerated its similarities to the African experience may have been, was nonetheless sympathetic to the goals of the emerging states of the developing world.16 Conceptualising Irish foreign policy This alliance of Ireland’s post-colonial and European identities had an important influence on its approach to international affairs. Politically, the ‘fire brigade’ states were easily identifiable as belonging to the Western sphere – however non-aligned they wished to appear. Yet as a group they shared a common approach to international relations that marked them apart from the major players in the Cold War. Support for the UN took centre stage, allied to a strong commitment to the principles of international law. Their policies emphasised dialogue, disarmament, the peaceful resolution of conflict and the importance of unity to avert catastrophe. At their heart was a belief in the pursuit of common interests, based on a principle articulated more recently by Alexander Wendt: ‘states identify positively with one another so that the security of each is perceived as the responsibility of all’.17 At the UN the Irish Government associated itself closely with what Lemass termed ‘that centre group of smaller countries [that] fostered the modification of extremism and the search for policies with a wide appeal’.18 For them, the shortcomings of the League of Nations were still fresh in the memory. So too were the group’s differing fates in the Second World War. Their approach distinguished them sharply from the Afro-Asian group. Moving beyond the idea of national independence the ‘fire brigade’ states knew the limits of what the UN could ask of them, and what they could ask of it.19 But by pooling political support in the world organisation, they felt that they could attempt to influence the behaviour of the superpowers, and in the process pursue their states’ own security. This understanding of international relations blurred the distinction between a solely principled and a solely pragmatic approach to foreign policy. Issues like decolonisation assumed an increasingly prominent role in the debate surrounding international stability. Irish anti-colonialism, for example, was portrayed by Cosgrave in 1956 as ‘not merely one of sentiment. It is also one of reason and conviction.’20

18

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

Aiken agreed. He believed that the late 1950s was ‘the most critical [period] in the world’s history’, one that would decide the very future of civilisation.21 It was in the national interest of smaller states like Ireland to do everything they could to promote the ideals which they believed would diminish the risks of international conflict, from which they had potentially most to lose. But participation in the UN also carried more immediate benefits. The Irish Government shared Swedish beliefs that ‘there are at times opportunities for non-aligned states .  .  . to narrow the gap between divergent standpoints or to gain the understanding of one party for the other party’s views’.22 The prominence these policies afforded was equally important. In 1965, the Swedish Foreign Minister Torsten Nilsson argued that his government’s activities at the UN were ‘not only a rightful and necessary corollary to our membership in the world organisation but are also calculated to give a small country status in the minds of other countries’.23 The UN offered ‘an opportunity for practising neutrality or non-alignment, to demonstrate political independence and to bolster “prestige” and “reputation”’.24 The Irish Government was more than aware of its potential in this respect. Formulating its approach in terms of distinct national characteristics, including neutrality, allowed the state to assume a set of functions – what Efraim Karsh termed ‘mediation, conciliation, and compromise’ – that the larger powers could not.25 It created a strong – and distinguishing – link between culture, heritage, social values and national identity. And, in the process, it helped to underline Ireland’s diplomatic independence. The independent character of Irish foreign policy owed more to the attitudes of Fianna Fáil after the change of government in the summer of 1957 than its coalition predecessor. Cosgrave had based his approach to international affairs on three principles: fealty to the UN Charter; the pursuit of an independent foreign policy; and a commitment to uphold Christian civilisation against the spread of communist influence.26 Yet his emphasis remained on the first and third of these principles. In expressing his commitment to decolonisation in Africa, he warned that the Irish Government could not support ‘any movement which seemed to us determined to ride rough-shod over the rights of minorities or to ignore the justifiable claims of established interests’.27 Irish anti-colonialism, he told the Dáil (Irish parliament) in July 1956, should be reconciled with the country’s support for ‘the just and reasonable interests of European powers which have a major role to play in the defence of the free world’.28 What limited interest the Irish public exhibited in international affairs was largely in tune with this approach. An editorial in the Irish Times in response to Cosgrave’s statements

Unmistakably European

19

concerned itself largely with the question of Northern Ireland at the UN, but assented that ‘the attitude of the Government, which is also the attitude of the country, is on the side of the democratic West’.29 This broadly supportive attitude towards the West was openly in evidence in the years and decades that followed. Yet what Aiken shared with Cosgrave in terms of his commitment to the UN Charter and, in a different fashion, to upholding Western civilisation, was added to by a strong sense of diplomatic pragmatism. For Aiken the problems presented to the UN were ‘just like other human problems, neither black nor white. They are grey and mixed.’30 Under his tutelage, Ireland realised the autonomy in foreign policy for which it became known in international circles in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Aiken believed that international law and organisations like the UN offered ‘the best guarantee of our freedom and independence’, and adapted Ireland’s policies accordingly.31 Equally importantly, in his emphasis on the second of Cosgrave’s principles it was Aiken who greatly expanded the concept of Irish diplomatic identity. He associated Ireland strongly with a group of anti-colonial states, and emphasised his government’s commitment to a broad set of principles shared by its ‘fire brigade’ counterparts: democracy, justice, and civil and political freedom for all peoples. The resulting policies owed an additional debt to the internal dynamics of decision-making. At cabinet level Eamon de Valera’s independent attitude as Taoiseach (until 1959) encouraged Aiken to take a constructive approach to international affairs, one balanced by the more Western-conscious Lemass (Taoiseach from 1959 until his retirement in 1966). Within the DEA, the independently minded Aiken and Conor Cruise O’Brien (a DEA official until his departure for the UN in 1961) were balanced by the more pro-Western Boland (Irish Ambassador to the UN from 1955 to 1964) and Con Cremin (Secretary of the DEA from 1958 to 1964, and Irish Ambassador to the UN from 1964 to 1974). Their individual and collective efforts did not go unnoticed by the international community. Behind the Economist’s exaggerated superlatives – ‘the [General] assembly needs a few more Irelands of this kind . . . as well as Scandinavians to coax, it needs more honorary Irish to goad’ – there existed a healthy respect for the Irish approach to international affairs.32 At Ireland’s first General Assembly, Cosgrave ‘made a deep impression by the sincerity and constructiveness of his speeches’ and his officials were singled out for further praise by their British counterparts: ‘Mr Boland, the leader of the Delegation, is an old League of Nations hand and a brilliant draftsman. Mr [Eamon] Kennedy, Miss [Sheila] Murphy, Mr [Paul] Keating and Dr O’Brien all contributed a strong and novel flavour which the Assembly found pleasant.’33 By the

20

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

early 1960s the Irish delegation had established a good reputation for itself as a pragmatic, energetic and organised team, and came to be viewed by British officials as particularly important in encouraging the Afro-Asian states to act responsibly: ‘Not only do they themselves set a notable example of restraint and common sense, but they regularly use their influence with the newer members to induce in them a similar approach.’34 The accolades accorded to individual Irish officials, such as O’Brien’s role in the Congo (see Chapter 2) and Eamon Kennedy’s term as rapporteur for the South West Africa Committee (Chapter 3) helped to reinforce Irish support for the UN and, the public believed, were a reflection of the state’s international standing. When Boland was elected President of the General Assembly in 1960, the Irish responded by viewing it as a positive reflection of the country’s contributions to international affairs. Described by colleagues as a ‘man of many friends’ at the UN, to Irish commentators Boland’s election merely underlined the esteem in which he and his country’s delegation were held.35 Aiken too won considerable respect for his support of the UN and his attempt to pursue an independent attitude to international affairs. His friends in New York were many, ranging from representatives of the newly independent Afro-Asian states – who respected his background in Ireland’s war of independence – to Ireland’s moderate partners, and the United States. He developed friendships with a number of prominent UN officials, including Andrew Cordier, its chief negotiator in the Congo, and Ralph Bunche, the Secretary General’s representative in Leopoldville at the outbreak of that crisis. Even British officials, who in 1957 regretted Cosgrave’s departure and worried that Aiken would be overly emotional about Northern Ireland, grew in respect for the latter’s even-handedness and commitment to constructive dialogue.36 Across the board, Aiken’s support for the UN, exemplified by the considerable amount of time and effort he expended in New York, was widely appreciated, and roundly missed after his term as Minister ended. In October 1969 Bunche, then Under Secretary General, wrote to Aiken from New York that ‘to an old-timer like myself it seems strange that you are not here. I simply felt impelled to write this note to let you know how much I personally miss your towering (literally and figuratively) presence here.’37 Ireland, decolonisation and the UN The widespread respect shown for Aiken and his colleagues at the UN indicated the depth of Irish support for the world organisation, and its

Unmistakably European

21

importance in defining the country’s role on the international stage. Yet – as the rhetoric of ‘Ireland as post-colonial state’, and the emphasis on the missionaries’ role in state building showed – it was not the only, nor even the most dominant, characteristic of Irish diplomatic identity. For a short period in New York, these twin pillars of foreign policy – anti-colonialism and support for the UN – married to give Ireland a prominence beyond its size and experience in international affairs. Circumstances were important. The state of flux that characterised the international system in the late 1950s afforded the ‘fire brigade’ states an unprecedented opportunity to include moral objectives in their definition of national self-interest. It led, in the Irish case, to an unavoidably close relationship between foreign policy objectives and the country’s attitudes to the decolonisation process. Irish anticolonialism became an important badge of where the country came from, its culture, its heritage and its independence from the superpowers. But support for the UN was never far from the agenda. The Irish emphasis on ‘self-determination and proven readiness for self-rule’ was based equally on a desire to minimise grievances among both coloniser and colonised, to contribute to the creation of successful independent states and to help reduce the spread of Cold War tensions – with its attendant consequences for international security.38 These policies found full voice in meetings of the UN’s Fourth or Trusteeship Committee, originally constituted to deal with the UN Trust Territories, but which later expanded to become the central forum for the discussion of colonial issues. In November 1957, after the UN commission established to deal with the question of French Togoland (now Togo) suggested a further plebiscite to determine the Togolese population’s desire for independence, Ireland, along with Canada, Colombia, Denmark and Liberia, sponsored a resolution calling for significant powers to be transferred to the territory by the following year, and the creation of a legislative assembly which would decide its status. Introducing the resolution, the Irish official Eamon Kennedy betrayed his government’s dual concerns. He commented on its ‘profound conviction of the importance of good self-government’ and its awareness ‘of the real dangers surrounding the premature grant of unilateral independence, in conditions of economic instability and want’.39 He paid tribute to the work of France as administering authority, while simultaneously emphasising that ‘no Delegation rejoices more than mine does in “the cause of freedom and independence”’.40 Successful decolonisation was presented as integral to international stability. Africa’s future, Kennedy warned, no longer lay ‘in the obedient subordination of dependent peoples, but rather in the voluntary

22

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

cooperation of the Administering powers with the peoples under their care, so that these peoples may choose their own path, wisely and wellequipped, with the full collaboration of the State that nurtured them and in the fullness of time’.41 This approach was broadly in keeping with Ireland’s counterpart ‘fire brigade’ states. Swedish attitudes to the UN Trust Territories in this period built on the principle of compromise, and the knowledge that support for decolonisation was contingent on the co-operation of the administering power. The Irish Government shared the Swedish policy of ‘consensus formation’, a process that emphasised the need for dialogue and constructive engagement in the resolution of conflict.42 Like Sweden, too, Irish policies had the added bonus of enhancing the state’s profile at the UN. The resolution on Togoland introduced in 1957 bore the mark of the Irish delegation’s newly established role as a member of the UN, and the wider ‘fire brigade’ group. Boland, for example, was twice asked by Canada and Denmark to lead the UN Commission to monitor the Togolese elections in the following year, though he declined on both occasions. Togo policy was repeated in the Irish delegation’s approach to the fate of the other UN Trust Territories. In December 1958 it co-sponsored a resolution at the Fourth Committee aimed at resolving a frontier dispute over Somaliland (now Somalia) between Italy and Ethiopia by calling for the appointment of an independent third member of an arbitration tribunal to settle the issue. Kennedy’s contribution to the Fourth Committee debate on the date of the Trust Territory’s independence eleven months later reiterated the duality of Ireland’s approach. The Irish delegation desired that Somaliland should ‘accede to independence and nationhood as soon as possible’, but warned ‘that all the final steps such as the completion of the plan for the transfer of powers and the approval of the constitution should be completed beforehand by the Italian and Somali Governments’.43 Earlier in 1959 Kennedy had given an even clearer indication of his government’s policies in a debate on the future of the British and French Trust Territories in the Cameroons. Having outlined Ireland’s status ‘among those who understood the power of nationalism and knew the sacrifices men could make for freedom and independence’, Kennedy emphasised his delegation’s concern for the future stability of the continent.44 He rejected suggestions that elections for the territory’s assembly should take place before independence and under UN supervision: the people of the Cameroons had already chosen independence via plebiscite, so to require that elections should be held as a pre-requisite to that independence would ‘interfere unjustifiably’ with

Unmistakably European

23

the internal affairs of the new state.45 Exhibiting an obvious concern at the potential spread of the Cold War, Kennedy warned that all members of the committee ‘should beware of doing anything that might imply that the new State would not be capable of shaping its own destiny without external aid and of governing itself with due respect for the rights and liberties of the individual’.46 The role that Ireland played on these occasions showed an awareness of the broader difficulties involved in the decolonisation process, a desire to ensure that self-determination was achieved under the best possible conditions and a commitment to the creation of successful post-independence polities. Policy was aimed at leaving both the colonisers and the colonised with the minimum level of grievance and reducing the potential for weakened states in which outside influence might gain a foothold. It earned Ireland the friendship of both African and Western states, in the way the delegation sought a constructive and inclusive solution to the problems of the UN, and used issues like decolonisation, on which it could take a principled stance, to signal its diplomatic independence. But these policies were not limited to the UN. The Irish belief in collective security and the principle of collective action extended easily to its bilateral relations with the new African states. In a speech to mark Nigerian independence in Dublin in October 1960, the Minister for Industry and Commerce Jack Lynch expressed his hope that Nigeria’s leaders would ‘subscribe to the principles of international conduct on which the rule of law must rest’ and reiterated his government’s belief in the UN as ‘the best hope for ensuring the safety and progress of mankind’.47 The Irish Government promoted a very particular view of international relations, based on what Hedley Bull would later term the ‘duties and rights attaching to states as members of international society’.48 Once they became part of the international community, the Irish hoped, these new states would view their responsibilities in a similar manner. Yet that influence was realised only gradually and partially. It was not until the spring of 1960, for example, that the question was seriously raised of appointing an Irish diplomatic representative to Africa. By then other pressing issues of national interest had also come to the fore. Clerical influence – including the entreaties of Dr Thomas McGetterick, the Irish-born Catholic Bishop of Ogoja in Nigeria’s Eastern Region – was vital in the final decision to site an Irish representative in the West African state.49 Trade, too, played a role, although the returns hoped for in investigations of the Nigerian market by Córas Tráchtála (CTT), the Irish Export Board, in 1958 and 1961 failed to materialise. Political

24

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

considerations also remained central. In March 1960 the DEA advised the Government that the future of Irish diplomatic relations with Africa necessitated the appointment of ‘a career consul’, to either Ghana or Nigeria, to represent Ireland in both states.50 By June the decision had been taken to establish a resident mission in the latter, and only five months later the post was elevated to Embassy status in order to gain ‘full value’ from Irish representation.51 The year 1960 – ‘The year of Africa’ The decision to site an embassy in Lagos, and the attention that the Irish Government afforded to the new states – Lemass, for example, travelled to Nigeria for its independence celebrations in October 1960 – highlighted its awareness of their potential impact on international affairs. Following his visit to Ghana to attend the ceremonies marking that state’s reconstitution as a republic in July 1960, Aiken wrote to his Ghanaian counterpart, Ako Adeji, to express his belief in ‘the sympathy and friendship which bind our two peoples and which, it is my fervent hope, the years ahead will strengthen and develop’.52 The Irish Government’s moderate stance and the independent role it had cultivated at the UN made it seem all the more important that the state should avail itself of any opportunity to guide the African continent along a similar path. Although it proved more difficult to implement in practice, the Irish assessment was not unfounded. The year 1960, the ‘year of Africa’, became a turning point in the history of the UN’s involvement in colonial issues. General Assembly resolution 1514, the ‘Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples’, passed in December of that year, acted as its focal point. The document’s emphasis on ending colonialism and colonial structures helped to redefine the playing field for discussion of these issues at the UN. But equally important were its lessons for the future of the Assembly itself, now that the Afro-Asian group had visibly begun to assert its voting power. For the ‘fire brigade’ states, the ‘Declaration’ marked the beginning of the end of a golden age of influence at the world organisation. Yet for the Irish it also marked a high point in the country’s contribution to the decolonisation debate. The Irish response served as a distillation of the country’s policies of the previous five years and a reiteration of its diplomatic independence – one which reflected, the former Irish diplomat Noel Dorr later remarked, ‘the conceptual basis for our anti-colonial policy’.53 The by now familiar traits of Ireland’s identity were all on

Unmistakably European

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show. On 5 December 1960 Aiken took part in the General Assembly discussion surrounding the ‘Declaration’ as representative of what he termed ‘a nation that fought for centuries to uphold the principles of freedom for men and nations’.54 He did so with the aim of securing ‘the passage of a resolution . . . that will best serve the long-term interests of all nations’, namely peace and the reduction of poverty, illiteracy and disease throughout the world.55 An earlier draft of Aiken’s speech was even more revealing. In it he praised the ‘guiding hand’ of the UN that ‘directed and controlled’ the course of freedom. He combined the Irish Government’s support for the principle of self-determination with its belief in constructive, patient reform: ‘Self-determination and independence are aims for which we must work, not decisions which we can impose on dependent peoples.’56 At the onset of a new era for the UN Aiken framed Irish policy in terms both of its past history and of its fears and aspirations for the future. At its heart lay a recognition that that future had the potential to bring not a vindication of the values held by Ireland and the other moderate states, but a radicalisation of Afro-Asian demands and an increasing divergence in the attitude of the two groups. It was a process already visible in the debates of the Fourth Committee in 1960. With neighbouring Congo in the grip of civil war, the UN’s involvement in moulding the future of the Belgian Trust Territories Ruanda-Urundi (now the independent states of Rwanda and Burundi) took on an additional gravity. The case provided a test for policies that the Irish Government had developed in its first few years in New York. The Belgian authorities’ desire for rapid decolonisation, coupled with the very real potential for serious inter-ethnic violence, made it extremely difficult to map out an orderly future for the territories. In a letter to Cremin in December 1960 Kennedy warned of fears that the rivalries between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes in the region ‘may not be healed and that independence may bring the same kind of disintegration as the Congo has seen unless great care is taken’.57 Four months later he told representatives of the same tribes addressing the Fourth Committee that, while the ‘sole wish of the Irish delegation was to see the people of Ruanda attain independence in conditions of happiness and prosperity’, he would have ‘great difficulty in voting for early independence for the Territory if he felt that independence might touch off serious civil disturbances similar to the tragic collapse in another part of Africa’.58 The complexity of the question highlighted the limitations of the UN structures in which Ireland had invested so much. The moderate stance for which the country had been praised in the latter half of the 1950s was being increasingly eclipsed by Afro-Asian demands. Kennedy

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Ireland, Africa and the end of empire

commented that, although Belgium had not adequately prepared the territory for independence, ‘the pressures of the radical members of the Afro-Asian group .  .  . have only made the situation even more explosive’.59 Conversely, these circumstances made the role of the ‘fire brigade’ states even more important. In February 1962, with the date of independence fast approaching, the Irish delegation co-sponsored a motion with Sweden calling for the progressive replacement of Belgian troops with a UN-trained indigenous force. The Irish official Tadhg O’Sullivan warned that the world organisation ‘would have the blood of innocent people on its hands if it drew Belgian troops out of Ruanda Urundi before native troops could assure order and security in the trust territory’.60 The Irish delegation’s actions confirmed its role at the UN and the continued respect shown to it (and Sweden) as members of the moderate centre. The draft resolution won praise from Paul-Henri Spaak, the Belgian representative, but tellingly also enjoyed the support of the Afro-Asian bloc for its commitment to the essential goal of self-determination. In framing it Boland ‘spent a good deal of time’ conversing with Afro-Asian delegates and was ‘glad to say that they are not in the least resentful of, or antagonised by it. I emphasised in speaking to them that there was no difference between our respective views as to the objective to be achieved. Where we differed was as to the best means of achieving it.’61 As a signifier of the growing difference of perspective between the two sides, however, his comments were telling. The Irish Government supported decolonisation, but not at any cost when it had seen the risks first-hand in the Congo (see Chapter 2). It continued to court the support of the Afro-Asian group, with which it saw itself as a peaceful moderator, but with which its influence was growing increasingly limited. In July 1962, in spite of Ireland’s misgivings, the territories were accepted as members of the UN as the independent states of Burundi and Rwanda. Ireland’s role in the proceedings, however, continued to earn it the respect of the Afro-Asian states, and the Ghanaian delegation requested that it should co-sponsor the resolution proposing the two countries as members, which the Irish delegation gladly accepted. By then the growing influence of the Afro-Asian group had begun to manifest itself in other areas of the UN. The designation (in 1961) of the 1960s as the first UN Development Decade and the adoption of a target contribution for industrialised countries to transfer 1 per cent of GNP as aid for the developing world linked Afro-Asian attempts to consolidate their political independence through economic development with their challenge to the West to live up to rhetorical commitments

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27

to a successful future for the developing world by providing it with the means to achieve it. In keeping with trends elsewhere in the West, missionaries – Catholic and Protestant – had the greatest influence on Irish attitudes towards the principle of development assistance. The same ‘penny for a black baby’ campaigns, magazines, and family and local links that proved so important in building a relationship between Ireland and Africa now called on Irish citizens to support missionaries building schools, hospitals and churches in their parishes abroad. Like the American Peace Corps, Canadian University Services Overseas, and the burgeoning networks of aid workers across Europe, a growing number of Irish university graduates and tradesmen and women also worked in the developing world. Aiken’s son, Frank Jr, an engineer, was one of many who went from Ireland to work as a lay helper on the missions, in his case to Nigeria. At around the same time, Aiken’s daughter, Aedamar, also worked in Africa as a teacher in Zambia. The Irish Government’s response to the question of aid followed in the vein of its attitudes to decolonisation. It recognised the extent to which the state’s colonial past and missionary experience fostered certain obligations and felt further that ‘outside help, given in a disinterested manner, could be of great benefit to those [African] countries in the early years of their existence as independent States’.62 The DEA emphasised the ‘moral responsibility’ and ‘interest’ that all European states had in ensuring that Africans would be allowed to ‘conduct their affairs in a manner calculated to serve at one and the same time both their own interests and the interests of peace’.63 Sustained economic development and the reduction of inequality between industrialised and developing worlds were closely intertwined with the pursuit of international stability central to Irish foreign policy. The approach paralleled that of the other moderate states. In July 1950 the Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs D. U. Stikker emphasised that his government’s contributions to the UN’s development funds were ‘supposed to lessen the differences in living standards and purchasing power, thus easing international tensions – an idealistic combination of the welfare and anti-communist arguments in favour of aid’.64 While Norway’s initial aid programme to India in 1952 was undertaken to join ‘the containment efforts of the West by means of a constructive proposal to promote economic development’, at the same time its officials intended the initiative to strengthen the UN.65 Finnish attitudes to foreign aid were also in keeping with this approach: support for multilateral aid institutions, Lauri Siitonen noted, was seen as ‘a means to avoid making choices between the recipients of different

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political orientation and thereby taking part in the escalating Cold War confrontation in the Third World’.66 In spite of their shared approach to international relations, the Irish Government’s support for this concept of aid remained largely rhetorical. In June 1960 it announced the creation of a technical assistance programme that offered support for officials from newly independent African states. Whether by loaning civil service officers to these countries or training African civil servants in Ireland, the programme hoped to provide the new states with the experience of a system that was, Aiken reiterated in 1968, ‘nearer to what they would meet at home than the conditions in the United States, in Germany, Britain or other very big countries’.67 In practice, however, the scheme’s performance left a lot to be desired. It had no structured plan, and it was clear that Aiken envisaged an informal system for its implementation, with the intention of regulating the recipients of official Irish aid. Indeed, he retained a personal control over the scheme, including the provision that he ‘be authorised, at his discretion, to make known these arrangements informally to African Governments’.68 The scheme may have been a disappointment in practical terms, but what it said about the Irish relationship with the developing world at the beginning of the 1960s was significant. The Irish Press welcomed it as ‘a secular extension of Ireland’s age-old missionary vocation to meet the needs of the twentieth century’, and framed it in terms of not only the country’s contribution in the missionary field but its broader international political concerns.69 Speaking in February 1964, Fine Gael’s Anthony Barry was not untypical in his view of what Ireland could offer in the field of development aid: the country’s struggle for freedom, he stated, ‘has fitted us in a unique way for this great task’.70 Just as the Irish independence struggle was held up as an example to Africa, the argument went, so too might Ireland’s development and the achievement of a strong, well-functioning state offer some encouragement and lessons for the developing world. Ireland: A Third World country? The ambiguous approach to foreign aid underlined the complexity of Ireland’s relationship with the developing world. Aiken’s belief in the essential worth of development assistance echoed an increased interest in the subject in the West in response to the Soviet Union’s economic activity in the developing world in the mid-1950s. Sustained economic development and the reduction of inequality between developed and developing worlds were closely intertwined with the pursuit

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29

of international stability central to the Irish foreign policy. Yet in practice Ireland lagged far behind its ‘fire brigade’ counterparts. Foreign aid was already an established feature of the Norwegian approach to international affairs by the late 1950s. Denmark, too, had embarked on an extensive multilateral aid programme, with structured mechanisms for bilateral assistance to follow in 1962. Their attitudes were based, as in the Dutch case, on an argument familiar to Irish policy-makers: ‘the implicit humanitarian agreement that a country in need should be supported by other countries, just as a person in need is supported by his or her fellow human beings’.71 In this context Ireland’s under-performance merely underlined the strength of the country’s post-colonial identity – however exaggerated – in shaping its relationship with the developing world. The decision to pursue a scheme of technical assistance, for example, was based on an assumption that a significant monetary contribution in the field of aid was beyond Ireland’s resources. The implication was clear, as Fine Gael’s Declan Costello argued in July 1961: Ireland was ‘in the difficult position of being a comparatively poor country ourselves and the amount of wealth we have available to distribute [through development assistance] is certainly of little significance’.72 Conversely, this post-colonial mentality also helped to strengthen Irish affinity with the developing world. The country’s Christian missionaries fostered a sense of responsibility and obligation towards the newly independent states, particularly in Africa. Memories of foreign rule strongly informed the identity projected by Irish diplomats on the international stage. Leon Hurwitz, indeed, went so far as to suggest that Irish support for decolonisation at the UN resulted at least in part from the fact that it was ‘relatively as far behind the Federal Republic of Germany as are various Third World countries behind the Irish Republic. Ireland may very well be supporting decolonisation and self-determination from a sense of identification with the “have-not” countries.’73 It is too simplistic, however, to assume that a ‘shared’ experience was the only factor directing Irish sympathy for the developing world. In the Netherlands – which had a considerable colonial tradition of its own, ending only in the 1960s – support for foreign aid was explained by the country’s ‘special role’ in the world as a supporter of justice, equality and international law. Each of the ‘fire brigade’ states could point to an equally strong commitment to justice, human rights and humanitarianism. Adapting Howe’s proposal that Ireland’s postindependence development be compared not with independent Africa or Asia but with other European contemporaries like Czechoslovakia, Finland, Poland and the Baltic republics, it is more constructive to view

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Ireland’s relationship with the developing world in terms of its particularly European identity rather than as a post-colonial state as portrayed by Aiken et al.74 In so doing one can view the Irish Government’s support for decolonisation as a manifestation not only of its historical commitment to self-determination but as part of a broader commitment to international justice and the promotion of norms of international behaviour and stability visible among other moderate European states. In that vein the translation of these principles into policy at the UN and outside becomes an extension of the Irish Government’s principles and a method of distinguishing its neutrality and diplomatic independence. In practice it led the Irish Government to take a moderate position, which emphasised its commitment not only to the decolonisation process but to a successful future for the independent states it created. The Irish Government developed this image of the country as unique in its colonial experience in Western Europe and thereby able to pursue policies unavailable to its contemporaries in a manner that allowed it to assume a particular identity in its international relations. What this achieved, in combination with the emphasis on Ireland’s missionary heritage, was to foster a sense of collective obligation towards the developing world and a popular belief in the legitimacy of the role that Ireland sought to play on the international stage. Yet there were also those who questioned its applicability. In April 1962, the Fine Gael leader James Dillon launched an attack on Aiken’s foreign policy in the Dáil: ‘so far as the African states are concerned, they are not much interested in our Minister’s activities. In so far as they have been able to take advantage of some of his démarches, they may have done so, but in so far as his influence is concerned to direct their activities, it is virtually non-existent.’75 Fuelled by political motives, these comments nonetheless found echoes among officials within the DEA. Tadhg O’Sullivan, by then Irish Ambassador to Nigeria, wrote in March 1973 – after Aiken had retired – that he was not a believer in the idea that Ireland had a ‘special’ understanding of the developing world, nor that it could act as an interpreter between the latter and the West: ‘I think this is just an idea we have of ourselves, which we have never tested in practice and perhaps have not wanted to test in practice.’76 It was a remarkably frank appraisal. O’Sullivan’s comments had much to do with the changing configuration of forces in international politics. The arrival of the African states on to the world stage in 1960 altered the circumstances in which the Irish Government sought to pursue its policies. The configuration of forces that allowed the Irish delegation to assume such a prominent role at the UN in the 1950s began to break down. Cremin admitted

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Unmistakably European

in 1970 that Ireland had, ‘more or less by accident, had an unusually good initial start at the UN . . . circumstances lent themselves well to positions which tended to give our delegation a certain prominence e.g. the problem of Algeria, and the movement towards decolonisation in Africa which up to 1960 was in an incipient stage’.77 The attempt to influence the African states to adopt the norms supported by the Irish Government, and the new questions posed by the desire for development assistance, required rhetorical commitments to be translated into practice. Once involved with the complex realities of post-independence Africa, whether in the peacekeeping mission to the Congo or in Biafra, this commitment would be seen to carry a price. Notes 1 ‘Membership Card’, Irish Times, 16 Dec. 1955. For a history of Irish involvement at the League of Nations, see Michael Kennedy, Ireland and the League of Nations, 1919–1946: International Relations, Diplomacy and Politics (Dublin, 1996). 2 Quoted in Muriel Chamberlain, Decolonisation: The Fall of the European Empires (Oxford, 2nd edn, 1999), p. 42. 3 Patrick Keatinge, ‘Ireland and the World, 1957–82’, in Frank Litton (ed.), Unequal Achievement: The Irish Experience, 1957–1982 (Dublin, 1982), p. 226. 4 See Soiri and Peltola, Finland and National Liberation in Southern Africa, pp. 55–66. 5 Michael C. Pelly, ‘Statistical Analysis of the Irish Missionary Effort Overseas’, Pagan Missions (Autumn 1965), p. 66. 6 Ibid. 7 Arthur Conway, President of University College Dublin, addressing departing Holy Ghost missionaries in Dublin in 1945; quoted in John Manton, ‘The Roman Catholic Mission and Leprosy Control in Colonial Ogoja Province, Nigeria, 1936–1960’ (DPhil dissertation, University of Oxford, 2005), p. 50. 8 Fiona Bateman, ‘Ireland’s Spiritual Empire: Territory and Landscape in Irish Catholic Missionary Discourse’, in Hilary M. Carey (ed.), Empires of Religion (London, 2008), p. 283. 9 ‘Dr Nkrumah’, Irish Press, 18 May 1960. 10 Quoted in ‘Ireland in the United Nations’, Éire–Ireland: The Weekly Bulletin of the Department of External Affairs, 342 (29 Oct. 1956). 11 Frank Aiken, United Nations General Assembly (hereafter UNGA) Plenary Meeting, 6 Oct. 1960, United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly (hereafter UNORGA), A/PV.890. 12 Stephen Howe, Ireland and Empire: Colonial Legacies in Irish History and Culture (Oxford, 2000), p. 157.

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13 National Archives of Ireland (hereafter NAI), Department of the Taoiseach (hereafter DT), 98/6/404, ‘Address by Mr Seán Lemass, Taoiseach, at Luncheon of National Press Club, Washington, DC, Wednesday, 16th October, 1963’. 14 Ibid. 15 See Leon Hurwitz, ‘The EEC and Decolonisation: The Voting Behaviour of the Nine in the UN General Assembly’, Political Studies, 24: 4 (1976), p. 440; and Bo Huldt, Sweden, the United Nations and Decolonisation: A Study of Swedish Participation in the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly 1946–69 (Lund, 1974), pp. 108–11. 16 Cathal O’Shannon, ‘Talking to F. H. Boland’, Irish Times, 24 Dec. 1960. 17 Wendt, ‘Anarchy Is What States Make of It’, p. 400. 18 Taoiseach Seán Lemass, quoted in ‘Small Nations Have Most to Gain – Mr Lemass’, Irish Independent, 1 Feb. 1960. 19 Annette Baker Fox, ‘The Small States of Western Europe in the United Nations’, International Organization, 19: 3 (1965), p. 777. 20 Liam Cosgrave’s address to the Dublin Rotary Club, ‘Ireland in the United Nations’, Éire–Ireland: the Weekly Bulletin of the Department of External Affairs, 342 (29 Oct. 1956). 21 ‘“Cruel Injustice” Against Tibet: Aiken Refers to Critical Time Ahead’, Irish Times, 13 April 1959. 22 The Swedish Prime Minster Tage Erlander, quoted in Huldt, Sweden, the United Nations and Decolonisation, p. 27. 23 Quoted in ibid., p. 29. 24 Ibid. 25 Efraim Karsh, Neutrality and Small States (London, 1988), p. 120. 26 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 159, Cols 142–4 (3 July 1956). 27 ‘Ireland in the United Nations’, Éire–Ireland: the Weekly Bulletin of the Department of External Affairs, 342 (29 Oct. 1956). 28 Liam Cosgrave, Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 159, Col. 145 (3 July 1956). 29 ‘Ireland and the UN’, Irish Times, 5 July 1956. 30 Frank Aiken, Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 159, Col. 146 (3 July 1956). 31 Frank Aiken, UNGA Plenary Meeting, 6 Oct. 1960, UNORGA, A/PV.890. 32 ‘Afro-Irish Assembly’, Economist, 19 Dec. 1959. 33 TNA DO 35/10625, ‘Extract from Report on the Commonwealth Delegations at the 11th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, May, 1957’. 34 TNA DO 181/9, confidential briefing titled ‘Visit of Irish Ministers’, prepared for visit of Lemass and Aiken to the Foreign Office, 19 March 1963. 35 Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts Department (hereafter TCD MS), Frederick Boland Papers (hereafter Boland Papers), 10469/1, Hilling to Boland, 20 Sept. 1960. 36 TNA DO 35/10625, Kimber to James, 3 Sept. 1957. 37 University College Dublin Archives (hereafter UCDA), Frank Aiken Papers (hereafter Aiken Papers), P104/6990, Bunche to Aiken, 1 Oct. 1969. 38 Skelly, Irish Diplomacy at the United Nations, p. 134.

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39 NAI Department of Foreign Affairs (hereafter DFA), Permanent Mission to the United Nations (hereafter PMUN), 50 X/3, ‘Statement by Delegate of Ireland, Mr E. L. Kennedy, on the Question of French Togoland’, 19 Nov. 1957. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid. 42 Huldt, Sweden, the United Nations and Decolonisation, pp. 136–7. 43 Eamon Kennedy, UNGA Fourth Committee, 20 Nov. 1959, UNORGA, A/C.4/ SR.962. 44 Eamon Kennedy, UNGA Fourth Committee, 6 March 1959, UNORGA, A/C.4/ SR.866. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 47 Quoted in ‘Nigeria Can Play Great Role To-day – Minister’, Irish Independent, 2 Oct. 1960. 48 Bull, ‘Society and Anarchy in International Relations’, p. 79. 49 NAI DFA 305/338 Pt I, note by Cremin of his meeting with Bishop McGetterick, 25 May 1959. 50 NAI DFA 317/88 Pt I, Molloy to sec., Dept of Finance, 22 March 1960. 51 Ibid., DEA memorandum for the Government, ‘Establishment of Embassy at Lagos, Nigeria’, 14 Nov. 1960. 52 NAI DFA 305/325 Pt I B, Aiken to Adeji, 5 Aug. 1960. 53 Interview with Dorr (12 April 2005). 54 Frank Aiken, UNGA Plenary Meeting, 5 Dec. 1960, UNORGA, A/PV.935. 55 Ibid. 56 UCDA Aiken Papers P104/6320, first draft of speech on ‘The Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples’, undated [Dec. 1960?]. 57 NAI DFA PMUN 131 X/84, Kennedy to Cremin, 22 Dec. 1960. 58 Eamon Kennedy, UNGA Fourth Committee, 3 April 1961, UNORGA, A/C.4/ SR.1127. 59 NAI DFA PMUN 131 X/84, note by Kennedy, ‘The Question of the Future of Ruanda-Urundi: Historical Background’, undated [1961?]. 60 ‘Warning to UN by Irish Delegate’, Irish Times, 21 Feb. 1962. 61 NAI DFA 305/420, Boland to Cremin, 20 Feb. 1962. 62 NAI DFA PMUN 363 C/2/17, draft DEA memorandum for the Government, ‘Assistance for Newly-Independent African Countries’, May 1960. 63 Ibid. 64 Esther Helena Arens, ‘Multilateral Institution-Building and National Interest: Dutch Development Policy in the 1960s’, Contemporary European History, 12: 4 (2003), p. 459. 65 Helge Pharo, ‘Altruism, Security and the Impact of Oil: Norway’s Foreign Economic Assistance Policy, 1958–1971’, Contemporary European History, 12: 4 (2003), p. 530. 66 Lauri Siitonen, ‘Aid and Identity Policy: Small Donors and Aid Regime Norms’ (PhD dissertation, University of Turku, 2005), pp. 192–3.

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67 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 234, Col. 1707 (22 May 1968). 68 NAI DFA PMUN 363 C/2/17, DEA memorandum for the Government, ‘Assistance for Newly-Independent African Countries’, 23 June 1960. 69 ‘Helping Others’, Irish Press, 28 June 1960. 70 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 207, Col. 1737 (27 Feb. 1964). 71 Arens, ‘Multilateral Institution-Building and National Interest’, p. 458. 72 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 191, Col. 564 (11 July 1961). 73 Hurwitz, ‘The EEC and Decolonisation’, p. 441. 74 Howe, Ireland and Empire, p. 153. 75 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 194, Col. 1387 (5 April 1962). 76 NAI DFA 2005/145/2348, ‘Conference of Heads of Mission, 16th and 17th April 1973: Views of the Ambassador in Lagos on the Future Development of Irish Foreign Policy’, dated 31 March 1973. 77 NAI DFA 417/220, Cremin to Ronan, 10 Sept. 1970.

2

Ireland comes of age Congo, peacekeeping and foreign policy

The aftermath of the Second World War presented the ‘fire brigade’ states with what former Swedish Ambassador to the UN Gunnar Jarring described as ‘two great and important international tasks’.1 Both had significant implications for a stable and peaceful international environment. The first, foreign aid, built on a basic fear in the West that chronic under-development might cause the Afro-Asian states to lose faith in their new-found political and economic freedoms and surrender them to totalitarian – particularly communist – rule. But while aid came to international prominence only in the second half of the 1960s (see Chapter 8), Jarring’s second ‘great task’, peacekeeping, had a more immediate effect. Embedded in the responsibilities of UN membership, peacekeeping separated that organisation from its League of Nations predecessor. It offered moderate states the opportunity to put their support for the world organisation and the principles they stood for into practical effect. The repercussions were great. Frank Aiken told the UN General Assembly on 6 October 1960 that the small and ‘recently emerged nations’ – among which he numbered Ireland – had ‘such a tremendous collective responsibility that if we should err seriously, the consequences might well be as disastrous as those of any error committed by a Great Power. Either subservience or recklessness on our part .  .  . could destroy this Organisation and with it our independence.’2 The opportunity to match rhetoric with action was not long in coming. In July 1960 the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld contacted the Irish Government to request the participation of Irish troops as part of the organisation’s peacekeeping force in Congo (widely known by its French acronym, ONUC). The response was immediate – and positive. By mid-August two contingents of Irish troops had made their way to Africa. The Government framed its participation in the same way it had its support for decolonisation: as a commitment to justice, to freedom from colonial (and neo-colonial) rule, and to the

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search for peaceful, constructive solutions to international conflict. For the Irish public the troops were a source of pride and an extension of Ireland’s missionary identity in another form, though the majority remained ignorant of conditions on the ground. Yet their reaction told only part of the story. In its four years in operation, ONUC had a profound, and lasting, impact on all the actors involved. For the ‘fire brigade’ states, the complexity of the crisis and its detrimental effect on the UN brought home the difficulties of living up to their strong rhetorical commitment to the maintenance of international order. It opened their eyes to the difficult tasks associated with membership of the world organisation. Sellström described it as the experience that ‘brought the complexities of the decolonisation process in Africa into Swedish homes’.3 And Sweden was not unique. By the time the last Irish troops left Congo in June 1964, the conduct of international relations had changed considerably. The UN General Assembly described by the Economist in 1959 as ‘Afro-Irish’ was very much under the influence of the newly independent African states five years later.4 At the very least, ONUC raised serious questions about how to adapt to this new international environment. To what extent did ONUC alter Ireland’s self-defined role as a post-colonial, European state? What impact did it have on the Government’s approach to international relations? And what did it mean for the future role of the ‘fire brigade’ states? Congo’s collapse In 1960, a year full of promise for independent Africa, Congo occupied a pivotal position. Writing on 14 June 1960, less than two weeks before its independence, the Irish official Eamon Kennedy commented to his colleagues that a strong, unified Congolese state would have great influence on the remaining British, Portuguese and Spanish possessions in Africa. ‘But should the immense Congo disintegrate in confusion under native rule, it will be held up in Rhodesia, Kenya, South Africa, Angola and Mozambique as the fearful result of independence without the slow and adequate preparation of the indigenous inhabitants . . . It has become a vital test case in the great African independence movement.’5 He could only have guessed at the accuracy of his observation. In January 1960, the Belgian Government announced its intention to withdraw from the territory and in the process laid bare the detrimental impact of its policies on the vast Congolese state. The constraints placed on African education left it severely lacking in political and bureaucratic experience. The administration – civil and military – was

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37

dominated by European officials. The country’s immense size and diverse population gave it little unity of purpose and almost no sense of common nationhood. Politics divided according to locality and tribal background. Only the left-wing Patrice Lumumba’s Mouvement National Congolais succeeded in winning votes across the country. The two other major political parties, Joseph Kasavubu’s Alliance des Bakongo and Moisé Tshombe’s Confederation des Associations Tribales du Katanga, were based, as their names suggested, along regional and ethnic lines. The difficulties in reaching political consensus were not insurmountable, but they served to magnify the country’s existing shortcomings. On his return from a two-month tour of Africa in January 1960, Hammarskjöld commented that Congo was ‘the biggest problem in Africa today .  .  . There was hardly an African in the Congo with any administrative or political experience whatever.’6 His concerns led him to send a representative, the American Ralph Bunche, to Congo’s capital, Leopoldville, for its independence celebrations on 30 June 1960, and to request that Bunche should remain in place after the handover of power was complete. A very definite statement of intent from Hammarskjöld, the move established a UN presence in an effort to stablise the situation and in readiness should the need for a rapid international response arise. Crisis was not long in arriving. On 5 July 1960 an army mutiny sparked a series of reprisals against Belgian nationals across the Congo. In the mineral-rich region of Katanga, where settler and international business interests were concentrated, the Belgianowned mining company Union Minière de Haut-Katanga had already struck up a close relationship with Tshombe and his political allies. Viewed by local Europeans as a distinct entity within the Congo, and only loosely controlled by the central Government, Katanga posed a very real threat to the unity of the new state. Within six days the Katangese authorities, with Belgian military support, declared their unilateral secession, to be followed almost a month later by the region of South Kasai. The situation grew increasingly serious as Belgian officials helped to arm and organise a Katangan gendarmerie. On 12 July 1960 the Congolese President, Kasavubu, and Prime Minister, Lumumba, made a direct call to the UN to provide military assistance to help restore order. Hammarskjöld responded immediately. On his recommendation the Security Council adopted a resolution on 14 July in which it called upon the Belgians to withdraw their troops and authorised the UN ‘to provide the Government with such military assistance as may be necessary until . . . the national security forces [of the Congo] may be able,

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in the opinion of the Government, to meet fully their tasks’.7 The force became the most potent symbol of unity in a country that continued to disintegrate around it. In September 1960 Kasavubu’s attempt to dismiss Lumumba as prime minister was met by Lumumba’s counterdismissal of Kasavubu, plunging the country into a constitutional crisis. American and Soviet covert involvement deepened, ideological divisions appeared within ONUC, several African and Asian contingents (as well as Yugoslavia) withdrew and the UN struggled to keep the peace. The operation became as much a test of the UN’s future as Congo’s or Africa’s. Lumumba’s arrest by the Leopoldville authorities on 1 December 1960 and his murder in Katanga the following January highlighted the lawless situation pervading the state. As political negotiations continued throughout 1961 and 1962, the UN concentrated on forcing the thousands of mercenaries serving in Katanga out of the region, embroiling the ONUC force in further controversy. In September 1961 Hammarskjöld, on his way across Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), was killed when his plane crashed, apparently struck by a rocket. The search for his successor put the very future of the UN under strain as the Soviet Union and its allies pushed for the creation of a troika governing committee to replace the position of Secretary General. The man who eventually assumed the role, U Thant, met with an increasingly difficult situation in the Congo, where his under-funded UN troops continued in conflict with the Katangese gendarmes. At the end of June 1964, the ONUC force was withdrawn, leaving the UN with serious repercussions, not only in the conduct of peacekeeping (or enforcement) but in the financing of future missions. The UN calls, Ireland responds In a February 1968 address to the Irish UN Association, Aiken turned his attention to these themes of finance and peacekeeping. Had the UN been able to continue funding even a few thousand men to support the ONUC mission beyond 1964, he argued, ‘a lot of the trouble that has occurred since in that great and vast country would not have occurred’.8 His air of resignation spoke of an opportunity lost to secure stability on the African continent and expand the role of the world organisation. Yet just eight years earlier Aiken had been considerably more optimistic about the future of both Africa and the UN. At the end of June 1960 he travelled to Congo for its independence celebrations, before continuing to Ghana to join in the official ceremonies that marked that country’s reconstitution as a republic. His experience

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39

convinced him of the need for African solutions to African problems and of their potential to bring lasting peace and stability. On his return, Aiken discussed with his officials the creation of ‘some kind of nonaggression agreement between the states of Africa and some system of tribunals to deal with problems of minorities arising between them’.9 By helping each other in the solution of these disputes, he argued, the African states could limit the extent of outside influence on their continent and thereby minimise the risk of it becoming the ground for further Cold War conflict. The difficulty lay in persuading the new African states to think likewise. In New York Freddie Boland acknowledged that Aiken’s trip had given him ‘an up-to-date insight into the present trends of opinion among the African countries’.10 But he warned that African officials were ‘extremely sensitive about any suggestion with regard to the future of Africa which does not come from the African countries themselves . . . there is a strong current of “Sinn Féin” feeling among them which tends to resent outside suggestions as to how they should run their affairs’.11 The rapidly changing circumstances on the ground in Africa also had an effect. Within days of Aiken’s return, Kasavubu and Lumumba’s request for assistance forced the delicate issue of Western ‘interference’ to the forefront of the UN Secretary General’s agenda. In building the ONUC force, Hammarskjöld decided that Africans would form the hard core, with the addition of contingents from Europe, Asia and the transatlantic states. By its very actions, the force was intended to ‘imply the exclusion of any other kind of external intervention in the Congo’, with moderate states like Ireland and Sweden put forward as a counterbalance to prospective African members, who broadly supported the Lumumba line.12 Yet there were other, more pragmatic reasons for the inclusion of the ‘fire brigade’ states. In the Cold War environment, their involvement suited the interests of the Western powers as well as those of the UN. Their diplomatic independence was portrayed as allimportant. So too was the belief that the success of organisations like the UN depended on a nucleus of independent voices, not least through their ability to moderate Soviet Union and other radical influences in situations like that evolving in the Congo. With Ethiopian, Ghanaian, Moroccan and Tunisian contingents in place, the Secretary General turned next to Ireland, Sweden and Yugoslavia to provide the European element of the force. Hammarskjöld’s initial request for a battalion and supporting services reached the Irish Department of Defence on 16 July 1960, and brought an immediate, and positive reaction. The Army Chief of

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Staff Seán McKeown remembered that they acted ‘urgently, urgently, urgently; this was the keynote’.13 By 19 July 1960 the cabinet had overcome some internal opposition – notably from the Minister for Health Seán MacEntee, who worried at Soviet influence in the region – to agree on the provision of a contingent of Irish troops.14 The following day the Defence (Amendment) Bill, introduced to provide the legal basis for the Army to serve with UN peacekeeping forces, was overwhelmingly agreed to in the Dáil. Events did not stop there. As preparations for the first contingent continued apace, a further Hammarskjöld appeal for troops, issued on 30 July, met with an equally positive response. With McKeown’s support, the cabinet agreed to the request at its meeting on 4 August, though it noted that ‘it would not be possible for Ireland to allow two battalions to remain in the Congo for a longer period than six months and that, irrespective of the situation in the Congo at the end of six months, any Irish contingent remaining there after that period will not exceed one battalion’.15 Within little over four weeks, Ireland had gone from being a country with almost no tradition in the field of peacekeeping to having two battalions of troops on the ground in the midst of independent Africa’s biggest political crisis to date. Yet the theoretical basis for the decision had been anything but rushed. The Government – and Aiken in particular – had in fact been preparing the ground for such an eventuality from much earlier in its membership of the UN. In 1958 the Irish Times presented the involvement of Irish Army officers in the UN observation group in the Lebanon as ‘a new and welcome stage in the national evolution . . . Our sense of international responsibility has been put to the test – albeit in a relatively minor way – and has not been found wanting.’16 The opportunity to supply troops to the Congo mission was viewed in similar terms. The DEA reminded the Government of its obligations under Article 25 of the UN Charter – to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council – and felt it was ‘incumbent on Ireland to take such steps as it can to comply with the Secretary General’s request’.17 Aiken argued strongly that Irish rhetoric should be matched by practical action. He had a very definite vision of how his goal of international stability might be achieved, as he told the 32nd Battalion, the first to leave for the Congo: ‘This battalion, I trust, is part of an advance guard of the armed force of the world we want – a world in which national armies will be gradually reduced and international United Nations forces gradually increased to uphold a regime of peace based on law.’18 Peacekeeping fitted neatly into the diplomatic identity carved for Ireland through its active participation at the UN. The DEA believed

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that Ireland had been chosen for ONUC ‘for reasons of the history of colonialism’, and the state’s traditions and historical experience conditioned its response.19 Aiken was not slow in reminding the troops that ‘[f]or many centuries the Irish people have longed for the rule of law in the world, based on justice’.20 It did not matter that, by their own admission, the troops knew very little about the Congo. The Minister for Defence Kevin Boland assured them that they ‘would be helped by the relations which our people had with the people of Africa of which they should be proud’, not least the work of Irish missionaries and of Roger Casement in the Congo.21 Ireland’s Christian heritage was also used to distinguish it from its European contemporaries. The Irish Army’s Head Chaplain, Fr C. P. Crean, told the troops of their obligation to offer a good example while on duty in the Congo ‘as many other Europeans had disproved what the missionaries were teaching to the natives’.22 The media agreed. In language oddly reminiscent of the Crusades, Robert Brennan told readers of the Irish Press that Irish troops ‘were going, not as agents of any Empire keen on conquest and pillage. They were going in the holy cause of helping a sorely tried country, newly emancipated, to find its feet.’23 By constructing its involvement in ONUC in this fashion, however, the Irish tended to sideline their strongly European identity. The Swedish Government and people approached their responsibilities to ONUC in a similar fashion to Ireland, citing the significant numbers of Lutheran missionaries in the Congo and the belief that their country had been selected for ONUC because of its ‘special position’ in Europe. There was an additional racial difficulty to be overcome. In spite of Aiken’s claim that ‘[a]ll the parties involved in the troubles of the Congo are our brothers’, it turned out that the Congolese knew very little of Irish history or geography, save the colour of the troops’ skins.24 An exchange between an Irish soldier and Congolese at Goma in early August 1960, during which a Swedish interpreter helped him to explain ‘that he was not a member of the same tribe as the white tribe across the border in Uganda’, offered just one instance of the very real differences that existed on the ground.25 When taken together, the colonial and Christian influences used in the construction of Ireland’s diplomatic identity, and the similarity between the Irish and Swedish troops’ immediate experiences on the ground, merely underlined Ireland’s close association with the ‘fire brigade’ group. Whether constructed through past historical experience or a set of shared political values, the Irish and Swedish governments accorded similar weight to a successful operation in the Congo. Like Sweden, Ireland joined ONUC out of a commitment to the UN

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and framed its responsibilities in terms of the broader pursuit of international stability through that organisation. Aiken believed it ‘most desirable in the interests of the development along peaceful lines of the emerging states of Africa and the preservation of good relations between Europe and that continent that European countries should be associated with this effort to maintain peace and stability in the Congo’.26 Moderate states like Ireland and Sweden were not bound to East or West, much as their policies might have indicated a natural sympathy towards the latter. Rather, they could be counted on to act as the Swedish Foreign Minister Östen Unden outlined in July 1960: ‘as an international gendarmerie, [which will] assist in keeping order and exert a psychological quietening effect’.27 Their exclusion, Aiken asserted, would result in increasing racial tensions and the danger of  Africa falling under communist influence, and allow the possibility of undue African nationalism within the ONUC force. It was the duty of the UN ‘to prevent the repetition in central Africa of the unfortunate history of the Balkans and, indeed, the history of Europe – the history of near-perpetual warfare in which resources of men and material were wasted in mutual destruction’.28 Tragedy at Niemba and a changing role for Ireland at the UN Within weeks of the troops’ arrival in the Congo, the bold idealism of the ‘fire brigade’ states, and with it Ireland’s carefully constructed identity at the UN, was severely tested by the realities of the crisis. Swedish and Irish troops were subjected to accusations of pro-Western bias. Lumumba strongly and openly criticised the use of white UN troops in Katanga. Aiken responded by rejecting the accusations out of hand in a speech to the UN General Assembly on 19 September 1960: ‘I do not think that anyone who knows anything of the history of my country will believe that we would be likely to take part in an enterprise directed . . . against the independence and territorial integrity of a State newly emerged from colonial rule.’29 He instead directed Irish efforts into finding a solution to the worsening situation, drawing on the lessons of his journey to Africa and his belief that on Congo’s future ‘depended the fate of not only existing states but the prospects of independence for other African Colonial territories’.30 The most effective way of achieving lasting peace, he argued, was to press the newly independent African governments to work within his preferred model of international relations. At the same time, however, the shortcomings of Aiken’s approach were readily visible in the UN beginning to take shape following the

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entry of the independent African states. In offices, corridors and meeting rooms in New York, Irish officials worked alongside their Swedish and Canadian counterparts to promote their vision for the future of the African continent, and of the UN. Before the first meeting of the UN Advisory Committee on the Congo – set up to co-ordinate dialogue between member states involved in ONUC and the UN Secretariat – in August 1960, the three states agreed that ‘the more we lay back and left the initiative in the Committee’s discussions to the Afro-Asian, and particularly the African members, the better it would probably be’.31 Their aim was simple: to minimise the opportunity for outside interference by strenghtening African control of ONUC, and in the process to win the support of the Afro-Asian group for their approach to international affairs. Yet the symbolism of their back-seat position was equally striking. As the African voices grew stronger – and more radical – the role played by mediators like Canada, Ireland and Sweden echoed their experience in the General Assembly, where they found it increasingly difficult to exert the level of influence they had enjoyed at the end of the previous decade. Paradoxically, while Irish policy-makers grew incrementally more aware of the limits to their powers, the Congo operation served only to underline – and strengthen – the Irish public’s pride in, and commitment to, their country’s role in the world organisation. On the ground the ONUC force encountered any number of logistical, political and climactical difficulties. The Irish troops’ poor and outdated equipment and lack of suitable intelligence, together with the intrinsically difficult conditions, made adaptation to the Congo extremely problematic. They were not helped by the situation in Katanga where they became the target of condemnation from both the local population and the European settlers for not taking the side of either. Yet those realities contrasted sharply with the rose-tinted view held by an Irish public that revelled in the role its troops played in upholding the goals of the UN. In the press and public debate, little heed was paid to the very real dangers that faced the ONUC force. They preferred instead to emphasise the adventure and exotic nature of the Congo operation, inspiring young men to travel from across Ireland to volunteer for the force. Events at a bridge over the River Luwuyeye on the Manono road near Niemba in Katanga on 8 November 1960 underlined the complexity of the Irish relationship with the UN. That afternoon, having set out to clear the road of barriers erected by local Baluba, nine Irish troops were killed in an ambush by the guerrillas.32 At a basic level, the incident brought home the realities of Ireland’s obligations and offered a very real reminder of the price to be paid in the pursuit of peace.

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But the public and – outwardly at least – official response also highlighted the depth of the state’s support for the UN. In a statement on 9 November, Seán Lemass commented that the troops had made their sacrifice ‘in a most noble cause – the maintenance of peace’.33 A DEA memorandum written on the day of the troops’ funeral (22 November) had no hesitation in recommending that Ireland should send a further battalion to the Congo. The original considerations in favour of sending Irish troops, it stated, had ‘in no way been changed by subsequent events. Apart from the requirements of the Charter, it is still highly desirable that European troops continue to participate in the force.’34 There was also near-unanimous support among the Irish public for the men who, the Irish Press asserted, gave their lives ‘not as men of wrath, not as conquerors, not even in defence of their homeland. They died in the service of peace, in helping to give the people of the Congo the promise of freedom and just government.’35 All, it was argued, ‘must be prepared to accept the sacrifice’ necessary in living up to Irish principles.36 The construction of Ireland’s contemporary role through reference to its past remained centrally important. The Irish Press’s commentary on the large funeral in Dublin accorded the troops a position ‘on the proud roll of Ireland’s honoured dead’; they could claim, ‘in Thomas MacDonagh’s spirited words, to represent the immortal soul of Ireland’.37 In that tradition, Ireland’s responsibilities now manifested themselves in a new fashion. The Irish Times commented that the deaths brought home to the Irish people ‘the harsh understanding that commitments in the name of even the most sacred principle are no light thing’.38 The men became ‘a symbol of the very real help that we – in our almost unique position as a white nation which knows the meaning of oppression – can hope to offer to the new nations of the world’.39 Under the surface, however, it was clear that things had changed. Niemba had done little to shake Ireland’s support for the UN, but it did both bring into relief its practical consequences and – within official circles at least – prompt a renewed discussion of Ireland’s role in a bipolar international system. In November 1960, two months after the constitutional clash between Lumumba and Kasavubu, Aiken and Lemass disagreed on the question of whether the UN should recognise Kasavubu as the representative of the Congolese Government. To Aiken and many others in New York, the Kasavubu coalition’s weak grip on power made it dangerous to accord him political recognition and a seat at the world organisation. To do so, Aiken argued, would inhibit the evolution of a stable government and introduce an unwanted element of outside interference – ‘[I see] great disadvantage in seating any representative of Congo unless he represents [a] Government having

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effective control.’40 There were additional reasons for not supporting Kasavubu. To place the United States, Britain, France and Belgium in opposition to Soviet and some African support for Lumumba, Aiken contended, ‘would obviously create [a] situation in which [the] United Nations’ effort would collapse in dire confusion’.41 It would also serve to effectively abandon the principle that he and his colleagues at the UN had held strongly to from the beginning of the ONUC campaign: that any solution must be a Congolese one, involving ‘the emergence of a movement among the Congolese people themselves’.42 Lemass was less convinced. While far from blindly pro-Western, his attitude certainly betrayed a preference for American and British policies. To his eyes the opposition to seating Kasavubu appeared to come ‘mainly from Communist sources’ and failure to accept him implied reneging on the UN’s recognition of the fledgling state.43 In practice, Ireland’s voting pattern at the UN reflected both Aiken’s attitudes and gathering Western pressures. On 9 November the Irish delegation, along with Sweden, voted in favour of a motion in the General Assembly to adjourn discussion on Kasavubu’s representation. Within less than two weeks, however, with heavy American and British lobbying, the Credentials Committee voted for seating Kasavubu and on 22 November succeeded in passing a resolution in the General Assembly supporting his claims. Finding itself in Sweden’s company once again, the Irish delegation abstained from the vote. Yet Lemass remained anxious that Ireland should not appear to be in any way antiAmerican. He told the Dáil on 23 November that there could be ‘no suggestion that we are acting in this manner in any way different from the line adopted by practically all the other countries who are committed in this operation to the same extent as we are’.44 The niggling tensions between Ireland’s principled commitment to the UN and its natural support for the West went hand-in-hand with the state’s changing role in an evolving international system. In February 1961, for example, Aiken sent a set of proposals outlining his programme for ending the conflict in Congo to Boland, which was distributed to all Irish Embassies eleven days later. Relying on the interpretation of Africa’s problems that he had formulated on his trip to the continent eight months previously, the plan emphasised the role of the UN, the need to limit outside interference in African affairs and the search for constructive, negotiated solutions.45 Yet the self-confidence Aiken exhibited – he sent a copy of his proposal to Chester Bowles, United States Under-Secretary for Political Affairs, Hammarskjöld and Adlai Stevenson, United States Ambassador to the UN – was thrown into sharp relief by the reception it received. With Lumumba dead,

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Hammarskjöld felt that ‘the proposals, while very interesting, do not bear closely on the immediate problems . . . The real problem now is whether civil war will break out.’46 Boland was equally unenthusiastic: the issue was now primarily a crisis affecting the UN, and had developed far beyond the borders of the Congo itself. It might therefore ‘be wiser not to take further action in the United Nations in relation to the memorandum before the Minister gets to New York and sees for himself how things are viewed there’.47 His plan apparently stalled, Aiken turned his attention in the General Assembly debate on 28 March 1961 to advocating the parts of the UN Conciliation Commission’s report which most closely resembled his own. He favoured its recommendation of ‘a fully representative roundtable conference of all the Congolese leaders to be held in a neutral place’ and commented that ‘many of us think that the federal solution would be the wisest for the Congo’.48 His belief in the primacy of finding an African solution to the problem remained: ‘it is for the Congolese leaders themselves, however, and not for us, to make that decision. It is for us to respect whatever decision they make.’49 In keeping with his views on the conduct of international affairs, Aiken used the debate as a further opportunity to remind the small states of the UN of their special duty to support the world body. ‘[H]ad it not been for the presence of the United Nations’, he argued, the crisis would have degenerated into ‘civil war backed by foreign intervention’.50 In spite of the accusations of pro-Western bias, he remained true to his commitments. On 14 April 1961 the Irish official Conor Cruise O’Brien voted in favour of a General Assembly resolution calling for Belgian withdrawal from the Congo. The resolution put the Irish Government at odds with its Western colleagues, though O’Brien was careful to emphasise that Irish sentiments were ‘not anti-Belgian; we are friends of the Belgian people, and we are glad to have the opportunity of stating that here at this moment’.51 It served as a re-assertion of the independent character of Irish foreign policy, aware of its position as a European state but simultaneously supportive of the primacy of the UN’s role in securing its interests. Conor Cruise O’Brien and the Katangan offensive By that stage, the Irish Government had already turned down a March 1961 request from Hammarskjöld that O’Brien should join the UN Secretariat. O’Brien himself later speculated that the decision was taken because the DEA was ‘apprehensive about the explosive possibilities of the Katanga situation .  .  . and feeling in any case sufficiently involved in Congo responsibilities’, particularly given

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General McKeown’s appointment as Commander of ONUC the previous December.52 Its opposition did not last long. In May Hammarskjöld renewed his request and this time met with a more positive response. Within weeks O’Brien had been seconded to the UN Secretariat, and then appointed its civilian representative in Katanga. In spite of the Government’s earlier misgivings, O’Brien’s selection was interpreted in a largely positive light. For many it was a further reflection of the country’s growing reputation on the international stage, akin to the request for Irish troops for ONUC or Boland’s election to the presidency of the General Assembly. O’Brien himself felt that Hammarskjöld, recognising Ireland’s contribution to the UN and its independent attitude to foreign affairs, had ‘needed an Irishman’ for the task ahead.53 Yet the decisions O’Brien took in his new position were to have serious implications, not only for the UN but also for the Irish Government and its troops. The controversy had its origins in Security Council resolution 161A, passed on 21 February 1961, whose basic purpose, according to Hammarskjöld, was to take all appropriate measures to prevent civil war in the Congo and to ensure the immediate withdrawal of foreign mercenaries – ‘resort being made to force only if other efforts such as negotiation, persuasion or conciliation were to fail’.54 The problem lay in the interpretation of the resolution, particularly the definition of what were deemed ‘appropriate measures’. On 28 August 1961 O’Brien and Mahmoud Khiari (UN Chief of Civilian Operations) launched Operation Rumpunch, aimed at arresting ‘foreign’ personnel in Katanga. In Dublin his decision appeared at odds with the Irish Government’s view of the operation. The same day, after a meeting with Lemass, Aiken sought reassurance from Boland that rumours about Irish troops’ involvement in a UN plan to disarm Katangan troops were false.55 Though Boland provided him with a positive response, persistent press reports to the contrary over the following days led Aiken to contact him once more on 4 September to convey his concern that Lemass’s statements to the Dáil the previous July and December – ‘that UN units in [the] Congo cannot be used to enforce any specific political solution’ – might be compromised.56 Boland again attempted to put his Minister at ease. He assured him that the objective of the Katanga operation was ‘to undermine Tshombe’s military strength and by so doing to bring him into line ultimately with [Congolese Premier] Adoula and [Vice-Premier] Gizenga’.57 The action, he told Aiken, was taken to avoid civil war and prevent drawing ONUC troops into action under the 21 February resolution. Yet it was Boland’s final comment, to the effect that the ‘[o]bligation

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not to use UN Forces to interfere in party politics is regarded as subject to [a] general obligation to preserve [the] unity and territorial integrity of [the] Congo’, that made Aiken uneasy.58 Returning to the theme of their earlier exchanges, he argued that ‘if the restoration of unity requires the use of force against Congolese it is Congolese who should use it’.59 His concerns did not end there. After further assurances from Boland that UN troops would not be involved in action against Congolese factions, Aiken expressed his belief that, in the event of a civil war, ONUC troops ‘should withdraw to their military posts and airports, keep out foreign intervention and hold on while factions fight to [the] finish’.60 UN direct involvement would compromise its integrity in the eyes of the Congolese, he maintained, and encourage intervention from the Soviet Union, the United Arab Republic (Egypt and Syria) and possibly Ghana. At the same time that Aiken was receiving assurances from Boland and the UN Secretariat about Ireland’s role in ONUC, however, Irish peacekeepers were being drawn into action in Katanga. On 29 August a body of Irish troops was sent to Jadotville, near Elisabethville, where by 5 September they found themselves surrounded by Katangese gendarmes. The confusion that surrounded their fate, their surrender on 17 September and their internment by the Katangans until 25 October, caused great concern at home in Ireland.61 The press carried wildly conflicting reports of serious Irish casualties and general disarray in Katanga. The Irish Times reported visible ‘signs of a crack in the solidarity with which our Government has backed the UN throughout’.62 Lemass’s statement to the press on 15 September betrayed his grave concern over the proper use of Irish troops. The Irish Government had ‘acceded to the request of the UN to keep a contingent with the UN Force in the Congo on the understanding that the function of the force would be to preserve peace while the Congolese people were working out a solution of their political problems and would not be used to impose any particular solution on the Congo’.63 In the changed circumstances it now sought a full explanation on the nature of the situation. The events in Katanga posed a further challenge to the Irish Government’s belief in the institution of the UN. In private Lemass continued to be sympathetic to Western concerns. He gladly accepted the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s offer of information from British sources in Katanga, and the British Ambassador to Ireland, Ian Maclennan, was confident that Lemass’s outlook was very similar to his own.64 What was more surprising to British officials was how little the Irish Government knew about the situation. Aiken’s departure on a fact-finding mission to the Congo on 16 September did little to dispel

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Maclennan’s belief that the Government was ‘as much in the dark as anyone, both about what is going on and about how the existing situation in Katanga was brought about’.65 In his judgement it had committed itself to the UN ideal to an extent that bordered on naivety, and mistakenly viewed O’Brien and McKeown ‘as UN representatives who happened only incidentally to be from the Irish Republic’.66 Aiken’s nine-day Congolese tour brought home the reality of the situation. In Leopoldville he met with Adoula, Gizenga and Kasavubu, who told Aiken of their ‘deep appreciation for what Ireland had already done for the Congo, and were high in praise of the Irish troops’.67 In Katanga he toured Irish positions and met with Irish soldiers, staying in O’Brien’s villa. Yet the reality of life on the ground was far removed from the ideals he espoused at the UN. Hammarskjöld’s death in a plane crash – which occurred while Aiken was in the Congo – offered a reminder of the fragility of the situation, not least since Aiken’s own plane from Elisabethville to Leopoldville on 24 September arrived safely only after limping across hundreds of miles of forest land when the pilot was forced to feather the engines as the plane started to lose oil. Earlier that week his plane had crash-landed at Kamina when on its way to Katanga. What he saw in Katanga worried Aiken even more. In public he professed that the UN ‘have done and are doing a wonderful job here and can be proud of their record’.68 In private however he remained uneasy at the instructions given to the troops. He continued to believe, as he had told Boland earlier in September, that the force ‘should avoid being bogged down in hostilities against any group of Congolese secessionists’.69 News agency reports from Leopoldville in mid-September suggested that O’Brien and UN officials had to dissuade him from withdrawing Irish troops.70 But the effects of Operation Rumpunch went deeper than short-term concerns at the use of Irish troops. The Irish approach to the UN, which had once been straightforward support, was increasingly tempered by changes at the world body, along with the implications of the close association between Ireland’s fate and that of the world organisation. Lemass remarked to Con Cremin on 20 September 1961 that the ‘experience with Dr O’Brien’s mission in the Congo indicates that it is virtually impossible to avoid the impression in the public mind that the involvement in UN affairs of an Irish official of the United Nations in some way involves this country’.71 The price of Ireland’s commitment, it appeared, had in some cases become too costly to pay. In the same meeting Lemass rejected outright any suggestion that Boland might assume an interim role during the search for Hammarskjöld’s successor. It was a matter of some doubt, he told Cremin, ‘whether the public

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would welcome further involvement on our part in United Nations affairs at the present time’.72 Maintaining the Irish presence There was another reason for Lemass’s growing trepidation. In the aftermath of his government’s application to join the EC in July 1961, the Taoiseach had begun to think of placing it on a footing more consistent with its potential fellow member states. In the short term the application ensured that foreign policy-making – as Noel Dorr put it – ‘tipped a little more towards prudence on certain matters’.73 Lemass in particular became increasingly concerned, and vocal, at the broader implications of his government’s decisions. Its long-term consequences were of even greater significance. The move precipitated what Keatinge described as a ‘distinctive re-orientation of Irish foreign policy, in which all issue-areas [were] affected in some way’.74 Its most visible consequence came in the loose division of foreign policy in two, with Lemass taking charge of European affairs and Aiken those at the UN. The emphasis on Europe was not entirely to Aiken’s liking – he had to be persuaded by Cremin not to publicly advance his belief that ‘closer European co-operation would undermine independent UN action’ – but it did not bring any dramatic shift in foreign policy.75 From the beginning of ONUC Lemass showed himself to be committed to tying Irish interests to the UN while retaining his pro-Western sympathies. In November 1960, his argument in favour of seating Kasavubu at the UN had been held in tandem with a belief that it was in Ireland’s own interest ‘to promote the interests of the UN as a whole’.76 The confusion that surrounded the fate of the Irish troops at Jadotville the following autumn did little to shake that belief. On 25 September he spoke to the Irish troops via the Department of Defence’s new short-wave radio service to reiterate the central tenets of Irish policy: ‘when our contribution to this difficult task is no longer needed, Ireland will be able, because of your labours and sacrifices, to lift her head high, in the knowledge that she will have fulfilled her obligation with honour’.77 That rhetorical commitment continued to be matched by the practical support offered by the Irish Government to ONUC. In October 1961 it agreed to send further troops to Congo, on the grounds that that ONUC’s failure would lead ‘to the dangerous weakening of the organisation [the UN] itself, would open the way to civil war and foreign intervention in the Congo and might well bring about strife and insecurity in other parts of Africa and might indeed endanger world peace’.78 The emphasis the Irish Government placed on the pursuit of

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international stability through these channels made it impossible to withdraw from ONUC. Yet the difficulties faced in the early months of the mission remained in evidence. British officials reported that General McKeown was ‘regarded as useless by the Indian soldiers’ in his role as Force Commander of ONUC.79 The contentious use of Irish soldiers also continued to drive a wedge between Ireland and the Afro-Asian bloc. In November 1961 the Irish delegation to the UN stood alongside its Swedish and Canadian counterparts in opposing the terms of a resolution put forward by Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the United Arab Republic and Liberia to the Security Council which called for ‘vigorous’ measures, including force, to be used to detain Belgian and foreign mercenaries, and military personnel. In a letter to U Thant, Aiken openly questioned the approach: ‘It has always been my view that the UN should be prepared to exercise infinite patience and to spend many years if necessary to achieve its aims by methods of peaceful persuasion. In my opinion, any idea of achieving a speedy ending of the Congo operation by military means is entirely illusory.’80 The controversies that attached themselves to the contribution of Irish officials to the UN effort also continued to raise their head. By November 1961 O’Brien had left Katanga and returned to New York, yet his difficult reputation kept him at the centre of attention. His vocal criticisms of ONUC became increasingly problematic for the UN Secretariat, and his rumoured return to the Congo, British officials felt, ‘could do nothing but harm’.81 By the end of the month O’Brien’s public position had become untenable. On 29 November he wrote to Aiken to inform him of his decision to resign and indicated that ‘[s]hould you request me to resume service in the Irish Department of External Affairs, I should be happy to do so’.82 The controversy did not end there, however. In spite of his offer, O’Brien had already made up his mind that his recall would be followed immediately by his departure from the DEA.83 On 2 December, the day after Aiken had secured his return, he wrote again to tender his resignation from the Irish Civil Service. In private Aiken professed himself ‘deeply grateful’ for O’Brien’s ‘unflagging assistance to me as Minister. I shall always look back with pleasure to the years we worked closely and happily and I think fruitfully together at home and in the United Nations.’84 Yet O’Brien’s statements to the media, in which he strongly criticised Western interference in ONUC, met with hostility in official circles. The lessons of the Jadotville experience were openly in evidence. Lemass moved quickly to distance the Government from O’Brien’s opinions, stating that he had ‘acted as an official of the United Nations’ rather than of the Irish Government.85 But he was equally

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defensive about Ireland’s role in, and commitment to the UN. At the annual meeting of the Dublin Fianna Fáil central discussion group on 7 December, he re-stated his government’s support for the international organisation. If Ireland were to withdraw, he told the assembled, it would be ‘regarded as a default on our obligations as a responsible member of the United Nations and a betrayal of the principles which we have supported there . . . It would be deeply deplored and misunderstood by other independent African and Asian States who have urged us to stay with the task.’86 The message was clear: in spite of its increasingly pragmatic approach to the role of its officials in New York, the Irish Government remained wedded to the principles that had shaped its acceptance of Hammarskjöld’s initial request. In April 1962 it returned to the argument that to withdraw Irish troops would ‘jeopardise the continuance of the present comparative peace and calm that exist in the Congo’.87 For Aiken there should be no obstacle to the successful completion of the UN’s efforts. The operation was a test of its commitment to peace and stability and to the transformation of its role. It offered an opportunity for it to surmount the political divisions of the Cold War and provide an alternative future based along the lines desired by small states like Ireland and Sweden. Time and finances, he argued, should not become an obstacle to the successful pursuit of these goals. In August 1962 Boland told Charles Yost of the United States Permanent Mission that the UN should make it clear to Tshombe that it was ‘prepared to continue the operation in the Congo as long as might be necessary’.88 For Boland American opposition to extending funding for ONUC ‘ran directly counter to our views of what needed to be done if the UN operation in the Congo was not to end in irretrievable failure’.89 Yet the Irish Government’s continued commitment to the UN presented it with another problem: the difficulty of reconciling its approach with the strain ONUC placed on its limited resources. In reply to a request for further Irish troops on 5 October 1962, Lemass asked that reference be made ‘to the hope expressed by the Acting Secretary General during his visit to Dublin in July last that it would be possible, by the end of this year, to start reducing the military commitment of the United Nations in the Congo .  .  . [and] to the strain imposed on our limited resources by this commitment’.90 He requested that the Secretary General be informed that after the replacement battalion had finished its tour of duty, ‘we would wish to reduce our contribution to the Force – or, if circumstances permit, to terminate it’.91 The impact of O’Brien and Jadotville, as well as the loss of troops at Elisabethville in December 1961, was obvious. But Lemass’s comments regarding the

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troops also reflected a genuine concern at the ability of the weak Irish public finances to cope with lengthy involvement in the operation. Neither did the Taoiseach’s growing pragmatism obscure the Government’s commitment to the principles that continued to shape its approach to international affairs. In keeping with his commitment to constructive decolonisation, Aiken maintained his search for a solution that would provide the Congo with a long-term viable future. In January 1963, he impressed on Joseph Sweeney of the United States Embassy in Ireland the ‘necessity to avoid outright military victory’ and the need for a negotiated settlement.92 It was important, Boland told U Thant the same month, to avoid ‘any attempt to make the process of reintegrating Katanga into the Congo too abrupt’, and to avoid any sense of unease that might be caused by introducing too many Central Government military or civilian personnel into Katanga too quickly.93 Patient constructive reform, which guaranteed a stable future state, steered by the UN but created by the Congolese themselves, continued to be Aiken’s primary concern in the final two years of ONUC. For him, there could no question of ending the operation before the Congo’s difficulties had been fully sorted, no matter what the financial implications. When Boland met the Secretary General again in August 1963 he told him that ‘the suggestion that ONUC should be completely withdrawn from the Congo by the 1st January next caused the Irish Government the gravest concern . . . there was a serious risk of all the good that had been accomplished in the Congo being undone if ONUC were withdrawn before the Congolese Government were in a position to ensure law and order’.94 As late as March 1964, with the Irish Government committed to an additional contingent of Irish troops for the period to June of that year, Aiken told the Dáil that the planned withdrawal then might leave the Congolese Government in a difficult position.95 Coming of age: ONUC’s impact The political disintegration of the Congo and the difficulties in restoring social and economic order to the state emphasised the essential validity of the Irish Government’s arguments advanced during the decolonisation debates of the late 1950s. It offered a prime example of the effects of ill-preparation prior to independence, with little or no collaboration between the colonial authority and the colonised society in the creation of a viable political system, no structured timetable for withdrawal and high levels of outside political and economic interference. But it was the attempts to rectify those problems – framed in  terms of the UN’s primacy in solving international conflict, the

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importance of negotiated settlement and the necessity of avoiding outside interference – that carried the most important lessons for Ireland and the other ‘fire brigade’ states. The experience of ONUC, particularly the loss of troops at Niemba and later at Elisabethville, became a reminder of the very real sacrifices to be made in the pursuit of international peace. At the UN, the situation described by the Irish Times in September 1961 – ‘the big Powers support the UN when it suits them, and evade their responsibilities, or even work against UN policy, when their own interests seem to be touched’ – frustrated efforts to find a constructive and lasting solution and hindered the success of ONUC forces on the ground.96 The political realities and high stakes of ONUC made all too apparent the difficulties of constructing a world organisation in keeping with the vision to which Aiken and his counterparts remained committed – a UN which would operate above Cold War politics to facilitate and encourage the achievement of a stable international environment. It was not solely the shortcomings of the UN, however, that awoke Irish officials to the realities of the state’s international standing. The broadly held assertion that the Irish Government and its people had a special role to play in linking the West with the developing world was brought into question by the practicalities of life in ONUC. The attitudes adopted by the Congolese, not least Lumumba’s August 1960 comments on the use of white troops in Katanga, openly tested the belief that Irish troops would be viewed apart from their Western colleagues. The experience also challenged the attitude that Ireland was naturally positioned to act as a bridge between the West and the developing world. Though Boland frequently consulted with his African and Asian colleagues on the issue, the approach that he and his Western counterparts adopted to the UN Advisory Committee on the Congo, the close contact he enjoyed with officials from like-minded states and his frequent warnings to Aiken not to overstep the mark in attempting to exert Irish influence acted as a reminder that with the emergence of this new group of independent and vocal African states came a restructuring of the international order in which the ‘fire brigade’ states were gradually losing the kind of influence they had enjoyed in preceding years. Paradoxically, among the Irish public these realities appeared to have little impact. Niemba was broadly constructed as a reminder of the sacrifices necessary in the pursuit of the type of world desired by Irish officials since their country joined the UN in 1955. The belief that Ireland had ‘more influence in Africa than a lot of other countries’, as Labour Party leader Brendan Corish put it in April

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1962, prevailed.97 Ireland’s colonial past, its Christian heritage and its pursuit of an independent role in international affairs continued to shape its attitudes. Significantly, this image – and, by inference, involvement in ONUC itself – largely transcended political divides to become a national issue. Corish and the Fine Gael leader James Dillon were continually kept informed of events in the Congo and both parties subscribed to the same definition of Ireland’s world role. In April 1962 the former Minister for External Affairs, Fine Gael’s Liam Cosgrave, told the Dáil that the success of the Irish troops in ONUC was ‘due to the fact that we are a country that has won the respect of the emergent nations, regarded as a country with no ulterior motives, a country which, in common with many other small countries, has a vital interest in the preservation of peace and the establishment of order’.98 As a piece of rhetoric, Cosgrave’s speech captured the essence of the Irish self-perception of the state’s role. The reality was somewhat more complicated. The Swedish approach to ONUC showed that Ireland was not unique in its pursuit of a particular set of policy goals or in claiming a ‘special position’ for the state in the Western sphere. From outside, Ireland was viewed as ‘a small country with an impeccable anti-colonial tradition, and yet a Western power’.99 Within that sphere, however, it defined a specific role for itself. Aiken’s suspicion of American motives and policies, and his commitment to the UN, as well as Lemass’s continued and vocal support for the organisation, provided evidence of the Government’s independence of judgement, even when the decisions it arrived at were often in line with Western attitudes. The application for EC membership did not radically overhaul this independence, and the Irish Government’s continued commitment to the UN bore witness to its continuing diplomatic autonomy. The Congo experience did, however, succeed in introducing a more pragmatic air among Irish decision-makers towards the state’s role at the UN and in relation to the emerging independent African states. The change was a gradual one. There was no epiphany among DEA officials, brought about by some sudden realisation that Ireland’s role had altered overnight and that it no longer held the kind of political influence it had claimed to wield among the Afro-Asian group. That realisation was already visible in Boland’s assessment of Aiken’s plan for African reconciliation in July 1960. Neither does there appear to have been any widespread discussion among Irish policy-makers about the manner in which the Congo experience had accelerated change. Instead the progression was a more natural one, a reaction to the realities of international relations made visible by

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the politics of the conflict. Individual experience was crucial: Aiken’s trip to the Congo in 1961, Boland’s relationship with his colleagues at the UN – his Western and African counterparts and UN officials – and the experiences of several Irish officials in debates at the General Assembly all added to a growing awareness of Ireland’s position and, equally importantly, the limits to its influence. Pressures for change also came from outside the DEA, notably Lemass’s concern at offending Western sensibilities in the debate on the seating of Kasavubu and his increasing emphasis on the EC application. They formed part of a gradual and growing awareness of the practical implications of Irish decision-making, visible to some extent in the debates on decolonisation and apartheid in preceding years (see Chapters 1 and 3), but which now distilled in a more pragmatic assessment of the country’s role. It is important, however, not to exaggerate the extent of this change. ONUC did invest an element of caution in Irish foreign policy but did not lead it to abandon its commitment to the UN. The Irish delegation retained its high reputation, and the Government’s continued commitments in the field of peacekeeping ensured that its fortunes remained closely tied to those of the world organisation. On the departure of Irish troops from the Congo in June 1964 the Irish Government had already extended its peacekeeping responsibilities to the UN operation in Cyprus. Its response to the March 1964 request for troops for the island said much about the lessons it had learned from ONUC. Cyprus offered even greater potential political difficulties, not least the partition of the island into Greek and Turkish areas, of particular sensitivity to Irish opinion. The Irish Government was not alone in taking its time (almost two weeks) before committing to the force – Sweden, Canada, Brazil and Finland took similar care in making their decisions – and the positive result of those deliberations said a lot about the Irish mindset at official and public levels. In spite of the potential that the operation would bring even greater difficulties, ONUC showed that Ireland could make a positive and constructive contribution in the area of peacekeeping, and the Irish Army, as Eunan O’Halpin noted, had become ‘an important arm of foreign policy in a manner which no one had expected’.100 With the playing field at the UN altered significantly by increasing Afro-Asian influence, peacekeeping became the most visible practical expression of the Irish Government’s pursuit of an international system based on peace and stability. It was, the Irish Independent asserted, Ireland’s ‘morally unavoidable contribution to the peace of the world. On the grounds of our past policy statements about the UN, it is indeed hard to see how we can adopt any other attitude.’101

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1 Gunnar Jarring, ‘Swedish Participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations’, International Review of Military History, 57 (1984), p. 59. 2 Frank Aiken, UNGA plenary meeting, 6 Oct. 1960, UNORGA, A/PV.890. 3 Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume I, p. 52. 4 ‘Afro-Irish Assembly’, Economist, 19 Dec. 1959. 5 NAI DFA 305/384/18, note by Kennedy, ‘The Belgian Congo’, 14 June 1960. 6 NAI DFA 305/384, paraphrased in Boland to sec. DEA, 24 Feb. 1960. 7 Quoted in Georges Abi-Saab, The United Nations Operation in the Congo 1960–1964 (Oxford, 1978), p. 14. 8 NAI DFA 2000/14/259, ‘Transcript from the Tape Recording of Tánaiste’s [Aiken] Speech at United Nations Association, 23rd Feb. 1968’. 9 NAI DFA PMUN 81 X/34, Boland to O’Brien, 7 July 1960. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 TNA Foreign Office (hereafter FO) 371/146769, telegram, UK Mission to the UN to the Foreign Office, 13 July 1960. 13 Seán McKeown, ‘The Congo (ONUC): The Military Perspective’, The Irish Sword: The Journal of the Military History Society of Ireland, 20: 79 (1996), p. 43. 14 See Brian Farrell, Chairman or Chief? The Role of the Taoiseach in Irish Government (Dublin, 1971), p. 72. 15 NAI DFA 305/384/2 Pt I, Moynihan to private sec. DEA, 4 Aug. 1960. 16 ‘The End of the Affair’, Irish Times, 21 Nov. 1958. 17 NAI DFA 305/384, DEA memorandum for the Government, ‘Request for Irish assistance for UN military force in the Congo’, 18 July 1960. 18 Quoted in ‘“Operation Sarsfield” Begins at 3 pm Today’, Irish Times, 27 July 1960. 19 NAI DFA 305/384, DEA memorandum for the Government, ‘Request for Irish assistance for UN military force in the Congo’, 18 July 1960. 20 Quoted in ‘“Operation Sarsfield” Begins at 3 pm Today’, Irish Times, 27 July 1960. 21 ‘An Advance Guard of World Army’, Irish Press, 27 July 1960. In a private statement to the author, an officer from the 32nd Battalion admitted that the Irish Army knew very little of the country or region they were to operate in. 22 ‘Troops Fly Out Tomorrow’, Irish Independent, 26 July 1960. 23 Robert Brennan, ‘Viva La! The New Brigade’, Irish Press, 28 July 1960. 24 Quoted in ‘Aiken Says Congo Marks Turning-Point in History: Farewell to 33rd Battalion at Curragh’, Irish Times, 17 Aug. 1960. 25 Cathal O’Shannon, ‘Africans Satisfied to Have Irish Troops’, Irish Times, 9 Aug. 1960. 26 NAI DFA 305/384, DEA memorandum for the Government, ‘Request for Irish Assistance for UN Military Force in the Congo’, 18 July 1960.

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27 NAI DFA 305/384/2 Pt I, paraphrased in a confidential report from the Irish Amb. to Sweden to Cremin, 21 July 1960. 28 Frank Aiken, UNGA Plenary Meeting, 6 Oct. 1960, UNORGA, A/PV.890. 29 Ireland. Department of External Affairs, Ireland at the United Nations 1960 (Dublin, 1961), p. 3. 30 ‘Mr Aiken Warns Congo Leader’, Irish Independent, 29 Aug. 1960. 31 NAI DFA 305/384/14, Boland to Cremin, 27 Aug. 1960. 32 For a detailed description of the events at Niemba, see Edward Burke, ‘Ireland’s Contribution to the United Nations Mission in the Congo (ONUC): Keeping the Peace in Katanga’, in Kennedy and McMahon (eds), Obligations and Responsibilities, pp. 140–53. 33 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 184, Cols 734–5 (9 Nov. 1960). 34 NAI DFA 305/384/2 Pt II, DEA memorandum for the Government, ‘Request from UN for Irish battalion for Congo Force to replace present contingent when withdrawn’, 22 Nov. 1960. 35 ‘Men of Peace’, Irish Press, 16 Nov. 1960. 36 ‘The Shadow of Tragedy’, Irish Press, 10 Nov. 1960. 37 ‘Nine Brave Men’, Irish Press, 22 Nov. 1960. 38 ‘Death in Africa’, Irish Times, 10 Nov. 1960. 39 ‘The Dead’, Irish Times, 22 Nov. 1960. 40 NAI DFA 305/384 Pt II, telex, PMUN to DEA, 11 Nov. 1960. 41 Ibid., telex, PMUN to DEA, 14 Nov. 1960. 42 Frank Aiken, UNGA Plenary Meeting, 21 Nov. 1960, UNORGA, A/PV.922. 43 NAI DFA 305/384 Pt II, telex, DEA to PMUN, 11 Nov. 1960. 44 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 185, Col. 175 (23 Nov. 1960). 45 NAI DFA 305/384 Pt III, Keating to all missions, 13 Feb. 1961. 46 Ibid., note by Cremin, 17 Feb. 1961. 47 Ibid. 48 Frank Aiken, UNGA Plenary Meeting, 28 March 1961, UNORGA, A/PV.969. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Conor Cruise O’Brien, UNGA Plenary Meeting, 14 April 1961, UNORGA, A/ PV.983. 52 Conor Cruise O’Brien, To Katanga and Back: A UN Case History (New York, 1966), p. 41. 53 Ibid. 54 John Terence O’Neill, ‘The Irish Company at Jadotville, Congo, 1961: Soldiers or Symbols?’, International Peacekeeping, 9: 4 (2002), p. 129. 55 NAI DFA 305/384/31, telex, DEA to PMUN, 28 Aug. 1961. 56 Ibid., telex, DEA to PMUN, 4 Sept. 1961. 57 Ibid., ‘Decode of machine code cable sent from UNEIREANN on 5.9.61 and received in Department on 6.9.61’. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid., telex, DEA to PMUN, 6 Sept. 1961. 60 Ibid., telex, DEA to PMUN, 9 Sept. 1961.

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61 For a history of the Irish involvement at Jadotville, see Declan Power, Siege at Jadotville: The Irish Army’s Forgotten Battle (Dunshaughlin, 2005). 62 ‘Hue and Cry’, Irish Times, 23 Sept. 1961. 63 Quoted in ‘Aiken to Leave for Congo To-day’, Irish Times, 16 Sept. 1961. 64 NAI DT S16137 J/61, Macmillan to Lemass, 18 Sept. 1961; TNA DO 195/150, Maclennan to Chadwick, 20 Sept. 1961. 65 TNA DO 195/150, Maclennan to Chadwick, 20 Sept. 1961. 66 Ibid., Maclennan to Chadwick, 19 Sept. 1961. 67 Raymond Smith, ‘All Irish Safe and Well’, Irish Independent, 19 Sept. 1961. 68 Quoted in Raymond Smith, ‘The UN Can Be Proud of Their Record – Mr Aiken’, Irish Independent, 26 Sept. 1961. 69 UCDA Aiken Papers P104/6409, telex, DEA to PMUN, 9 Sept. 1961. 70 ‘Aiken: Second Air Mishap – Safe Landing After Ordeal Over Forests’, Irish Press, 25 Sept. 1961. 71 UCDA Aiken Papers P104/6340, note by Cremin re meeting with Taoiseach, 20 Sept. 1961. 72 Ibid. 73 Noel Dorr, ‘Ireland at the United Nations’, in Ben Tonra and Eilís Ward (eds), Ireland in International Affairs: Interests, Institutions and Identities (Dublin, 2002), p. 115. 74 Keatinge, A Place Among the Nations, p. 198. 75 Aoife Bhreatnach, ‘Frank Aiken: European Federation and United Nations Internationalism’, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 13 (2002), p. 246. 76 Quoted from Lemass’s address to the Cambridge University Liberal Club on the role of small states in the United Nations; ‘Small Nations Have Most to Gain – Mr Lemass’, Irish Independent, 1 Feb. 1960. 77 Quoted in ‘Lemass Talks to Soldiers in Congo’, Irish Times, 26 Sept. 1961. 78 NAI DFA 305/384/2 Pt V, DEA memorandum for the Government, ‘Request from the United Nations for an Irish Battalion for Congo Force to Replace Present Contingent when Withdrawn and also for Anti-Aircraft and Support Weapons’, 9 Oct. 1961. 79 TNA FO 371/155009, ‘Secretary of State’s meeting with the Irish Ambassador  on December 1 [1961]: Irish interests in the Congo’, 30 Nov. 1961. 80 UCDA Aiken Papers P104/6426, Aiken to Thant, 27 Nov. 1961. 81 TNA FO 371/155009, ‘Secretary of State’s Meeting with the Irish Ambassador  on December 1 [1961]: Irish Interests in the Congo’, 30 Nov. 1961. 82 UCDA Aiken Papers P104/7045, O’Brien to Aiken, 29 Nov. 1961. 83 O’Brien, To Katanga and Back, pp. 328–9. 84 UCDA Aiken Papers P104/7045, Aiken to O’Brien, 4 Dec. 1961. 85 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 192, Col. 1246 (6 Dec. 1961).

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86 NAI DFA 305/384/31 Pt III, ‘Text of a Statement to be Made by the Taoiseach, Mr Sean Lemass, TD, at the Annual Meeting of ComhComhairle Átha Cliath on Thursday, December 7th, at Groome’s Hotel, Dublin’. 87 NAI DFA 305/384/2 Pt VI, DEA memorandum for the Government, ‘Request from the United Nations for an Irish Battalion to Replace the 36th Battalion Now Serving in the Congo when Withdrawn’, 4 April 1962. 88 NAI DFA 305/384/31 Pt V, Boland to Cremin, 7 Aug. 1962. 89 Ibid. 90 NAI DFA 305/384/2 Pt VII, Nolan (DT) to Cremin, 5 Oct. 1962. 91 Ibid. 92 NAI DFA 305/384/31 Pt VI, telex, DEA to PMUN, 4 Jan. 1963. 93 NAI DFA PMUN 431 M/13/6, Boland to sec. DEA, 23 Jan. 1963. 94 NAI DFA 305/384 Pt VIII, Boland to sec. DEA, 28 Aug. 1963. 95 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 208, Col. 860 (12 March 1964). 96 ‘Hue and Cry’, Irish Times, 23 Sept. 1961. 97 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 194, Col. 1395 (5 April 1962). 98 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 194, Col. 1361 (5 April 1962). 99 TNA DO 181/9, ‘Confidential. Irish Republic at the United Nations: Brief for Visit of P.U.S. [Permanent Under-Secretary] to Dublin, June, 1962’. 100 Eunan O’Halpin, Defending Ireland: The Irish State and Its Enemies Since 1922 (Oxford, 1999), p. 273. 101 ‘Troops for Cyprus’, Irish Independent, 6 March 1964.

3

On the side of the angels The birth of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement

Congo’s descent into chaos was watched closely by its neighbours in southern Africa. Unwilling to countenance any reduction in their power, the controlling minorities in South Africa (and by extension South West Africa) and Southern Rhodesia, and the authorities in the Portuguese territories (Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique) viewed African political independence as an unhealthy and threatening development. To them the Congo unrest exemplified the potential menace to their prosperous existence. Lumumba’s dance with communism was an affront to their Christian values. The abuse of power by Congo’s leaders warned of the fickleness of African politicians. And the fate of the Katangan mining industry was a reminder of the potential damage to Western business interests of African political control. These disasters – and possibly worse – would be replicated, they argued, if greater political freedoms were allowed within their own societies. For the rest of the world the debate took on a slightly different tone. With the process of decolonisation drawing to a close, the ‘hard core’ of Africa’s political problems was exposed: the persistence of minority rule in southern Africa. The regimes were seen as an affront to the freedom of the newly independent states, their rejection of African rights a reminder of the continued colonial influence on their continent. In the developed world, emigration, trade, geopolitical concerns and shared cultural links bound the West to South Africa and Southern Rhodesia in a manner not visible elsewhere on the continent. Yet by the early 1960s that relationship began to be challenged from within. Encouraged by the example of the American civil rights movement and the South African National Congress (ANC), and enraged by events in South Africa, activists in the West grew increasingly vocal in the struggle against minority rule. At the UN several moderate Western governments – including Ireland – responded in kind, and adopted increasingly condemnatory diplomatic postures.

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There were three strands to the ‘fire brigade’ states’ reaction to the unfolding events in southern Africa. In the late 1950s moderate powers like Ireland played an important role in focusing the world’s attention on conditions in the region, particularly the treatment of the African majority under the apartheid system in South Africa. After 1960 the opportunities for intervention of this sort decreased as the influence of the Afro-Asian group grew stronger. As debate became radicalised, the complexities of the ‘fire brigade’s’ anti-colonial stance were made more obvious. Their powers were diminished, rather than lost, but it took some time for these states to find a new role in a rapidly changing international environment. In the interim southern Africa provided the catalyst for intervention of a different kind, in the new levels of public participation in foreign policy-making in the West. In Britain and the Nordic states boycott movements and protest groups emerged in the early 1960s to focus public attention on conditions in the region. Ireland, although slower to embrace the concept of public protest, was no different. In 1964, following the example of European and American colleagues, an eclectic group of academics, churchmen (of all denominations), students and a large number of interested individuals created the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement (IAAM). The dynamics of foreign policy-making would never be the same again. The tragedy of minority rule The international debate on apartheid and racial discrimination had its origins in changing attitudes to colonialism and human rights in the postwar period, and developments to the contrary within South Africa. Victory for D. F. Malan’s National Party in the 1948 general election brought with it the institutionalised structures of segregation and apartheid that became the mark of South African society. A programme of deepening racial separation followed. The ‘South African Commonwealth’ introduced by the government of Hendrick Verwoerd brought limited self-rule for Africans in districts known as Bantustans. In white areas it was accompanied by ever more stringent efforts to eliminate African political influence. Yet in practice, these policies merely stored up problems for the South African Government, by creating an increasingly polarised society divided along hardening racial lines. In 1955 an attempt to set up a ‘Congress of the People’ met with intransigence on both sides: from the Government who condemned its interracial nature, and from Africans who denounced it as a betrayal of African nationalism. Wary of the accelerating process of political

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change elsewhere on the continent and the growth of the ANC and its radical offshoot, the Pan-African Congress (PAC), at home, the South African Government grew ever more fearful for its position of control. Growing tensions led quickly to open confrontation – with disastrous consequences. On 21 March 1960 police killed sixty-nine civilians during a demonstration at Sharpeville, a black township south of Johannesburg. The South African Government responded by banning both the ANC and the PAC. It was too late. African nationalist opinion had been irrevocably radicalised by the brutality of its actions. With their leaders forced into exile, for many ordinary party members increased militancy became the only viable response. Yet the ramifications of Sharpeville went far beyond the boundaries of the South African state. In Britain the incident led directly to the creation of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. In Scandinavia it ignited widespread interest and helped to inspire greater public action. The diplomatic response was equally swift and condemnatory. Western governments criticised the use of excessive force and the South African administration’s blinkered approach to political reform. At the UN Sharpeville opened a ‘new chapter’ in the organisation’s approach to international disputes.1 A resolution adopted by the General Assembly in its aftermath strongly condemned South Africa’s policies, and in the process opened Article 2.7 of the UN Charter – which forbade interference in the internal politics of a member state – to renewed interpretation and official debate. The result was a new phase of active international involvement on the apartheid issue. At inter-governmental bodies like the International Labour Organisation, South Africa came under increasing harassment as Afro-Asian delegates lobbied for its exclusion. The stress became increasingly difficult to bear. On 31 May 1961, faced with similar pressures from within the Commonwealth, the South African Government withdrew from that organisation and declared itself a republic. The defensive stance that followed Sharpeville was characteristic of the experience of minority regimes elsewhere in the region. At the UN the South African Government faced continuous attack over its administration of the UN Trust Territory of South West Africa, which it increasingly treated as an extension of its own state. Exploitation of the territory’s natural resources, and particularly the introduction of the same segregationist policies visible within South Africa’s own borders, had an all-too-familiar effect. On 10 December 1959, eleven Africans were killed and forty-four injured by police fire in Windhoek after residents had stoned the security forces in an effort to resist removal to another township. As it did later in South Africa, the severity

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of the authorities’ response radicalised African nationalists. In 1960 the Ovamboland People’s Organisation was reconstituted as the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO), and in 1961 ‘resolved to prepare for armed struggle’ against the South African administration.2 The unfolding events left authorities elsewhere in the region equally haunted by the fear of majority rule. Nominally self-governing since 1923, Southern Rhodesia was the dominant actor in the British Central African Federation. Yet its controlling white minority – like its neighbours in South Africa – had grown increasingly concerned at the pace of African political independence. Riots in Nyasaland (later Malawi), another constituent of the Federation, in 1959 only strengthened their resolve. In 1962 the right-wing Rhodesian Front assumed power on a pro-segregation mandate and its policies accelerated the division of Southern Rhodesian society. At the UN it drew increasing scrutiny at the Fourth Committee in spite of British protests at the legality of discussing its future. The final turning point came in 1964 when Britain granted independence to the Federation’s two other constituents, Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). Fearful of British efforts to repeat the process in its territory, the Rhodesian Front eschewed negotiations for greater African political freedoms, and in November 1965 unilaterally declared the state independent. In Portuguese Africa the reconstruction of the postwar economic system led to an increase in tensions within the colonial societies. African opposition grew slowly. In August 1959, a strike by dockworkers in Bissau, organised by the Guinean nationalist movement the Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC), left at least fifty dead when police shot on the demonstrators. The following year the administration adopted a similarly heavy-handed approach to demonstrations in Mozambique and Angola. The consequences for the Portuguese authorities were serious. Violent opposition in Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau increased, and by 1964 all three colonies were engaged in guerrilla warfare with the colonial state  – though it remained ‘something of a phoney war’, except in GuineaBissau, until the early 1970s.3 Nor did the case escape the attention of the UN or the world’s press, where Portuguese policies were strongly criticised, and the Portuguese Government was subjected to repeated attempts to exclude it from international debate. A friend to whom? Ireland and southern Africa Where Ireland’s relationship with much of sub-Saharan Africa was built on missionary endeavour, the connection to southern Africa was

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founded on links of a different kind. In the nineteenth century Irish men and women travelled to the region as entrepreneurs, missionaries, settlers and officials of the British Empire. The large numbers of Irish men who fought on both sides of the Boer War romanticised the connection between Boer and Irish nationalism. In the first half of the twentieth century, these bonds were strengthened by friendships that developed between the countries’ leaders. Nurses, engineers and other skilled and unskilled labourers followed, drawn by promises of employment and riches beyond those achievable at home. By 1951 the South African census recorded that 8,254 South African residents had been born ‘in the twenty-six county area’, with an additional 1,366 born ‘in the six county area’.4 Rhodesia, too, had a strong Irish population. The place names of its rural townlands – Athlone, Donnybrook, Avondale, and the gold mines of Colleen Bawn and Connemara in the south-east – resonated with the strength of Irish influence in the colony’s formative years. By the early 1960s an estimated five thousand to fifteen thousand (7 per cent of the white population) identified themselves as ‘Irish-Rhodesians’.5 Yet the continued existence of these ties could not disguise the underlying Irish distaste for the regimes’ denial of African rights. In 1956 Liam Cosgrave instructed the Irish delegation to vote in favour of a (mild) UN General Assembly resolution reprimanding South Africa for its apartheid system and another which called on that country’s government to report on its treatment of its population of Indian origin. Cosgrave’s successor, Frank Aiken, adopted an even more forward approach. His policies were grounded on familiar themes: the right to self-determination and the search for what his Norwegian counterparts termed ‘constructive solutions’ in southern Africa.6 On 29 October 1957 Irish official Conor Cruise O’Brien told the Special Political Committee that Irish policy was ‘not actuated by unfriendly feelings to the European community in South Africa’, but was in the latter’s interest.7 In remarking on a resolution introduced to the committee three days later, which Ireland co-sponsored, O’Brien returned to this assertion. Its target was not the South African Government, he told the committee, but the ‘liberal people, and also prudent people, who would be encouraged if they knew that the United Nations still refused to countenance the policies of apartheid and if they saw reflected in the vote a growing volume of opposition to such policies’.8 However it was framed, the resolution’s condemnation of apartheid was a bold step. Along with Greece, the Irish delegation was the only one from Western Europe to co-sponsor the text. It marked a very public break in the relationship between two historically close nations.

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Earlier that month South African officials had criticised Irish support for the inclusion of apartheid on the UN agenda: ‘Ireland had been looked upon as a friend . . . and they expected a better understanding of their position from us’.9 Yet, in the new international environment of the late 1950s, the very basis of that friendship had changed. Ireland’s commitment to the UN and the concept of international justice were to the forefront, and the weight of history was not far behind. The shared sense of nationalism and anti-British tradition that brought Irish and South African officials together at the League of Nations were set aside in favour of an Irish diplomatic identity that emphasised the connections between Ireland’s past and black Africa’s present. The apartheid system, which institutionalised discrimination on the basis of race, proved genuinely abhorrent to a generation of officials and politicians versed in the excesses of British rule in Ireland. Apartheid was viewed as ‘not only contrary to human dignity and a denial of basic human rights but also breeds innumerable offences against Christian charity and Christian justice’.10 In private Freddie Boland commented in 1958 that the South African Government was ‘giving the coloured peoples . . . the kind of treatment Cromwell gave the Irish – and with the same kind of fanatical Calvinist fervour’.11 The Irish delegation’s public statements at the UN revealed a similar attitude. In 1958 it again co-sponsored the inscription of apartheid on the UN agenda and continued its condemnation of the system in the debates that followed. Eamon Kennedy told the Special Political Committee that the ‘painful experience of the Irish people in the past had imbued Ireland with an abiding respect for the liberty and dignity of human individuals, and a hatred of political oppression’.12 Whatever its friendship with the South African people, it could not condone a system which institutionalised the repression of those human rights on a wide scale. To these Christian obligations were added Ireland’s responsibilities as a member of the UN. The actions of O’Brien in Katanga drew headlines, but it was in Boland’s terms as chairman of the Fourth Committee (1958) and as President of the General Assembly (1960), and the other posts Irish officials assumed in New York, that the Government’s commitment to active citizenship on the world stage was most visible. The tasks – exemplified by a spell on the South West Africa Committee, to which the Irish delegation was co-opted in December 1958 – could be onerous. At their most basic level, the activities placed severe strain on the delegation’s limited staff to cover all of its obligations. More seriously, they impressed on Irish officials the disadvantages of assuming a leading role, in particular the dangers of misconception that were to be demonstrated later in the Congo operation. But the experience was

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not wholly negative. Kennedy’s work as rapporteur for the South West Africa Committee drew considerable praise, and it gave the delegation an additional understanding of the changing nature of debate at the UN. In so doing, it had the not unwelcome corollary of strengthening the country’s relationship with the Afro-Asian group. In 1959 – for the third year in a row – the Irish delegation accepted an invitation from India to co-sponsor the inscription of apartheid on the agenda of the General Assembly for its autumn session, alongside Ceylon, Cuba, Ghana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaya, the United Arab Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela. The other ‘fire brigade’ states were still noticeable by their absence. A changing role at the UN Progressive though its voting pattern may have been at the UN – placing it in the company of what Boland later termed ‘the “wilder” anti-colonials’ – Ireland retained its close affinity with the ‘fire brigade’ states.13 Whether in the corridors of the UN in New York or on the ground in the Congo, Irish officials looked continually to their Nordic counterparts for inspiration. A co-ordinated approach to international affairs emerged and endured. On joining the UN in 1955 Boland told British officials – much to their surprise – that the Irish Government ‘tended to agree more with the Scandinavians than with, for example, Spain and Portugal’.14 The former adopted an approach to international affairs, a commitment to the principles of international stability and a conception of the UN as the world’s conscience that Ireland shared. Outside that organisation, policies coincided in a number of additional ways. The states had similarly strong responses to the massacre at Sharpeville, for example. Aiken declared the Irish people ‘deeply shocked’ by the tragedy, not merely for its effect on South African society; the artificial divisions imposed on racial lines had effects that were ‘far-reaching and incalculable in the present world situation’.15 The Irish Government reacted by excluding South Africa from its invitation to Dublin sent to all leaders attending the May 1960 Commonwealth conference in London, a move which was echoed at a meeting of Nordic foreign ministers on 25 April that instructed the states’ diplomats to boycott the official celebrations marking the fortieth anniversary of the Union of South Africa the following month.16 But there were limits to the extent of this support for the indigenous populations of southern Africa. None of the ‘fire brigade’ states could see its way to extending this diplomatic protest to a boycott of South African goods as called for by the ANC in 1959 and repeated by the

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Afro-Asian group at the UN. The Irish Government felt that ‘the most useful action’ open to the international community was to continue to press for change through the world organisation, rather than to take up a position ‘which the South African Government would inevitably consider markedly hostile’.17 Yet Aiken was also unwilling to jeopardise the influence the Irish delegation had built with the Afro-Asian bloc by coming out fully against the boycott. O’Brien recommended that Ireland should not vote against any resolution that might arise, but rather ‘not support’ one, since ‘it is unnecessary and undesirable for us to run directly counter to the sense of African and Asian opinion on this matter’.18 The Irish Government was not alone in its at times contradictory approach. In meetings between Norwegian officials and their South African counterparts in 1960, the former were at pains to make the distinction between the private boycott spreading within Norwegian society and official policy, for ‘fear of retaliatory actions directed against Norwegian exports’.19 There was a difference, however, between the protection of existing trade and the kind of active trade promotion that the Irish Government was simultaneously engaged in. The Norwegians had something to lose, including a large trade in canned fish with South Africa. By contrast the Irish Government attempted to expand its trade at a time when African nationalists called on the international community to boycott the South African economy. The message was clear: although Irish officials might not agree with the policies of the South African Government, political approval or disapproval was not going to be allowed to interfere with the promotion of Irish trade or its economic interests. In October 1957 Irish officials engaged in trade consultations with their South African counterparts at the same time that the delegation supported the inscription of apartheid on the UN agenda. Little over a year after Sharpeville, in June 1961, officials were again involved in talks in Dublin, aimed at increasing trade between the two states. The 1961 discussions highlighted the uneasy relationship between rhetoric and practical action at a time when the leading role of the ‘fire brigade’ states was being altered drastically at the UN. A briefing document provided by the DEA to each Irish official described apartheid as a ‘fundamentally and intrinsically evil’ system, one that was ‘abhorrent to the overwhelming majority of nations’.20 The Irish delegation had ‘not attacked Apartheid solely on the ground that it is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations but as a violation of human rights that are anterior and superior to all human law including the Charter’.21 Yet the concurrent emphasis on dialogue was indicative of the Irish

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Government’s constructive approach. The briefing told Irish officials of its desire ‘to maintain friendly relations with South Africa with which it has many ties, and to which many Irish nationals, including in particular missionaries, have emigrated’.22 The Irish Government looked for any indication on the part of the South African Government that it was prepared to revise its racial policies. It worked to encourage reform from within and to engage the South Africans in dialogue, in the hope of finding a constructive solution that would match its desire to lessen racial disharmony on the continent. In the interim, however, it was reluctant to do anything that would adversely affect the drive to find new and expanding markets for Irish exports. Even the recognition that black South Africans worked in ‘servile and ill-rewarded jobs’ did not appear to be reason enough to discourage an increase in trade between the two states.23 In a changing international environment, this preference for constructive, deliberated reform put the Irish Government – and its ‘fire brigade’ counterparts – increasingly at odds with the more radical intentions of the Afro-Asian group. In practice, the Irish delegation’s priorities had changed little from its early years at the UN. Irish official Tadhg O’Sullivan’s address to the Fourth Committee on 4 December 1961 re-stated its ‘energetic’ opposition to South African policies for their infringement of basic principles ‘which his country held dear: the legitimate aspirations of all subject peoples to freedom, racial equality, religious tolerance and the fundamental rights of man’.24 It was a ‘source of deep regret’ that the South African Government had adopted the apartheid policies, but he hoped that ‘the movement would continue peacefully to its inevitable conclusion, namely the end of the colonial system and the emergence of Africa as the ruler of its own destinies’.25 The playing field had, however, been radically altered from the heady days of the late 1950s. ‘Fire brigade’ support for constructive reform was openly at odds with the Afro-Asian group, which to their eyes continued to promote resolutions that were judged to ignore the realities of the situation in the region. On 7 December 1961, with the debate still ongoing, O’Sullivan told the Fourth Committee that while his delegation ‘would support any measure calculated to bring tangible progress . . . It would not support a recommendation merely in order to show that it was on the side of the angels.’26 Boland commented that the question was ‘charged with emotion. Constructive suggestions are viewed amiss by the extremists so no matter how fruitfully the new committee works, its recommendations are unlikely to meet with general approbation’.27 With Aiken’s agreement that Ireland had done its

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share on the Committee on South West Africa, the following February the Irish delegation quietly refused a request to renew its term on the committee. The waning influence of the ‘fire brigade’ states More than anger, annoyance or even disappointment, the dominant emotion felt by the ‘fire brigade’ in their dealings with the Afro-Asian group was one of simple frustration. In 1960, ‘the year of Africa’, Aiken and his officials had been full of the possibilities of winning their newly independent counterparts to their vision of international affairs (see Chapter 1). In the years that followed, the Irish Government’s continued support for constructive reform, commitment to the UN and international law and natural sympathy for the concerns of the Western powers only served to distance the country from the radical agenda of its Afro-Asian counterparts. The contrasts – and complexities – of the relationship came to a head in 1962, in the debate at the UN Fourth Committee on the future of Southern Rhodesia. In February of that year the Afro-Asian group placed a draft resolution before the Fourth Committee to ask the new Committee of Seventeen (constituted to deal with colonial questions) whether Southern Rhodesia had attained a full measure of self-government. The nominally administering British Government’s response was swift and simple: Southern Rhodesia was already a self-governing territory, and had been since 1923. In the debate that followed, the essential fluidity – and at times contradictory nature – of the Irish Government’s approach was laid bare. In essence Irish policy attempted to reconcile what Aoife Bhreatnach described as ‘two apparently disparate objectives: moderate independence [of action] on colonial issues in the United Nations and easy bilateral relations with a waning imperial power’.28 It was a difficult balance to maintain. On 6 February 1962 George Crombie of the British Embassy called to see Irish official Seán Ronan at DEA headquarters in Iveagh House to state his government’s belief that the UN had no authority to ask for such information. Ronan agreed that the Afro-Asian group’s attitude was ‘a bit thick’ and promised to obtain the opinion of the Irish delegation on the question.29 The latter’s response was consistent with its status within the changing UN. Tadhg O’Sullivan supported the British perspective, ‘as all Western and middle-of-the-road delegations appear to be doing’.30 The inquiry, he felt, would have no useful effect, and might rather lead to the adoption of a more extremist position by the Southern Rhodesian Government. Con Cremin agreed: while Southern Rhodesia was ‘not being run as it should be’, the

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British Government should be given time to reform the Central African Federation to give a greater voice to the African majority.31 Their arguments were important in persuading Aiken that there was no good legal case in favour of the Afro-Asian resolution, and that when the issue came to a vote Ireland should abstain. Yet the independence of judgement remained. In explaining his government’s position, Aiken instructed his officials to emphasise the importance of procedure, not least the belief that the UN, to retain its efficacy, should ‘not waste time and energy in enquiring into matters which are perfectly obvious’.32 Even the pragmatic Boland – who played an important role in persuading Aiken of the legality of Britain’s claim and strongly advocated voting against the resolution – adapted his approach as it became clear that Britain was itself resigned to losing the vote. Abstention, he argued, offered proof to the Afro-Asian group of Ireland’s independence and freedom of action. It was the responsibility of moderate states like Ireland to use their influence to win over the group to support the UN; ‘unless the activities of the powerful Afro-Asian bloc can somehow or other be kept within the bounds of reason, serious harm to the United Nations may result’.33 The familiar traits of Irish foreign policy were all visibly present: the need to express Irish diplomatic independence; the desire for constructive engagement with the colonising power; support for the principle of successful decolonisation; and a belief in the ‘fire brigade’s’ moderating influence over the Afro-Asian group. To them, in the weeks before the vote, was added another, equally important voice: that of Ireland’s missionaries. Southern Rhodesia was home to almost two hundred Irish Catholic clergy, among them the outspoken Irish-born Donal Lamont, bishop of Umtali diocese in the east of the country and staunch critic of the second-class treatment delivered to the territory’s African population. On 16 February 1962, while Irish officials debated their position on the Rhodesia resolution, Lamont was guest of honour at a dinner in Dublin’s Russell Hotel, hosted by Aiken. His comments about the British legal position, made in conversation with Cremin, can only have provided the DEA with serious food for thought.34 Lamont’s input was certainly valued by Irish officials, including Boland and O’Sullivan, who met him in New York in May 1962 and found the bishop ‘most enlightening’.35 By then, the Irish delegation was braced for further clashes with the Afro-Asian group over what it perceived as the latter’s disregard for the structures of the UN. In early June 1962 it voted against the inclusion of the Southern Rhodesian issue on the agenda for the resumed General Assembly (reconvened to deal with the situation in Ruanda-Urundi) on

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the grounds that it belittled the importance of the issue at hand. In his explanation of the Irish vote, Boland made it clear that Ireland recognised the ‘great importance’ of the issue but could not regard that ‘as constituting a good reason for taking up the question now’, instead of at the following autumn’s session.36 Noel Browne condemned the vote as ‘monstrous. We are now on the side of the white colonists.’37 The reality of the Irish position, of course, was not that simple. The DEA’s pragmatic assessment could not obscure Aiken’s strong fears that a new constitution for the territory risked entrenching the power in the hands of its white minority. In a meeting with British Ambassador Ian Maclennan on 30 August 1962 Aiken suggested that the British Government should postpone the operation of the new constitution and call a conference to draw up a document which would give more representation to Africans.38 Yet Maclennan had also noticed a change in the Irish minister. The latter’s experience of Africa in the previous ten years had convinced him of the need for gradual reform; ‘he knows enough about the situation in Southern Rhodesia to realise that “one man one vote” and African predominance next year is not practical politics’.39 At the heart of Aiken’s concerns was a fear that the Afro-Asian group could not be convinced of the merits of working within the structures of the UN. True to the role he defined for Ireland in previous years, Aiken was determined that his delegation should use its powers to find a solution. He felt it ‘essential that some action should be taken if there was to be any progress towards constitutional development on equitable lines’, and that Ireland should be prepared to intervene in both Plenary and the Fourth Committee debates.40 Behind the scenes Irish officials worked with other moderates – Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden – to find a draft resolution which would deprive the British of the abstentions it usually relied upon and isolate them. The hope was that in doing so it might moderate the demands of the Afro-Asian group and offer an alternative for them to follow. In an effort to find some solution that would avoid Ireland being bracketed too closely with support for British policy, Aiken recommended that Ireland support some moderate resolution introduced at the UN, broadly based on the opinion they had canvassed. He wanted to ‘demonstrate that we support the rights of the African population, even if we do not agree with a resolution on dogmatic pan-African lines’.41 In the end the attempt to introduce a moderate resolution failed, not least because the Irish delegation was not prepared to lead the initiative. The final position it took was a compromise between a desire – led

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by the Taoiseach (prime minister) Seán Lemass – to maintain good relations with Britain and Aiken’s impulsion to uphold Irish principles. Abandoning its leading role in framing an alternative, the Irish delegation voted in favour of the Afro-Asian resolution, with a statement making clear its reservations. This allowed it to express its disappointment at British attitudes, its support for African self-determination, and its fears of the immediate consequences, while also emphasising its commitment to constructive reform. The Irish were under no illusions as to the limits to their actions. O’Sullivan commented in November 1962 that ‘[a]t the present stage of the anti-colonial movement in the United Nations, the opportunities for any kind of mediation by middleof-the-road delegations are extremely limited’.42 The same month the delegation declined to participate in the debate on South West Africa since its previous experience led it to believe that it could not ‘exert any useful influence’ in the matter.43 And earlier that autumn, for the first time since it co-sponsored the 1957 resolution, the Irish delegation had not been invited by the Afro-Asian group to co-sponsor the inscription of apartheid on the agenda for the coming session of the General Assembly. To Boland it was a telling sign: ‘a further indication that the Afro-Asian bloc are confident of being able to carry their own proposals in the United Nations without the help of independent states belonging to other groups’.44 The reality can only have disappointed Aiken. Yet the Irish experience was broadly in keeping with that of its fellow ‘fire brigade’ states. In September 1963, for example, a meeting of Nordic Foreign Ministers in Stockholm adopted what became known as the ‘Nordic initiative’ on South Africa, an attempt at finding a constructive solution to the problem of apartheid through negotiation. Its central tenets bore a striking resemblance to the Irish Government’s attempt at aligning sympathy with African aspirations with a sense of objectivity in international relations. Introducing the plan to the UN later that month, Danish Foreign Minister Per Hækkerup told the member states that they must face the fact that the great majority of the European population in South Africa wrongly assume that abandonment of white domination means abandonment of their own existence. It is our duty to prove to them that this is not so . . . [I]t is high time for the [General] Assembly to give thought to the positive policy to be pursued in South Africa and to the role which the United Nations should play in coming developments.45

The strongly critical reaction from, and loss of prestige with, the AfroAsian group reiterated the close correlation between Irish policies and those of the Nordic states. Where the Afro-Asian group argued that the

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ejection of South Africa from the UN would have the effect of isolating it from the place in the world community it craved and force it to moderate its policies to gain acceptance and re-entry to the international community, the Irish – like their Nordic counterparts – held the opposite to be true. To expel South Africa, they argued ‘would serve no purpose whatsoever . . . If it were ostracised, it would pay little attention, but continue to work in deluded self-righteousness. It would be far better to allow the links with the outside world to be maintained, so that public opinion in South Africa can at least be made aware of what is thought elsewhere.’46 Expulsion would remove any opportunity for moral persuasion; instead, it would serve to drive the state further into the arms of apartheid. It was a ‘final step. Once we have taken that step, we have, so to speak, shot our bolt.’47 The lessons of the League of Nations and the inability of the international community to control those outside that organisation undoubtedly informed Irish thinking, and was clearly in evidence in the ‘fire brigade’ states’ attitude to economic sanctions. The Irish Government felt that the application of sanctions on Portugal and South Africa would have the effect of uniting all internal forces and strengthening intransigence. It did not oppose economic sanctions in principle, but felt that the decision should ‘give full weight to all circumstances of a particular problem in so far as we know them’, including the effect of sanctions on the populations they were supposed to assist.48 The Irish opposed any arrangements which were not in accordance with the terms of the UN Charter and the structure of that organisation. The adoption of sanctions by the General Assembly was ‘not legally binding’ and had ‘merely the force of recommendations’.49 As a result the Irish delegation excused itself from complying with any General Assembly recommendation to which it had registered its objection. It followed that when the Security Council acted, as it did on 31 July 1963, to order all member states to avoid giving any assistance to the Portuguese administration which would aid it in continuing its repressive actions in Africa, including the sale of arms intended for that purpose, the Irish Government readily and easily accepted the decision. The Irish policy on sanctions was again of one mind with the Nordic states: the latter believed that sanctions were meaningless without the co-operation of South Africa’s major trading partners, Britain, the United States and France.50 The Swedish Foreign Minister Torsten Nilsson told his country’s parliament in December 1963 that his government did not want ‘to have a re-echo of what happened in the thirties, when the League of Nations made a half-hearted attempt to intervene in the crisis in Ethiopia and achieved as its only result a falling-off in

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its own prestige . . . we do not want the world organisation to lose its ability to bring a positive influence to bear on events’.51 Nilsson’s statement reiterated his government’s support for the UN’s primary role in the solution of conflict. In spite of the financial and political assistance it later offered to liberation movements in southern Africa, the Swedish Government continued to reject unilateral sanctions. It was not until 1979 that it introduced an investment ban on South Africa and 1987 when it introduced unilateral sanctions on the apartheid regime. The birth of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement The fundamental difference between Ireland and the Nordic states lay in the public interaction with the policy-making process. With the exception of the short-lived interest in the Congo – which even then centred mainly on the Irish troops’ activities, without any detailed understanding of the crisis – the Irish public displayed scant interest in foreign affairs. It advanced little from what the British Ambassador Alexander Clutterbuck described in April 1956 as ‘the tendency of the Southern Irish to let the world go by except for an occasional glance’.52 In spring 1959 Studies published an article by Michael MacDonagh, damning in its appraisal of Irish attitudes to foreign affairs. The Irish people, MacDonagh argued, had ‘hardly begun yet to think constructively about our external relations . . . our outlook now is essentially isolationist’.53 At the inaugural meeting of the Irish United Nations Association in June 1959 his criticisms were echoed by Patrick Lynch, who argued that there had been ‘too little’ discussion of foreign affairs in Ireland.54 The attempt to stimulate public interest in a boycott South Africa campaign in 1960 provided a good indication of Irish attitudes. Organised primarily by Dublin-based South African and Irish students, the campaign was set up in January 1960 as a response to the ANC’s call to boycott South African goods. But its success was limited: a handful of parliamentary questions tabled by Noel Browne, a resolution by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) and a small march through Dublin on 10 February 1960. The call to ‘reject South African goods and help eject apartheid’ fell mainly on deaf ears.55 Even the impetus given to the campaign by the Sharpeville massacres in March 1960 was severely limited. The extensive media coverage and general indignation was not enough to transform public interest into organised protest in Ireland, in marked contrast to its effect elsewhere in Europe. In Denmark the event was viewed as a ‘turning point’ for public awareness, leading to widespread consumer reaction and prompting some major supermarket chains to boycott South African goods. In

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Sweden the events instituted a reassessment of the state’s engagement with the outside world, causing its political parties to embrace international issues in a way they had done only to a limited extent before. In Norway several buildings, including the headquarters of the Norwegian Missionary Society, flew their flags at half-mast in honour of the dead. In Britain the massacre inspired the members of the boycott movement to transform their group into the Anti-Apartheid Movement.56 In each case the activists capitalised on a groundswell of public support to turn it to political advantage. Political parties in the Nordic states became involved with southern African issues and helped to shape the future structure of policy. The Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions called for consumers to support a four-month (May to August 1960) boycott of South African fruit, vegetables, wine and brandy, which led to a 95 per cent reduction in imports from the same period in 1959.57 The consumer solidarity movement in Sweden forced the Government to introduce education scholarships to refugee students from southern Africa from 1964. In Denmark, youth and student organisations became central to organising popular protest against apartheid and criticism of government policies. Finland’s response to the situation in southern Africa offered a more instructive comparison to Ireland’s. Finland joined the UN at the same time as Ireland and relied predominantly on missionary activity (Lutheran in its case – based mainly in South West Africa) for its links with the region. There was little public discussion of foreign policy until the 1960s, and that which existed was limited to ‘small leftist or ultra-rightist periodicals’.58 Little support or solidarity existed with the developing world, even in the early 1960s. It was not until a new generation of Finnish youth began to embrace a growing radicalism, influenced by activities abroad, that Finnish society took note of events in southern Africa. The Committee of 100, a student peace movement set up in August 1963, and the South African Committee, a short-lived group created in the spring of 1965, offered focus and leadership. Their slow success echoed the situation in Ireland. There were those like Noel Browne and the Labour and trade union officials who were involved in the boycott campaign to awaken public opinion to the effects of apartheid, but it was, as Scher understated, ‘not then the household word that it later became’.59 Foreign policy, particularly under Aiken, relied on the input of a small number of officials, with limited interaction with the executive and legislative levels of government, not to mind organised public influence. It was left to the British AntiApartheid Movement (AAM) to exert pressure on the Irish Government on issues relating to southern Africa.60

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It took a combination of forces – the impetus provided by enthusiastic individuals, and the coverage afforded to one event – to transform the situation. The individuals were Kader Asmal, a South African of Indian descent, and his British wife Louise, who arrived from Britain in 1963 when Kader accepted a post as lecturer in law at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD).61 They came with a strong background in protest. Kader was one of the founding members of the boycott movement and the British AAM, and a member of the ANC. Louise, too, had been involved in the organisation of the British AAM. In November 1963, during Kader’s first term at TCD, he helped to organise ‘an ad hoc meeting’ addressed by Arthur Goldreich, who had escaped from a South African prison just over a month previously.62 At a packed Graduates Memorial Building in TCD, students handed out leaflets and collected money for the World Campaign for the Release of South African Prisoners. Its proceedings provided a platform for an Irish movement against apartheid. Barry Desmond of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) offered trade union solidarity with the oppressed workers of South Africa. The Fianna Fáil TD (member of parliament) George Colley provided something equally as important: the historical link so openly in evidence in the Government’s foreign policy. The Irish people, he told the assembled, had ‘an historical memory which gives us a sense of brotherhood with new nations . . . The Irish people abhor apartheid not only because of the human suffering it entails but because it is a breach of the natural law implanted in every man’s heart by God.’63 Worldwide media interest in the Rivonia trial of Nelson Mandela and nine other ANC members, charged with planning sabotage and guerrilla warfare and eliciting communist support for their actions, provided the focal point for the next move. Those involved in the November meeting capitalised on public interest in the trial and on 20 April 1964 the IAAM was launched at a press conference in Dublin. Its aim, according to one of its members, was to educate the Irish people about the reality of South Africa, ‘the fact that it is a living hell’.64 Two days later, on 22 April, the IAAM held its first public meeting in the Mansion House, ‘in support of United Nations Resolutions and action on South Africa and Christian Action Defence and Aid Fund for the relief of victims of apartheid’.65 Amidst sporadic heckles from the crowd, the broad range of speakers – including Michael Harmel (a South African Communist Party member of Irish descent), Ruth First (a South African journalist recently released from solitary confinement), Senator D. F. Murphy (Vice-President of ICTU), Barry Desmond, and the writer Gabriel Fallon – offered a successful launching pad for the movement, not least through the IR£121 collected from the audience of over four hundred

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for the anti-apartheid cause. By early June 1964 the movement had some sixty-five paid-up members, and had begun to lay the basis for the kind of broad-based movement that would capture the support of a large swathe of Irish society.66 Southern Africa and Ireland – in support of freedom Seven years later, in 1971, Kader Asmal produced an article outlining Irish support for the African nationalist cause to celebrate a meeting of the UN Committee on Apartheid in Dublin. From its inception, he wrote, the IAAM built ‘on the foundation of [Ireland’s] traditional sympathy with peoples fighting for their own freedom’.67 Ireland had ‘always manifested an instinctive solidarity with the struggle for freedom in South Africa; the Irish people have themselves undergone the experience of imperial rule and in this century have had recourse to force to free their land and themselves from foreign domination’.68 In his attempt to build a vision of broad-based support for the IAAM’s objectives, Asmal’s emphasis on Ireland’s past and the influence of its shared colonial experience contained little that had not already been articulated by Irish policy-makers and the Irish media in framing the state’s international role in the late 1950s. Yet in illustrating the adaptation of that colonial experience and its application to Irish assessments of minority rule in southern Africa it remained significant. In April 1956 the British Ambassador to Ireland Alexander Clutterbuck commented that Ireland’s position as, ‘in Soviet parlance, “anti-racist” . . . certainly modifies their sympathy for the Nationalists in South Africa’.69 Prior to 1957, and in lingering references thereafter, the nationalist links between Ireland and South Africa were built on the shared experience of the Boer war and a rejection of British colonial oppression. In the creation of an independent role for the state in the 1950s, however, the DEA changed the emphasis in that relationship. The old sympathies for the Boer cause were replaced by a concern for human rights, selfdetermination and freedom for oppressed African populations. In the decolonisation debates of the 1950s, Irish support for these objectives tended to gloss over the underlying complexities. The emergence of a vocal group of independent African states and its adoption of more radical and challenging methods to achieve goals with which the Irish Government was essentially in agreement brought the latter’s alignment into sharp focus. The debate on Southern Rhodesia underlined the limitations to the moderates’ influence. The opportunities to adopt the type of pro-active position the Irish delegation had done in its early years at the UN were limited and

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the new international environment found Ireland and other moderate states on the defensive, protecting their vision of the UN as a device for securing the international rule of law. The relationship with the Afro-Asian states was further complicated by the Irish Government’s continued pursuit of its bilateral interests, visible in its dealings with Britain on the Southern Rhodesian question, and in its trade negotiations with the South African Government. Built on a pragmatic interpretation of Ireland’s foreign relations – the necessity to pursue Irish economic and immediate political interests within a broader international framework – the dialogue nonetheless reflected the Irish Government’s commitment to the pursuit of constructive, negotiated solutions. The Irish Government’s policies in 1964 were not fundamentally different from those it had adopted at the UN in its ‘golden age’. They were based on the same references to Ireland’s historical and Christian heritage and the commitment to self-determination remained, coupled to the pursuit of constructive solutions and the necessity for decisions to be based on colonies’ proven readiness for self-rule. Like its Nordic counterparts, the Irish Government based its attitude on a reading of international politics that emphasised the realities of that system. The difference from the early period lay in the sense of caution learnt in the Congo. Ian Maclennan, the British Ambassador to Ireland, believed the experience of the decolonisation debates and of Congo’s crisis gave Aiken a more nuanced view of the international environment: ‘Ten years ago I suspect that he would have been as doctrinaire as anyone about freedom for Africans and the methods by which it should be attained. But he has seen enough of the Congo not to want the chaos there to be reproduced elsewhere in Africa.’70 Unlike its Nordic counterparts, however, foreign policy in Ireland was conducted outside the sphere of public debate. Involvement in ONUC met with widespread support, if very little critical discussion. The birth of the IAAM in 1964 introduced a new element to foreign policy that gradually developed a place of prominence over the following years: an open and critical assessment of Irish foreign policy. In 1961 the Irish Government undertook trade negotiations with South Africa with little or no public commentary. By the end of the decade, however, in the aftermath of one of the largest expressions of solidarity with an international issue seen in the state, the movement succeeded in persuading the Irish Government to cancel plans to further promote trade with South Africa.

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Ireland, Africa and the end of empire Notes

1 Evan Luard, A History of the United Nations, Volume 2: The Age of Decolonisation, 1955–1965 (London, 1989), p. 115. 2 Allan D. Cooper, The Occupation of Namibia: Afrikanerdom’s Attack on the British Empire (Lanham, 1991), p. 97. 3 Malyn Newitt, Portugal in Africa: The Last Hundred Years (London, 1981), p. 230. 4 NAI DFA 305/94/4, Scott-Hayward to sec., DEA, 26 June 1964. 5 The figure of 5,000 is quoted in Lionel Fleming, ‘More Rhodesian than Irish’, Irish Times, 8 Nov. 1965, while Cyril A. Rogers and C. Frantz estimated the Irish presence at 15,000 in their study, Racial Themes in Southern Rhodesia: The Attitudes and Behaviour of the White Population (New York, 1962), p. 60. Rogers and Frantz’s numbers are problematic as indicators as they are based not on official census records but on a test sample of 500 Rhodesians, whom they tested not for country of birth but for self-defined ‘national or ethnic origin’. See also Donal Lowry, ‘The Irish in Rhodesia: Wild Land – Tame, Sacred and Profane’, Southern African-Irish Studies, 2 (1992), pp. 242–60. 6 Tore Linné Eriksen, ‘The Origins of a Special Relationship: Norway and Southern Africa 1960–1975’, in Eriksen (ed.), Norway and National Liberation in Southern Africa, p. 12. 7 Conor Cruise O’Brien, UNGA Special Political Committee, 29 Oct. 1957, UNORGA, A/SPC/SR.54. 8 Conor Cruise O’Brien, UNGA Special Political Committee, 1 Nov. 1957, UNORGA, A/SPC/SR.57. 9 NAI DFA 305/94 II, J. D. Brennan to sec. DEA, 11 Oct. 1957. 10 NAI DT S11115 A, draft reply to Scott-Hayward, undated [Dec. 1957?]. 11 NAI DFA 305/94 II, Boland to Cremin, 23 July 1958. 12 Eamon Kennedy, UNGA Special Political Committee, 14 Oct. 1958, UNORGA, A/SPC/SR.88. 13 Bhreatnach, ‘A Friend of the Colonial Powers?’, p. 200. 14 TNA DO 35/6947, Pink to Dixon, 25 May 1956. 15 NAI DFA 305/94 III, DEA press release, 24 March 1960. 16 Eriksen, ‘The Origins of a Special Relationship’, p. 16. 17 NAI DFA 305/94 III, unsent draft letter, Aiken to E. I. Laavadien, secretary of the Boycott Movement, Jan. 1960. 18 Ibid., note, O’Brien to sec. DEA, 30 Aug. 1960. 19 Eriksen, ‘The Origins of a Special Relationship’, p. 24. 20 NAI DFA 305/94 IV, DEA memorandum on apartheid, 1 June 1961. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Tadhg O’Sullivan, UNGA Fourth Committee, 4 Dec. 1961, UNORGA, A/C.4/ SR.1236.

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25 Ibid. 26 Tadhg O’Sullivan, UNGA Fourth Committee, 7 Dec. 1961, UNORGA, A/C.4/ SR.1240. 27 NAI DFA 2000/14/262, telex, PMUN to DEA (Boland to Cremin), 23 Feb. 1962. 28 Bhreatnach, ‘A Friend of the Colonial Powers?’, p. 199. 29 TNA DO 181/14, Crombie to Kimber, 7 Feb. 1962. 30 NAI DFA 305/357/1 Pt I, Tadhg O’Sullivan to sec. DEA, 9 Feb. 1962. 31 Ibid., Cremin to Ennis, 19 Feb. 1962. 32 Ibid., telex, DEA to PMUN (Cremin to Boland), 22 Feb. 1962. 33 Ibid., Boland to Cremin, 26 Feb. 1962. 34 Ibid., Cremin to Ennis, 19 Feb. 1962. 35 NAI DFA PMUN 319 J/53, Boland to Cremin, 3 May 1962. 36 Freddie Boland, UNGA Plenary Meeting, 12 June 1962, UNORGA, A/PV.1109. 37 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 196, Col. 1460 (4 July 1962). 38 Bhreatnach, ‘A Friend of the Colonial Powers?’, p. 194. 39 TNA DO 181/18, Maclennan to Chadwick, 1 Sept. 1962. 40 NAI DFA 305/357/1 Pt II, Tadhg O’Sullivan to sec. DEA, 11 Oct. 1962. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid., Tadhg O’Sullivan to sec. DEA, 7 Nov. 1962. 43 NAI DFA 2000/14/262, Tadhg O’Sullivan to sec. DEA, 23 Nov. 1962. 44 NAI DFA 305/94 V Pt I, Boland to sec. DEA, 20 Aug. 1962. 45 Quoted in Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume I, p. 198. 46 ‘Using the Boycott’, Irish Times, 31 July 1963. 47 NAI DFA 305/94 V Pt I, ‘Text of Intervention by Mr T. J. Horan, Representative of Ireland, in the Debate in the Special Political Committee on 31st October 1962, on Afro-Asian Resolution on Apartheid’. 48 NAI DFA 2001/43/115, Tadhg O’Sullivan to Ronan, 21 Jan. 1963. 49 NAI DFA 305/94 V Pt I, Boland to Cremin, 19 Nov. 1962. 50 Morgenstierne, Denmark and National Liberation in Southern Africa, pp.  22–3; Eriksen, ‘The Origins of a Special Relationship’, pp. 26–7; Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume I, p. 197. 51 Quoted in Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume I, p. 197. 52 TNA DO 35/10625, Clutterbuck to Home, 13 April 1956. 53 Michael MacDonagh, ‘Ireland’s Attitude to Foreign Affairs’, Studies, 48 (1959), p. 78. 54 Quoted in ‘Role of the Smaller Nations in UN’, Irish Times, 1 July 1959. 55 ‘Protest March Against Apartheid’, Irish Times, 11 Feb. 1960. 56 Morgenstierne, Denmark and National Liberation in Southern Africa, p. 19; Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume I, pp. 58–62; Eriksen, ‘The Origins of a Special Relationship’, p. 16; Christabel Gurney, ‘“A Great Cause”: The Origins of the Anti-Apartheid

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57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

66 67 68 69 70

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire Movement, June 1959 – March 1960’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 26: 1 (2000), pp. 123–44. Vesla Vetlesen, ‘Trade Union Support to the Struggle Against Apartheid: The Role of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions’, in Eriksen (ed.), Norway and National Liberation in Southern Africa, p. 326. Soiri and Peltola, Finland and National Liberation in Southern Africa, p. 14. David M. Scher, ‘“How Is It that Such a Small Group of People Can Pressure Governments .  .  .?” A History of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement’, Southern African-Irish Studies, 3 (1996), p. 137. There are various examples of letters sent by the British AAM in NAI DFA 305/94 V Pt II, and NAI DFA 305/94 VI. See Kader Asmal and Adrian Hadland, Politics in My Blood: A Memoir (Johannesburg, 2011). Interview with Kader Asmal, Cape Town, 19 April 2006 (interview conducted by Thomas Alberts using a set of questions supplied by author). Quoted in ‘South African Artist Slates Dr Verwoerd’, Irish Press, 2 Nov. 1963. ‘Anti-Apartheid Body Launched: Notable Irish Sponsors’, Irish Times, 21 April 1964. UCDA Barry Desmond Papers (hereafter Desmond Papers) P221, leaflet, ‘Anti-Apartheid Movement Public Meeting: South Africa – Act Now!’, undated [April 1964?]. Note that these papers are as yet unsorted. My thanks to Barry Desmond and Séamus Helferty of the UCDA for permission to consult them. See also Asmal and Hadland, Politics in My Blood, pp. 54–5. National Library of Ireland (hereafter NLI), Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement Papers (hereafter IAAM Papers) Roll 1, Part 2.1.1, notes from IAAM Working Group meeting, 1 June 1964. NLI Terence McCaughey Papers Ms 39,908/4, Kader Asmal, ‘Irish opposition to Apartheid’, United Nations Unit on Apartheid, Department of Political and Security Council Affairs, Doc. No. 3/71, Feb. 1971, p. 2. Ibid., p. 1. TNA DO 35/10625, Clutterbuck to Home, 13 April 1956. TNA DO 181/18, Maclennan to Chadwick, 1 Sept. 1962.

4

Biafra Ireland, Nigeria and the politics of civil war

The debate over the future of southern Africa at the UN laid bare the growing fissures between the ‘fire brigade’ states and the Afro-Asian group. Theirs was a conflict between moderate and radical approaches, articulated in disagreements over procedure and the niceties of international diplomacy. Yet their differences did little to disguise the groups’ support for a common cause: the right of subject peoples to self-determination. In the late 1950s and early 1960s these ideals had been easily articulated in the ‘fire brigade’ states’ support for decolonisation and the end of imperial rule. When the debate turned to apartheid and racial discrimination, Western interests – direct and indirect – and the growing radicalism of the Afro-Asian group blurred the lines somewhat between principled and pragmatic support. But in essence the response remained the same, based on a commitment to justice, human rights and the primacy of international law. With self-government, however, came change. As the situation in southern Africa settled into a protracted battle of wills between the minority regimes and the growing powers of African nationalism, the continent’s new administrations shifted their focus to other, equally pressing concerns. Development and economic advancement were to the forefront, but so too was the consolidation of their hard-won diplomatic and political independence. Influenced by the inter-governmental Organisation of African Unity (OAU) – formed in 1963 – a set of norms slowly emerged to govern the relationships between the new states. They reflected a strong desire to protect the political status quo, based on the explicit recognition of territorial sovereignty and non-interference in domestic affairs. Simple though these principles appeared in theory, in practice they carried important implications for the future of the African continent. By cementing colonial boundaries, they effectively perpetuated the ethnic and regional divisions encountered under European administration. They also had serious ramifications for international attitudes

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to the question of self-rule. The consequences, as Charles Nixon noted, were anything but simple; any future claims lay ‘outside the presumptions of earlier UN declarations and actions which applied the concept of self-determination to the process of decolonisation’.1 The Congo crisis had been the first to highlight the complexity of post-independence politics on the African continent, but the residual presence of Belgian colonial forces distinguished that conflict from superficially similar cases that followed. In practice it was West Africa, and the attempted secession of the Eastern Region of Nigeria – re-named Biafra by the rebels – between 1967 and 1970 that provided the first real test of an established African state beset by what were, for the most part, internal tensions. The conflict’s focus on tribal and ethnic boundaries, the threat of failed states, and the process of nation building in post-independence Africa posed a serious challenge to the Irish Government’s attitude to self-determination. Yet this was no ordinary case of an abstract Irish response to a remote conflict. From the first rumblings of violence in January 1966 to official efforts to secure a future for Irish missionaries following Biafra’s collapse four years later, the status of the expatriate community was at the heart of Irish decision-making. In simple diplomatic terms, the large Irish presence across Nigeria – and particularly in what became Biafra – forced policy-makers to prioritise the safety of Irish priests, nuns and brothers. But the churches played an important role in shaping government policy in another sense. The missionaries’ strong connection with the Irish public and influence on media coverage of the conflict – amplified in the response to the worsening humanitarian crisis (see Chapter 5) – drew Irish officials deeper into the new and often deeply uncomfortable territory of public debate. Shaken from the closed shop approach espoused by Frank Aiken, the DEA entered a new era of foreign policy-making – one in which public voices would play an ever-increasing role. Nigeria’s descent into civil war At its independence in 1960, Nigeria embodied many of the hopes and expectations for a successful self-governing Africa. This multi-ethnic state, home to one-quarter of the continent’s population, appeared set for a role as one of its leading powers. In practice, however, its federal political system, a delicate balance of authority forged under British rule between the country’s three dominant ethnic groups – the largely Christian Yoruba (West) and Igbo (East), and the Muslim Hausa/ Fulani in the North – proved a less than satisfactory arrangement for

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the operation of a well-functioning state. The absence of a unifying national force placed considerable pressure on co-operation at the centre. Parties divided firmly along ethnic and regional lines. Fears of dominance and a desire for power abounded. In that environment the ambitious, mobile and well-educated Igbo became particular targets for their counterparts in the North and West. Early in 1966 these tensions developed into an open and bloody rivalry. In January Major-General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi assumed control of the country after he defeated a three-day Igbo-led coup that had seen the murder of the Federal Prime Minister and the premiers of the Western and Northern regions. Ironsi, an Igbo, concerned himself with what he termed the restoration of ‘Nigeria’s failing health’.2 His ideas were simple – to introduce increased centralisation in order to strengthen the unity of Nigeria as a whole – but to the Hausa and Yoruba they amounted to an attack on their autonomy. In May riots broke out in the Northern Region, beginning in Kano, in which several hundred Igbos were killed and thousands more fled fearing for their safety. The violence paved the way for a third coup in the space of seven months. On 28 July 1966 a group of Northern subalterns shot their garrison commander and two other senior Igbo officers dead at Abeokuta. Three days later, the coup’s leaders installed the army Chief of Staff, MajorGeneral Yakubu Gowon, a Christian Tiv from the middle belt, as head of the Nigerian Federal Military Government. Only the Eastern Region, led by the Ironsi-appointed Lieutenant General Odumegwu Ojukwu, succeeded in defeating the Northerners’ coup. As Gowon attempted to create a new constitution for Nigeria, the internal migration of large segments of the Igbo population created a country divided between the East and the rest. The situation escalated in September and October 1966, when a particularly brutal and indiscriminate series of pogroms against Igbos in the North convinced those remaining to abandon all they possessed and flee to Enugu, Calabar, Port Harcourt and the other cities, towns and rural villages in the East. As both sides began to arm, repeated negotiations failed to bring them closer to their stated goals. Ojukwu stood firm in his desire for further Eastern autonomy in a confederal structure, and on 27 May 1967 persuaded the Eastern Consultative Assembly to pass a resolution mandating him to create the Republic of Biafra. Gowon, unwilling to countenance change (or the loss of valuable Eastern oil deposits) responded by re-drawing the Nigerian administrative map and replacing the old four-state system with a series of twelve smaller states. It was too late. On 30 May Ojukwu announced to the world that the Eastern Region was to secede unilaterally from Nigeria. Within five

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weeks the two sides were at war. Yet this was a conflict the Biafrans had little hope of winning. After some initial success, including the capture of the Mid-Western state in August 1967, the secessionists found themselves gradually worn down by the Federal army’s military superiority. By October the latter had recaptured the Mid-West. In May 1968 the Biafrans lost their only access to the sea at Port Harcourt. In spite of its strong international media campaign, headed by the Swiss PR firm Markpress (later employed by the Irish Government in its publicity offensive on Northern Ireland in the early 1970s), the Biafran Government succeeded in persuading only four states – Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Zambia and Gabon – to offer diplomatic recognition, while France offered conditional support in the hope of securing oil interests and destabilising British influence in West Africa. The OAU also stood firm in supporting the ‘territorial integrity’ of Nigeria, backed by the majority of the international community, although many of the latter, notably Britain and the Soviet Union on the Federal side, and China, Portugal, France and South Africa on the Biafran side, were liberal in their definition of non-intervention. By the time peace talks opened in Addis Ababa in August 1968, the war was over its most active phase and the world’s attention turned to a new crisis: the starving millions of Biafran men, women and children dying in increasing numbers from disease and a lack of food and medical supplies. Hunger, the attrition of war and ever-increasing Federal gains gradually wore down Biafran resolve. On 11 January 1970, after two-and-a-half years of struggle, Ojukwu fled and Biafra collapsed. Protecting Irish citizens The location of Ireland’s only Embassy on the African continent, Nigeria had long been at the heart of Irish missionary endeavour. At the outbreak of the civil war an estimated 1,449 Irish Catholic missionaries – drawn largely from the Holy Ghost Fathers, the Society of African Missions (SMA), St Patrick’s, Kiltegan Fathers, Holy Rosary Sisters and the Medical Missionaries of Mary (MMM) – worked there, almost half of them in the Eastern Region.3 The Nigerian Catholic hierarchy bore the mark of this strong Irish influence, with a disproportionate number of bishops, high-ranking clergy and officials in the church secretariat drawn from among the missionary ranks. On the ground the identification between Irish missionaries and their parishioners ran deep, built on what they saw as a shared experience of British rule. That affection was particularly strong with the predominantly Catholic Igbo, accentuated by the group’s strong emphasis on education, in which

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the missionary influence was prominent. But the Catholic Church was not alone in flying the Irish flag. Also working among Christian peoples across Nigeria were a number of Irish Protestant missionaries, many of them assigned by the Church of Ireland-run Church Missionary Society (CMS). It was the Catholic connection that dominated, however. In the worsening tensions in Nigerian society, the very strength of the relationship between the Irish and Catholic peoples – particularly the Igbo – created any number of potential difficulties for the expatriate community. Irish Embassy officials were only too aware of the risks. In 1965 three academics on secondment from Trinity College, Dublin to the University of Lagos found themselves at the centre of a political controversy over the appointment of a Yoruba vice-chancellor of their host institution in place of the Igbo incumbent. One of the men, Dr T. B. H. McMurry, was left in ‘a very exposed’ – and potentially threatening – position as a member of the university’s Provisional Council, though all three escaped without harm.4 For Irish officials, however, the incident offered an uneasy portent of things to come. The pogroms in the North in the autumn of 1966 led the Ambassador Kevin Rush to warn that the missionaries’ close identification with their Igbo parishioners might make them targets for ethnic violence. The situation at that stage, Rush felt, was so difficult that although he could not advise any Irish citizen to depart ‘until at least the Americans or British start to do so’, he would ‘not try to dissuade’ them from leaving; ‘The more the better, in fact.’5 As Nigeria descended slowly into conflict, Rush and First Secretary Eamon Ó Tuathail worked in close consultation with British officials and the Catholic authorities to prepare the missionaries for the possibility of civil war. On 30 May 1967 Ó Tuathail was in the East finalising the details of a co-ordinated evacuation scheme when he woke in Enugu, the region’s capital, to hear Ojukwu’s dawn broadcast announcing the East’s secession and the creation of Biafra. His immediate concern was to secure the welfare of Irish citizens. He called on all his connections for help – missionaries, businessmen and sympathetic locals – but it was the support of his British and American diplomatic colleagues that proved vital. Consular staff provided information about possible Federal attacks, allowing Ó Tuathail to warn missionaries in outlying areas of the impending dangers. The first evacuation of Irish citizens on 6–10 June 1967 was part of an operation organised by the United States Consulate, and the second group (21 July) left on an Italian ship organised by British and United States officials. After the fall of the Mid-Western Region to Biafran forces on 9 August, British communication channels provided a lifeline for Ó Tuathail, who could

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no longer send messages by mail to Rush in Lagos and became completely reliant on his colleagues for help, at least until the radio at the British High Commission was removed by the Biafran authorities. The situation remained precarious. In Lagos and Dublin a palpable tension arose at the difficulty in securing the missionaries’ safety from their remote locations. On the Federal side rumours abounded that the missionaries were ‘mercenaries and/or collaborators and will be treated as such’.6 The stories that emerged from Biafra were equally disturbing. As the Federal Army advanced, one MMM sister remembered having ‘to flee with our patients to a school in the middle of the bush. We were there for ten very fearful days.’7 Her story was not unique. On 13 July 1967 five nuns from the same order were held at gunpoint by Federal soldiers at Ndubia hospital and alleged to be ‘concealing [a] spy’ by a ‘malicious informer formerly employed there’.8 The same month, at Ogoja, the Kiltegan Bishop Thomas McGetterick was taken at gunpoint by Federal soldiers, while four Irish Holy Ghost missionaries who remained at their post at Nsukka were met with a heavy-handed response from the Federal Army. Two priests ‘were taken for Biafran mercenaries [and] were badly beaten up’.9 In Enugu conditions continued to deteriorate for Ó Tuathail. In August he came under increasing pressure from the Biafran authorities to deal with its new Ministry for Foreign Affairs, a move which would imply some form of recognition for the rebel government. The DEA, anxious to avoid that eventuality, hoped that he could continue operating while ‘for as long as possible ducking the question of recognition and of opening an office in Enugu’.10 In the event, on 2 October Ó Tuathail was given no choice but to flee as Federal forces shelled the city. For the next month he worked from his new base at the Presidential Hotel in Port Harcourt to press on the missionary authorities the need for all ‘non-essential’ personnel to be sent on leave from Biafra. Cut off from contact with the Embassy after the fall of Calabar to Federal forces on 18 October, Ó Tuathail’s position became increasingly untenable. On 2 November he persuaded the Biafran authorities to put a plane at his disposal and, with thirty-six Irish citizens and a number of other expatriates on board, he flew to Luanda, Angola, from where he made his way back to Dublin to the DEA. He left only 267 Irish nationals in Biafra, of whom all bar two wives of Biafrans and an Irish engineer were attached to missionary societies. In Dublin the Irish Government’s approach to the war was heavily influenced by the need to safeguard the missionaries’ interests. It steadfastly refused to recognise the breakaway state, asserting that to do so would closely identify Ireland with the secessionists, further endanger

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the missionaries in the line of the Federal advance and attach a stigma to those who operated in the rest of Nigeria. The delicacy of the situation was obvious. Mindful that his government had been caught in a very difficult situation with missionaries in the East and across the federation, Aiken endeavoured to avoid ‘public debate of any kind, and even public comment of any description, because erroneous or biased reports of them are so likely to be circulated in Nigeria greatly to the detriment of our citizens on either or both sides of the front, especially isolated missionaries’.11 The Catholic missionary authorities were in broad agreement. On 19 July 1967 the Missionary Service Centre warned all orders that missionaries evacuated from the war zone will have been under strain for many weeks past. They will be overwrought, nervy, talkative – and feeling guilty at leaving the country. They will be inclined to talk too much and too loudly. People who meet them should endeavour to get them out of the public eye (airports, quays, railway stations) quickly, and to prevent them, as far as possible, from talking about their experiences . . . You must not forget that there will be large numbers of our own people who have to go on living in Biafra. Don’t let it be made more difficult for them – it’s difficult enough already.12

The SMA, whose missionaries were based solely in the north and west of Nigeria, led the charge. In Lagos Irish officials consulted closely with Archbishop McCarthy of Kaduna and Fr John McGuinness, an SMA priest in the Catholic Secretariat, both of whom were highly critical of the activities of their counterpart orders, particularly the statements of the Holy Ghost members of the Catholic Secretariat. In Dublin the DEA retained regular contact with Fr Larry Carr, the SMA Provincial. Criticised by the Kitegan Fathers for their panicked response, the SMA felt that any action that associated Irish missionaries with the rebel government would bring catastrophe to those in the rest of Nigeria. In Dublin the Kiltegan and Holy Ghost authorities broadly shared their fears. The Kiltegan Superior, Fr Peter O’Reilly, told DEA officials that ‘whatever their private sympathies might be he thought it was important not publicly to take the side of Biafra against the Federal Government and he thought it was a pity that some of the missionaries had done so. The interests of the Church should not be identified with those of the secessionist regime’.13 Fr W. J. Higgins, the Holy Ghost Second Assistant in Rome, agreed; ‘The Biafran Fathers are asked to remember that Holy Ghost Fathers also work in the northern region . . . and nothing must be said to make their lot more difficult or draw the anger of Gen Gowon on their heads. The work of the Church in those regions is as important as the work of the Church in Biafra.’14

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It was more difficult to impose these decisions on the ground. Based in the heart of Biafran territory, the Holy Ghost missionaries naturally developed a close identity with their parishioners. But it was their determined independence that most frightened Irish officials. A district in its own right, the order’s Nigerian mission was less inclined than its counterparts to defer to the authority of an Irish Provincial. That attitude extended to its response to the civil war. Early in the conflict the local superior, Fr Donal O’Sullivan, decided that his charges should ‘abandon their missions and retreat south before the advancing Nigerian battle line’.15 From 29 July 1967 Holy Ghost missionaries were instructed to ‘remain in the Mission only if the people remained, and to leave if the people evacuated’.16 Fr O’Sullivan’s decision – made on the evidence of the treatment of those priests caught in the line of the initial Federal advance and the fact that they drew suspicion in equal measure from the Federals (for supporting the Biafran cause) and the Biafrans (for being collaborators) – came to define attitudes to the Holy Ghost Order for the duration of the war. In August 1968 one Holy Ghost missionary, Fr Matthew Murphy, told the Irish Press that he would be ‘branded a Biafran collaborator for certain’ if and when Biafra fell.17 It was not an untypical response. The majority of missionaries were concerned only with the distribution of relief, and to offer comfort and assistance to their parishioners, but a small number actively blurred the distinction between their everyday parish and humanitarian activities and political action. In February 1968, for example, the Belfast-born Fr Desmond McGlade, who had his hands broken by the Federal army before being deported at the beginning of the war, returned to Biafra where his former parishioners were ‘overjoyed to see him, most of them having thought that he had been killed by the Nigerian soldiers in July last year [1967]’.18 Working at co-ordinating the relief effort at Owelli, some of McGlade’s actions treaded the fine line between political and humanitarian support. On 8 June 1968, as the Federal army advanced on the area, McGlade recorded that Col Nwatuego [of the Biafran army] visited me and asked for permission to set up the anti-aircraft installation in my compound. The big gun and its team are now just 20 yards from my house, well-concealed by the thick bush. As no aircraft appear to-day there was no chance of using the gun, which with its crew had just come from Port Harcourt and I sincerely hope that it will prove more effective here.19

The fierce criticism Fr O’Sullivan received for his policy was accentuated by the contrasting fortunes of the other missionary orders in the

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conflict region. The Kiltegan Fathers were regularly cited as a positive example for the Holy Ghost order to follow, having chosen early in the war to allow the conflict to ‘roll over’ their missionaries.20 The two cases were not directly comparable – the Kiltegans’ geographical spread on the periphery of the Biafran territory gave a different dynamic to their relationship with the secessionists – but the results made for compelling reading for the missionary authorities in Dublin. Kiltegan mission stations were quickly overrun and, in spite of some rough treatment at the hands of the Federal army, senior officers in general treated the missionaries well. They were given scope to privately express their opinions – as Bishop James Moynagh of Calabar did in meeting British officials in London in 1967 – but publicly the authorities managed to restrain their charges from overtly vocal support of the Biafran cause, allowing it to escape relatively unhindered in its humanitarian and parochial work. At a remove from the remote mission areas after Ó Tuathail’s departure, Irish officials found it difficult to keep tabs on and ensure the missionaries’ safety. As rumours of a Nigerian Government ‘black list’ circulated, it became ever more difficult to reconcile the belief that no anti-Catholic bias existed in the Nigerian Government with the continued unpredictability of its military officials.21 The erratic and at times deliberate bombing and strafing of villages and mission hospitals heightened concerns. Rush received ‘broad hints’ from military sources in Lagos that ‘these Irish priests need expect no mercy if they are caught. This is, apparently, because of the considerable moral support which they gave given to the Biafran administration, army and people and allegedly the external support they have organised for Biafra.’22 In the face of these actions, officials in Dublin and Lagos worked hard to build their influence with the Nigerian administration, meeting regularly and passing lists of missionaries with the request that they respect and ensure their safety. It was more difficult for the DEA to know if its representations had any effect. By keeping the channels of direct communication open and winning the confidence of the Nigerian authorities, Aiken reasoned that he and his officials had a far greater hope of securing its policy goals, uppermost of which was the safety of Irish citizens. To some extent, his approach was successful – Irish officials, particularly in Lagos, may have found it difficult to communicate with the Nigerian authorities, but the latter came to Aiken with an open ear. The fate of Ireland’s expatriate community also attested to the wisdom of his ‘quiet diplomacy’. Only one Irish missionary was killed during the war: Mother Cecilia Thackaberry, a Dublin-born nun of the Presentation Convent

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in Buxton, Derbyshire. On 17 September 1969 she and another Irish nun, Sister Elizabeth Murray, were travelling to a refugee clinic near Owerri in Biafra, when their car was strafed by a Nigerian jet. As the nuns jumped from their car into the bush, Mother Cecilia was shot and their driver also killed. Patrick Hillery – who replaced Aiken as Minister for External Affairs in July 1969 – stated that it was ‘not an accidental death’, and Rush’s successor as Ambassador, Paul Keating, felt that it was ‘highly probable that the pilot of the plane was able to identify the missionaries as such’.23 Yet Keating’s pragmatism called into question the effectiveness of any Irish protests. The Nigerian authorities, he argued, would not apologise for the incident; ‘to stress this matter is to introduce an element of grit in the smooth workings of our relations with the Ministry of External Affairs’.24 Public pressure and Irish Government policy By then the relationship between the Irish and Nigerian authorities was under sustained pressure from another source. From the outbreak of the conflict, the missionaries’ vocal support for the Biafran cause and the unprecedented media coverage it generated made it increasingly difficult to implement Aiken’s directive that all discussion of events in Nigeria be avoided. The Irish Government, and Aiken in particular, was ill-prepared for the pressures that followed. Foreign policy had simply never been part of, nor thought of as a subject for, public debate. In January 1956, for example, Freddie Boland had responded to a proposal to form an Irish United Nations Association by warning that any initiative should ‘be taken by the right people on lines that would ensure any association formed in Ireland remaining in the right hands’.25 The implication – that on issues of national importance the DEA could countenance no discussion that might hinder the assertion of a singular policy – became a cornerstone of the Department’s approach in the years that followed. Aiken was its prime advocate. In parliamentary debates his attitude was gruff, symptomatic of what Patrick Keatinge described as ‘a persistent difference over the government’s obligation to justify policy as well as to make it’.26 But what little respect Aiken held for his parliamentary colleagues was even less forthcoming in his dealings with the media and the wider public. Keeping Irish activities at the UN (and beyond) out of internal politics, he told his officials, ‘was a benefit beyond value’.27 Biafra changed everything. However much Aiken might have wished to return to his days as Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures during the Second World War, when he had jealously

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guarded Irish neutrality through a series of strict censorship measures, he could do little to control the flow of information from the rebel enclave. It was not for the want of trying. In January 1968 the American Bob Goldstein, in consultation with the Biafran authorities, arranged a flight to Biafra for journalists from across the world to cover the crisis. Goldstein visited Dublin and made tentative arrangements with the Irish state broadcaster, RTÉ, to reserve three or four seats on the plane for reporters from its current affairs television programme Seven Days. The Irish Holy Ghost missionary Fr Raymond Kennedy, who had just returned from an eight-day tour of Biafra with a film crew, was also on board. Yet the flight had only reached Lisbon when, on 25 January 1968, the RTÉ Director General Kevin McCourt intervened to withdraw the team and divert it to another assignment. McCourt later claimed that he ‘was not informed that it had been decided to send a team to Biafra until the team was already on its way’ and recalled it on the grounds that ‘it would be improper for an organisation like RTÉ to cover a civil war such as is taking place in Nigeria from the secessionist side only’.28 It was difficult to ascertain the extent of his knowledge. One journalist claimed that he had to have known: ‘surely he would have been told about a trip of such importance and possible danger to the crew’.29 His Controller of Programmes Michael Garvey certainly knew about the flight and had, in fact, agreed to RTÉ’s involvement.30 In the confusion that followed, RTÉ was concerned to avoid any claims of government interference and ‘emphatically denied’ that there had been any consultation with, or direction from the DEA.31 The practice was somewhat different. McCourt had phoned Hugh McCann, Secretary of the Department, on the afternoon of 24 January to discuss the matter, and the latter had warned him of the possible dangers to Irish missionaries of any RTÉ broadcast that might be construed as biased in favour of Biafra. Aiken’s reaction was even more revealing of the DEA’s nervousness at the power of the media. In spite of his later public protestations to the contrary, the Minister knew about the trip – he had been informed of the conversation on 24 January – and ‘fully shared’ McCann’s views.32 He could only have been further aggrieved at the Seven Days programme on Biafra that followed less than two weeks later. Broadcast on 6 February 1968, it relied heavily on UPI-ITN film, as well as clips from Granada Television’s ‘World in Action’ programme, with commentary from RTÉ reporters. Brian Cleeve, one of those who had been on the recalled team, told viewers that Irish missionaries in Biafra, ‘who have seen their hospitals burned and bombed, their mission schools destroyed, their converts hunted into the bush and killed . . . are bitterly angry at what they believe to be

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the pro-Nigerian policy of the Irish Government’.33 Cleeve recounted the story of an Irish priest, one of the chief organisers of the media trip – undoubtedly Fr Raymond Kennedy – who defied the orders of his superiors in Dublin and returned to Biafra. There, Cleeve stated, his ‘divided loyalty’ was ‘echoed by hundreds of priests and nuns who know that, if the Nigerians win, their Biafran converts will be killed in thousands, and that no pennies for black babies will ever bring them back to life again’.34 It was not the first occasion that RTÉ had made life difficult for the DEA. In April 1967 the Government had recalled a film crew on its way to North Vietnam, leading to widespread criticism of its undue influence on the state television service.35 But Biafra’s impact on the official psyche far outweighed anything that had preceded it. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs Erskine Childers told Aiken that he was ‘sorry for this setback. But of course in television there will always be mistakes and some distortion.’36 Childers described how McCourt had ‘spent some hours’ with the Seven Days team and the makers of other programmes reviewing programming standards and ‘nearly sacked’ Cleeve; ‘but these kind of people are very difficult to get out’.37 In RTÉ the dispute escalated far beyond the Biafran situation and later led to a tribunal into the workings of Seven Days. But for the Irish Government the potential of television and the media to embarrass and endanger the safety of Irish citizens was all-too-openly highlighted by the affair. In March 1968 Archbishop McCarthy, an SMA missionary based at Kaduna in Northern Nigeria, told Rush that he had been questioned by senior local officials ‘who had reproached him with the pro-Biafran attitude being adopted by the Irish Government-owned Television Service and by the leading Irish newspapers’.38 It might have been worse. To add to the accusations of moral and political support, rumours surfaced that Irish missionaries were actively engaged in gun-running on behalf of the Biafrans. The claims were directly linked to Federal criticism of the humanitarian relief flights that flew into the rebel enclave, often carrying Irish missionaries and, the Nigerians claimed, arms and military supplies. It was not only missionaries that were involved – the DEA had ‘strong suspicions’ that an Irish company, Aer Turas, carried arms to Biafra – but it was the religious orders who bore the brunt of the Nigerian response.39 The controversy surrounding the visit to Dublin of the Federal Nigerian Commissioner for Information, Chief Anthony Enahoro, on 9 October 1968 epitomised the delicacy of the situation. In a meeting at the DEA, Enahoro and Aiken discussed a variety of issues, including recognition of Biafra, the course of the war, and the relief operations. Enahoro

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expressed his appreciation of the help of ‘some’ Irishmen but conceded that there had been ‘a bit of bother’ with the Holy Ghost missionaries, some of whom ‘were so emotionally involved that it was hard to distinguish them from rebel supporters’.40 Aiken agreed; ‘a few of the younger priests had done things they should not have done instead of looking after their parishioners and had refused to accept discipline. There were, however, only three or four of these and the rest were motivated purely by humanitarian considerations.’41 Unfortunately for Aiken, the conversation did not end there. The same afternoon, Enahoro gave a press conference in the Shelbourne Hotel, heavily picketed by Biafran supporters, in the course of which he inferred that ‘some Holy Ghost Fathers were playing a role other than humanitarian in Biafra’.42 But that was not all. Afterwards, in an ‘off the record’ conversation with the Holy Ghost missionary Fr Fintan Kilbride, Noel Conway of the Irish Press, Dr Hugh Byrne of the Irish Red Cross and Des Mullan of the Irish Independent, Enahoro suggested that Aiken had told him that several Irish missionaries were involved in seeking arms for Biafra. When Kilbride asked if he implied that Irish Holy Ghost missionaries were involved in gun-running, Enahoro stated simply that they were ‘not confining their activities to missionary work’.43 The Nigerian Government, he told them, had proof – ‘and your Foreign Minister knows about it. In my talks with him this morning he agreed that he knew of four or five cases where Holy Ghost priests were involved. We, in Lagos, know there are many more.’44 Enahoro’s claim met with understandable indignation in Ireland. Aiken responded categorically that there had been ‘no allegation of gun-running by the Irish Holy Ghost Fathers either by the Commissioner or myself during his visit to me . . . There were no names of Holy Ghost missionaries mentioned during the conference.’45 The missionary authorities were understandably concerned, believing that, if they appeared in the Nigerian press, the charges would be ‘tantamount to murder’.46 On this occasion they were lucky. Aiken immediately dispatched Keating to make an approach to the Federal Government regarding the safety of Irish citizens. His response told much about the DEA’s frustration with the Nigerian authorities and the difficulty in dealing with the Irish media. The missionary ‘rank and file’, Keating reported, appeared to be safe from danger; ‘the Nigerian authorities are going to be much more intelligent and less hysterical about this matter than the rather stupid people in Dublin who ensured that it got so much publicity’.47 It was difficult to estimate the extent of the threat. In the course of the war, Holy Ghost missionaries in other parts of Nigeria experienced no retribution as a result of their colleagues’ outspokenness, and for

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many in the Catholic hierarchy criticism of Ireland and support for the Biafran cause had little or no impact on their daily lives. In March 1969 Joseph Small, First Secretary in the Irish Embassy in Lagos, formed the impression from his tour of the West, Mid-West and Kwarra States that the danger to the missionaries was minimal. Though many of those he met in the Mid-West had had ‘nasty experiences’, they were ‘unanimous in the view that in general in the relaxed situation that now obtains . . . they have no difficulty whatsoever at road blocks as they are allowed to pass without hindrance when their clerical garb is seen by the soldiers’.48 Others in Biafra also discounted the threat and concluded that the Federal Government was ‘particularly sensitive to world opinion and would hardly run the risk of incurring international displeasure by taking reprisals on Irish personnel’.49 It was better not to find out, Aiken might have argued. The experience – particularly the Seven Days incident – had further implications for Irish foreign policy. The worsening humanitarian situation in Biafra brought greater scrutiny of the Government’s policies (see Chapter 5), which Aiken found increasingly hard to deal with. In February 1969 he was uncharacteristically moved to write to the Irish Times to defend his government’s policies in the face of a critical editorial in the newspaper.50 Aiken also asked his close friend, and ‘strongly anti-Biafran’, Dr Robert Collis, an Irishman who had spent a great deal of time in Nigeria, to write a series of pro-Federal articles for the Irish Times, which were eventually published on 29 and 30 July 1969 after Aiken’s departure from office. His successor as Minister, Patrick Hillery, was better equipped to deal with the public. More comfortable with media involvement, Hillery’s public statements and the review of policy he engaged in immediately on entering office emphasised his awareness of the necessity to engage with public discussion, making a greater amount of information available than his predecessor. Praised by the Irish Times for ‘making foreign policy the policy of the people, not of the Minister or the Department’, he responded to the mounting pressure on his government – added to by the momentum behind the anti-apartheid campaign (see Chapter 6) – by adding greater transparency to its actions.51 This, he undoubtedly felt, was a more effective counter to Biafran propaganda than maintaining silence. Closing Pandora’s box: Irish policy on Biafra Hillery’s approach to the media and engagement with the Irish public may have distanced him from his predecessor, but he could do little to escape the shadow cast by Aiken on Irish foreign policy. On his return

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to Dublin in November 1967, the DEA official Eamon Ó Tuathail, with his first-hand experience of the conflict, assumed considerable responsibility for the Government’s policy. Yet even he had to bow to Aiken’s pre-eminence. The Minister, Ó Tuathail later recalled, had ‘already decided his policy before I came back. He decided policies on his own anyway; he could accept recommendations but he made up his [own] mind very much.’52 There was much that was familiar about Aiken’s approach. Like his attitude to decolonisation, to the Congo crisis, and to the unfolding events in southern Africa, policy on Biafra was based on three overlapping strands: the rejection of outside interference (which might bring the extension of the Cold War and its attendant impact on international stability); the need for constructive, negotiated settlement; and a view that he shared with the Swedish Government – the ‘search for non-violent solutions’ to international crises.53 Aiken and his officials were far from convinced of the ultimate viability of an independent Biafra and wished to avoid the consequences for stability in the region associated with the creation of a failed state. Ten years of UN membership and the experience of life on the ground in Africa had taught them much. In 1964 Aiken paid an unofficial visit to Nigeria to his son Frank Jr, an engineer who was employed building churches in Owerri diocese in the Eastern Region. In Lagos he met several prominent Nigerian Government officials and while in the East he had the opportunity to consult with several leading individuals in the area. His travels convinced him of the need for a constructive approach to Africa’s regional and ethnic tensions. The European powers, Aiken asserted, had imposed artificial and often arbitrary divisions on Africa. But in the interests of stability and peace, the present state boundaries should remain. The argument, elaborated on later by Noel Dorr, turned on the idea that ‘if you started tinkering with the borders, even where they cut across tribal groups, you’d be opening a pandora’s box’.54 For Aiken the ‘balkanisation’ of Nigeria could only set in train a series of unpredictable and possibly bloody events that would spread instability across the African continent. Peaceful, negotiated change was the only solution: ‘Any country which is a true friend of the African people . . . should encourage and assist peaceful change if change be necessary, but must stand firmly against attempts to change State boundaries by force’.55 The approach coincided closely with the other ‘fire brigade’ states and that of the UN Secretary General U Thant, each of whom regarded the crisis as firstly a Nigerian problem and secondly a problem for the African continent or, more specifically, the OAU. Yet an essential paradox existed in Western non-intervention, highlighted by Suzanne

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Cronje: ‘if the war was an internal Nigerian question, then the OAU was no more entitled to intervene that any other international body’.56 Equally significantly, this attitude became difficult to defend for the apparent paralysis it induced in the West – apart from the Nordic states who later offered to mediate to find a solution – when the OAU’s attempts to find a solution repeatedly fell short. To public calls that the Irish Government offer itself as a mediator, for example, Aiken maintained that it had ‘never been asked by either side’ and did ‘not think our offering to mediate would serve any useful purpose’.57 The reality was more complex. In April 1968, Chief Adebo, a Nigerian official at the UN with whom Aiken had consulted earlier in the conflict, told the Irish Ambassador Con Cremin that Aiken, ‘for whom he has admiration and respect, might conceivably be able to do something’.58 When Cremin suggested that ‘any action by a non-African personality might be resented by Africans generally .  .  . [Adebo] rather discounted any risk of that, especially if the personality were someone like [Aiken]’.59 Adebo’s comments were echoed by several Irish commentators – and government officials – who argued that the Government was wellplaced to make a constructive intervention in solving the conflict. Keating believed that the attitude ‘that this must be left to the Africans themselves is in many ways unrealistic. It is a pity indeed that in this matter as in so many others an attempt should be made to suggest that white humanity and black humanity are somehow different.’60 Hillery’s subsequent efforts, however, appeared to validate Aiken’s argument. Eager to do something to assist, in July 1969 the new Minister proclaimed himself ‘prepared to go anywhere, meet anyone, if there is any help I can give in this situation’.61 The difficulties in doing so were soon in evidence. Sent to Addis Ababa to sound out the OAU about a possible Irish role, Keating was told by the Ethiopian Foreign Minister that he ‘did not think that there was much that could usefully be done by third parties at the present time other than to continue if they were already doing so to persuade their contacts with both sides of the need to negotiate and to endeavour to settle the conflict in Nigerian terms’.62 The limits to Ireland’s influence were nothing new. In the course of the Biafran conflict, Cronje speculated, the extent to which ‘the Western European governments, despite their grave misgivings, toed the Anglo-American line on this question might help to define the degree of latitude enjoyed by medium-sized powers in arriving at foreign policy decisions which clash with leading Western interests’.63 It was a compelling argument. As the former colonial power, the British Government played a particularly influential role. Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials described Biafra as ‘a Nigerian and an

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African problem first and foremost’ and argued that ‘if the principle of secession on a tribal basis were once accepted there would be chaos on the continent’.64 The American State Department agreed, breaking only to criticise the Nigerian Government’s attitude to the humanitarian crisis in Biafra. Their policies often translated into pressure on smaller powers like Ireland to follow. Anxious to secure international conformity, British officials pressed the Irish Government early in the war to follow their government’s policies. In spite of protestations that they did not wish ‘to push [the Irish Government] in a certain direction’,65 they had a very clear idea of what it should be. They need have worried little. On 29 May 1967, the day before Ojukwu’s announcement, Seán Ronan told Charles Lovitt of the British Embassy in Dublin that ‘the Irish Government’s policy on recognition is influenced by the attitude of the major Western Powers, ourselves [Britain] and the USA’.66 The Irish response to Biafra was more complex, however, than a simple subservience to British and American interests. On decolonisation, southern Africa, Biafra and other international issues, the policies of small states like Ireland built on a realistic assessment of their limited role in international affairs. At the UN the considerable faith they placed in collective action was born not only of ideals but of the belief, articulated by Robert Keohane, that ‘although they may be able to do little together, they can do virtually nothing separately’.67 In bilateral relations the ‘fire brigade’ states had to choose their approach carefully so as to maximise the potential benefits for their own interests. However formulated, on many occasions those policies coincided directly with those of the Western powers. The principles espoused by Britain and the United States in Biafra – of non-interference and the pursuit of an African solution that recognised the territorial integrity of Nigeria – were consistent with the Irish Government’s attitude to the international system. And Ireland was not unique in its approach. The Nordic states followed a closely similar policy which recognised the primacy of the OAU’s role. Danish officials even went so far as to comment on the close relationship between their approach and that of the Irish Government.68 There was further evidence of the independence of Irish policy. A United States request in November 1969 that Irish officials should press on Ojukwu the need for African negotiators in bringing an end to the conflict was dismissed by Keating as ‘an attempt to continue purely United States policies by mild confidence tricks on intermediaries’.69 Keating had reason to be wary of the Western powers. From the beginning of the war, rumours persisted in Catholic circles that the British High Commission in Lagos was anti-missionary. In May 1968 Rush

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reported speculation that the High Commissioner himself believed that ‘the Irish missionaries in Biafra will have to be put out of Nigeria and kept out when the war is over’.70 The following January Keating noted his belief that the High Commissioner was ‘fundamentally not promissionary’.71 Their worries were not confined to Nigeria. The British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Maurice Foley, told Ó Tuathail in August 1969 that he considered the Holy Ghost missionaries ‘committed to the Biafran position’ and wondered if ‘it might not be better for them to pull out altogether’.72 Whatever the truth in the rumours – and it was difficult to ascertain, even at close quarters – they were enough for the Irish Government to retain a degree of pragmatism and independence. The end of the war After failed attempts to get both sides together in Addis Ababa for peace talks in December 1969 under the chairmanship of the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, the war ended suddenly on 11 January 1970 as Federal troops swept across Biafran territory. The difficulties in securing the safety of Irish missionaries were immediately apparent. On 9 January British officials anticipated ‘that all expatriates, especially white, will be especially vulnerable in the situation . . . both because they might be mistaken for mercenaries and because many of them have been closely identified with the Biafran cause’.73 Three days later the BBC World Service relayed a message to those remaining inside Biafra on behalf of the Irish authorities. Its text was revealing: ‘The Government have made representations to the Nigerian Government to ensure their protection. Notwithstanding every effort being made, there is always a risk to persons remaining in a fighting area and the only guarantee against such risk is to move away from the fighting area until hostilities have ceased.’74 On the ground the news filtered through quickly that the Biafran resistance had collapsed. At Ihiala mission, the Holy Ghost Missionary Fr Jim McNulty recorded feeling ‘hopeless. This evening my mind in sadness went over many events of the past two and a half years .  .  . We are so much needed now, if we are allowed to stay.’75 At least the Irish Government’s exhortations to leniency appeared to have made an impact on the Federal troops, who, McNulty noted, greeted the missionaries at Ihiala ‘most courteously’ on their arrival.76 Yet good treatment at the hands of the advancing Federal troops did not equate to an acceptance of the missionaries’ position. A week after the end of the war, Fr McNulty left Ihiala along with his colleagues, under the

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instructions of a Federal officer. He recalled that the small group of parishioners who saw them leave – they had not told the people they were to be expatriated – ‘became quite terrified when they saw us with our cases packed to go’, fearful (erroneously as it turned out) that the absence of missionary witnesses would lead to violent retribution by the Federal forces.77 The Ihiala-based missionaries’ experience was not unique. As the Federal army re-asserted control across Biafra, their colleagues were rounded up and brought to Port Harcourt, where they were placed under house arrest at the Cedar Hotel. Behind the scenes, Joseph Small – who had visited the ‘liberated’ areas of East Central State and parts of the South Eastern State and Benue Plateau State in December 1969, and on 15 January 1970, at the behest of Bishop Joseph Whelan of Owerri, had returned to the region – worked hard in an effort to secure their safety. He too was the focus of unwanted attention from the local authorities. With his movements closely monitored by members of the Nigerian Special Branch, Small contrived to ‘miss’ several flights back to the capital, provided by the local authorities to meet what they called the orders from ‘Lagos’ for his ‘immediate recall’.78 To Small it was ‘pretty clear that the authorities were very anxious that I should not be around for the court proceedings’ when the missionaries were charged and sentenced.79 His suspicions were proved correct. On 27 January, without warning or the opportunity for legal defence, the missionaries were brought to court and charged for illegal entry and acceptance of employment without the Nigerian Government’s permission. While Small struggled to obtain details about the court appearance, there was considerable confusion over the missionaries’ sentences. Some of the group were condemned to six months’ imprisonment. Others were merely fined. In Lagos Keating and his colleagues worked furiously to implore the Federal authorities to overturn the decision. Whatever its feelings on the missionaries’ status, the British High Commission’s involvement behind the scenes was crucial in having the sentences commuted. On 3 February, after a week in extremely cramped conditions in a Port Harcourt prison, the missionaries were given three minutes to collect their luggage before being taken to Lagos airport for immediate deportation. And they were only the first. Other groups of missionaries followed similar patterns of arrest, detention, trial, charges and eventual expulsion. In Dublin all attention focused on the missionaries’ safety. Under enormous pressure from the Irish media, Hillery twice made himself available to travel personally to Lagos to try and secure their release. On the first occasion, enquiries with Nigerian officials ‘met with a blank

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wall of refusal’. Keating pronounced himself ‘relieved . . . The Minister if he came here would really find he was wasting his time.’80 Following the announcement of the missionaries’ sentences, Hillery again stated that he would be willing to go to Nigeria, but again the Federal authorities indicated that such a visit would be ‘unwelcome’.81 Whatever influence the Irish Government built up with the Nigerians in the course of the war was tested to the limit. The Nigerian Ministry for External Affairs made it clear that the Federal Government had acted with what it perceived as some leniency: As a genuine gesture of friendship towards Ireland, a country with which Nigeria has and intends to continue to have, most cordial and friendly relations . . . these aliens, who could have been tried for war crimes, were merely tried and convicted in civil courts. Thereafter they were allowed to leave Nigeria. The Ministry hopes that the Embassy fully appreciate the kindly motives behind this unprecedented act of clemency on the part of the Federal Military Government.82

Nigerian lessons Difficult though the missionaries’ postwar experience had been, the statement testified to the apparent success of the Irish Government’s policy of ‘quiet diplomacy’. Aiken and his colleagues certainly exaggerated the threat to the missionary orders in those parts of Nigeria outside Biafra, but they could point to its success that only one Irish missionary had been killed and only the Holy Ghost Fathers were expelled in the aftermath of the war. By maintaining a close relationship with the Federal Government, Irish officials managed to secure future influence and, as the missionaries’ postwar fate suggested, at least moderate Nigerian Government reactions. Their argument was simple: if the Irish Government had recognised Biafra, it would have effectively ended all possibility of influencing the Nigerian authorities. In private, the SMA authorities praised ‘the consistently sound attitude adopted . . . While safeguarding the interests of Irish citizens in Nigeria, your policy has helped our members immensely in their role as missionaries also.’83 Grateful that ‘the wisdom of the policy we [Hillery and Aiken] both pursued is appreciated in some quarters at any rate!’, Hillery and his officials resigned themselves to the expulsion of the Holy Ghost missionaries and set about rebuilding the relationship between the two states so that the order might be allowed to return.84 In April 1970 they responded quickly to rumours that Ojukwu might seek asylum in Ireland in the belief that his presence ‘would confirm all the suspicions people have about us and would militate strongly against

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any expansion of our missions here as well as effectively preventing forever . . . any return of the Holy Ghost Order’.85 But the struggle to secure the safety of its citizens told only part of the Irish Government’s reaction to Biafra. In November 1969, amid the ongoing efforts to bring Biafran and Federal officials to the negotiating table, the Irish Ambassador to Nigeria Paul Keating reflected on the part his government had played in the conflict to date: ‘I wonder if we are right in thinking that our role has been quite so passive? . . . [The Irish contribution] . . . represents a very positive course of action for a small country which cannot offer a solution to the problem any more than can any other outside group.’86 Irish officials were never convinced that the secessionist region was likely to emerge victorious from the war, or that it could ever be viable as an independent state. They based their approach on a strongly principled attitude that nonetheless recognised the limitations to Irish influence. Their attempts to exert a quiet influence appeared far removed from the heady days of ‘fire brigade’ influence at the UN in the late 1950s, but broadly reflected their role at that organisation ten years later. Outside the UN a small country like Ireland had limited scope to play a leading role in negotiating a solution to a crisis like Biafra. Within that framework, however, its late attempt (under Hillery) to play a more constructive role and its continued support for the OAU after that organisation had shown itself to be ineffectual highlighted the essential need to adopt a more flexible approach. This clash between old-style and new-style diplomacy proved the most enduring theme of the Biafran conflict. While Keating ruminated in private at what he saw as the excesses of Irish pro-Biafran activists, he and his colleagues could do little to stem the tide of public commentary and the changes it brought to decision-making at home. When coupled with the massive public response to Biafra’s humanitarian crisis and the growing momentum behind the IAAM’s campaigns, it would bring lasting change to the way policy was conducted in Ireland.

Notes 1 Charles R. Nixon, ‘Self-Determination: The Nigeria/Biafra Case’, World Politics, 24: 4 (1972), p. 493. 2 John de St Jorre, The Nigerian Civil War (London, 1972), p. 47. 3 ‘Missionary Service Centre, Irish Missionary Personnel in Developing Countries: Statistical Analysis March 1968’, supplement to Catholic Missions, 133: 2 (April 1968). 4 NAI DFA Lagos Embassy (hereafter Lagos) A3/8, note by Ó Tuathail, ‘Crisis in Lagos University’, 7 April 1965.

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5 NAI DFA 2000/14/16, Rush to McCann, 3 Aug. 1966. 6 TNA Foreign and Commonwealth Office (hereafter FCO) 38/275, copy of telegraph, Rush to Ó Tuathail, 28 July 1967. 7 Sister Joan Cosgrove, quoted in Irene Christina Lynch (ed.), Beyond Faith and Adventure: Irish Missionaries in Nigeria Tell Their Extraordinary Story (n.p., 2006), p. 263. 8 TNA FCO 38/275, copy of telegraph, Rush to Ó Tuathail, 19 July 1967. 9 Holy Ghost Provincialite Archives (hereafter HGPA), Biafra Papers (hereafter BP), Box 12: unmarked folder, O’Sullivan to Conway, 18 Feb. 1968. 10 TNA FCO 38/249, Collins to Middleton, 4 Sept. 1967. 11 NAI DFA 2001/43/125, McCann to Ó Súilleabháin (DT), 11 Dec. 1967. 12 HGPA BP Box 1: Missionary Service Centre Dublin 1967–68, ‘Twelfth News Bulletin, 24 July 1967’. 13 NAI DFA 2000/14/20, note by Brian Gallagher on his meeting with Fr O’Reilly, 13 Feb. 1968. 14 HGPA BP Box 1: Fr Dinan Papers – C.S.Sp. Official Documents and Letters, 1968, Higgins to Dinan, 5 Feb. 1968. 15 HGPA BP Box 12: unmarked folder, O’Sullivan to Conway, 18 Feb. 1968. 16 HGPA BP Box 12: unmarked folder, Fr Donal O’Sullivan, ‘Biafra War: C.S.Sp. Policy’, 23 March 2001. 17 Quoted in Paul Muldowney, ‘Danger Awaits Biafran Priests’, Irish Press, 10 Aug. 1968. 18 HGPA BP Box 12: unmarked folder, O’Sullivan to Lefebvre, 10 Feb. 1968. 19 HGPA BP Box 7: Wartime Accounts, ‘“Awgu falls into Federal Hands” – Fr Des McGlade’s Account (6th June to the 14th June, 1968)’; this entry is for 8 June 1968. 20 Thomas Kiggins, Maynooth Mission to Africa: The Story of St. Patrick’s, Kiltegan (Dublin, 1991), p. 242. 21 NAI DFA 2000/14/23, Keating to Ó Tuathail, 12 Sept. 1968. 22 NAI DFA Lagos P13, Rush to sec. DEA, 5 May 1968. 23 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 242, Col. 39 (4 Nov. 1969); NAI DFA 2001/43/146, Keating to sec. DEA, 16 Dec. 1969. 24 NAI DFA 2001/43/146, Keating to sec. DEA, 16 Dec. 1969. 25 NAI DFA 417/132, Boland to Murphy, 6 Jan. 1956. 26 Keatinge, The Formulation of Irish Foreign Policy, p. 183. 27 NAI DFA 417/220, note by Ronan, 22 Feb. 1966. 28 Quoted in ‘McCourt Tells Why He Made Transfer’, Irish Times, 22 Feb. 1968. 29 ‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Biafra!’, Hibernia, Feb. 1968. 30 John Horgan, Broadcasting and Public Life: RTÉ News and Current Affairs, 1926–1997 (Dublin, 2004), p. 54. In his memoir, the RTÉ Chairman C. S. Andrews claimed that Garvey did not know about the flight: C. S. Andrews, Man of No Property: An Autobiography (Volume Two) (Dublin, 1982), p. 278. 31 ‘TV Team Sent to Another Assignment’, Irish Times, 26 Jan. 1968.

Biafra 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

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UCDA Aiken Papers P104/7150, ‘Secret’ note by McCann, 25 Jan. 1968. Quoted in ‘“Angry” Biafra Missionaries’, Irish Press, 7 Feb. 1968. Ibid. See Horgan, Broadcasting and Public Life, pp. 44–5. UCDA Aiken Papers P104/7151, Childers to Aiken, 7 Feb. [1968]. Ibid. NAI DFA 2000/14/20, memorandum by Rush, ‘Reactions of Irish Bishops in Northern Nigeria to Recent Pro-Biafra Activities in Dublin’, 6 March 1968. NAI DFA 2000/14/25, Ó Tuathail to Holmes, 9 June 1969. NAI DFA 2000/14/27, ‘Report of Meeting in Iveagh House at 11 am on the 9th October, 1968, Between the Tánaiste [Aiken] and Chief Enahoro, the Federal Nigerian Commissioner for Information, who was Accompanied by the Nigerian Ambassador. Also Present were the Secretary and Mr Denis Holmes’. Ibid. ‘Sharp Exchanges with Nigerian Minister’, Irish Independent, 10 Oct. 1968. Quoted in ‘What Enahoro Really Said’, Evening Press, 11 Oct. 1968. Ibid. NAI DFA 2000/14/24, DEA press release, 10 Oct. 1968. NAI DFA 2000/14/27, note by Ó Tuathail of telephone conversation with John Carbery, Chargé d’Affaires, Irish Embassy, Holy See, 14 Oct. 1968. Ibid., Keating to Ó Tuathail, 18 Oct. 1968. NAI DFA 2000/14/18, report by Small ‘On his tour of the West, Mid-West and Kwarra States in February/March 1969’, 18 March 1969. John Horgan, ‘The Church and the War (I)’, Irish Times, 19 March 1968. Aiken (signed as Prionsias MacAogáin) to ed., Irish Times, 8 Feb. 1969. ‘Foreign Policy’, Irish Times, 29 Oct. 1969. Interview with Éamon Ó Tuathail, Dublin, 24 Jan. 2006. Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume I, p. 343. Interview with Dorr (12 April 2005). Aiken (signed Prionsias MacAogáin) to ed., Irish Times, 8 Feb. 1969. Suzanne Cronje, The World and Nigeria: The Diplomatic History of the Biafran War 1967–1970 (London, 1972), p. 320. Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 240, Col. 977 (13 May 1969). NAI DFA 2000/14/20, Cremin to Ronan, 17 April 1968. Ibid. NAI DFA 2001/43/148, Keating to sec. DEA, 20 Feb. 1969. Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 241, Col. 460 (9 July 1969). NAI DFA 2001/43/148, note by Keating, ‘Interview with the Ethiopian Foreign Minister, Mr Ketema Yifru [on 25 July 1969]’, 29 July 1969. Cronje, The World and Nigeria, p. 323. TNA FCO 65/179, ‘Nigeria: A Background Note on British Interests and the Government’s Approach to the Civil War’, undated. NAI DFA 2001/43/128, note by Nolan, 18 Sept. 1967.

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66 TNA FCO 38/274, Lovitt to Moberly, 29 May 1967. 67 Robert O. Keohane, ‘Lilliputians’ Dilemmas: Small States in International Politics’, International Organization, 23: 2 (1969), p. 296. 68 NAI DFA 2001/43/154, Fogarty to sec. DEA, 3 Oct. 1969. 69 NAI DFA 2001/43/149, Keating to Ó Tuathail, 20 Nov. 1969. 70 NAI DFA Lagos P13, Rush to sec. DEA, 5 May 1968. 71 NAI DFA Lagos P13/13 B, Keating to Ó Tuathail, 22 Jan. 1969. 72 NAI DFA 2002/19/29, note by Ó Tuathail, ‘Conversation with Mr Maurice Foley, MP, British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs – 8th August, 1969’; dated 14 Aug. 1969. 73 TNA FCO 65/761, telegraph, Foreign and Commonwealth Office to British Embassy, Dublin, 9 Jan. 1970. 74 Ibid., telegraph, British Embassy Dublin to Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 12 Jan. 1970. 75 HGPA BP, ‘Biafran Diary: Donated by Fr Jim McNulty, C.S.Sp., 21/9/2006’; this reference is from Fr McNulty’s entry for 12 Jan. 1970. 76 Ibid., entry for 13 Jan. 1970. 77 Ibid., entry for 18 Jan. 1970. 78 NAI DFA 2004/7/112, ‘Report on Mr Small’s visit to Port Harcourt in connection with the safety and welfare of Irish citizens who remained in the area after the collapse of “Biafra”’, 30 Jan. 1970. 79 Ibid. 80 NAI DFA Lagos P13/13 C, Keating to Ó Tuathail, 19 Jan. 1970. 81 Ibid., Keating to sec. DEA, 30 Jan. 1970. 82 Ibid., Nigerian Ministry of External Affairs to Irish Embassy, Lagos, 9 Feb. 1970. 83 UCDA Aiken Papers P104/7182, Carr to Hillery, 30 Jan. 1970. 84 UCDA Aiken Papers P104/7183, Hillery to Aiken, 13 Feb. 1970. 85 NAI DFA 2002/19/37, Keating to Ó Tuathail, 2 April 1970. 86 NAI DFA 2001/43/149, Keating to Ó Tuathail, 20 Nov. 1969.

5

Concern for Africa The Biafran humanitarian crisis

Nigeria’s war had all the outward trappings of a typical civil conflict in the Cold War era: political meddling, the manipulation of ethnic rivalries and a thinly veiled struggle for natural resources. British, American, Soviet, Chinese and French political and commercial interests rendered the ideal of an African solution to an African problem impossible. Egyptian pilots flew Soviet-supplied planes for the Federal air force, British supplies sustained the Nigerian army’s advance and the Israeli Government aided the Biafran cause. African leaders were happy to support the status quo, adhering strongly to the concept of non-interference embodied in the charter of the OAU. Their reasoning was clear, as General Gowon warned in March 1969: ‘It was the Congo and Tshombe yesterday, it is Nigeria and Ojukwu today, who knows which African country it will be next’.1 A decade after the first wave of African independence, the hopes of those – like Ireland – who wished to build a post-colonial order based on co-operation and the negotiated resolution of conflict appeared lost in the face of realpolitik necessity. It was, to some observers, a case of plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The reality was not quite as straightforward. In the course of the 1960s, economic difficulties faced by independent states in Africa and Asia had dissolved lingering Western opposition to the practice of foreign aid as a stimulus for growth.2 The concept gained in prominence at the UN, the World Bank and the EC. There were, of course, obvious political and ideological concerns at play. Aid could be used as an extension of Cold War influence. In the case of the middling powers, it became another tool in the promotion of their particular vision of international relations. In Biafra official emergency relief was used as an instrument of war, its distribution dictated by military strategy and diplomatic protocol. But the emerging aid regime also inspired new forms of international relations that bypassed traditional channels of diplomacy. The social context was important. The rise of the civil rights movement in the

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United States, the growth of the European New Left and discontent at American involvement in Vietnam heightened awareness of global issues. The internationalisation of the media – particularly television – facilitated the rapid transfer of ideas and information. In Biafra images of starvation and disease among the region’s millions of refugees reinforced a sense of common humanity external to the minutiae of diplomatic and armed conflict. When state-sponsored aid proved difficult to trust, a growing cohort of national and international NGOs stepped into the space vacated by governments. What they offered was radically different in scale and direction to anything that had gone before: a direct link between individual citizens in the West and their counterparts in the global South. Ireland was not insulated from these developments. Irish missionaries were to the forefront in bringing the Biafrans’ plight to a global audience and were active in the distribution of relief. The Holy Ghost Fathers’ close identification with their parishioners made them prominent mouthpieces for the refugees. On their expulsion, the order’s superiors argued that their only crime had been ‘the feeding and healing of a famished and suffering people’.3 Their anxieties transferred easily to parishes and homes across Ireland. The creation of the development NGO Africa Concern (later abbreviated to Concern to reflect its diverse international role) in Dublin in March 1968 involved the Irish people further in the relief effort, and made sure the humanitarian issue remained visible on the public agenda. But its success also posed a number of important questions. Why were reactions to Biafra so strong in Ireland? How did the Irish Government and its counterparts react to these changing patterns of international relations? And what long-term effect did Biafra have on the aid agenda in the industrialised world? The humanitarian context To those watching closely the potential for humanitarian disaster in Nigeria became increasingly apparent in the latter part of 1967. The Biafrans’ early military successes had been short-lived and their subsequent retreat and loss of the region’s main food-producing areas put enormous strain on the resources of the secessionist government. By early 1968 cases of kwashiorkor and marasmus, both associated with a severe lack of essential proteins, grew increasingly prevalent as large numbers of refugees squeezed into a shrinking Biafran territory. Slowly at first, the international community began its response. In November 1967 the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) chartered its first planeload of medicines to Port Harcourt. The

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following April the organisation received approval to co-ordinate relief operations on the Federal side of the conflict zone. By then it had been joined by several other international organisations, among them the World Council of Churches, the Catholic agencies Misereor and Caritas Internationalis, and the Protestant relief group Nordchurchaid, operating under the banner Joint Church Aid (JCA or ‘Jesus Christ Airlines’ to its pilots). Under the watchful eyes of Irish Holy Ghost missionary, Fr Tony Byrne, co-ordinator of the Caritas relief effort, JCA flew supplies from the Portuguese island of São Tomé off the west coast of Africa to the roadway-turned-airstrip at Uli in Biafra. For two years the airlift proved extremely successful. Its co-ordinators utilised the network of rural missionary stations to good effect in the distribution of relief, bringing food and medicines to millions of refugees. In spite of the ongoing efforts of JCA and the ICRC, however, proBiafran lobbyists had little initial success in drawing the world’s attention to the unfolding disaster. All changed in the early summer of 1968. On 12 June British television station ITV relayed desperate scenes from a Biafran refugee camp of children dying in hospital beds for want of food and medicine. The broadcast shattered the media silence. Several newspapers and magazines, notably Britain’s Sunday Times, ran features and photographic spreads depicting the horrific conditions and called on the international community to respond accordingly. In the coming eighteen months they were important in keeping Biafra on the public and political agenda, helping to stimulate and shape the humanitarian response. But it was the emergence of television as a medium for the transmission of graphic news that proved most significant in the long term. The visual immediacy it afforded, Concern’s Fr Aengus Finucane later noted, ‘challenged indifference’ by beaming images of human suffering into Western living rooms for the very first time, and prompted an appropriately humane response.4 What John de St Jorre memorably described as the ‘telly war’ made operations simultaneously easier – by massively increasing resources – and more difficult for the relief agencies.5 The Biafran authorities were quick to capitalise, employing the Swiss public relations company Markpress to organise their campaign for recognition by the international community. To widespread condemnation they used their citizens’ plight as a propaganda tool against the Federal Government, accusing the latter of starving the region into submission. With Biafra reduced to an area a quarter of its original size by the end of September 1968, into which eight million people were packed and dying at a rate of between three thousand and ten thousand a day, Nigerian attitudes did little to assuage fears of such an eventuality.6 The Federal authorities

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argued that humanitarian assistance simply prolonged the war, not least through the weapons, fuel and other comforts it claimed the relief agencies (and JCA in particular) carried alongside their cargoes of food and medicine. Nigeria’s military command, including the notorious ‘Black Scorpion’, Colonel Benjamin Adekunle, took an increasingly hard-line attitude to relief, preferring ‘to prevent even one Ibo having one piece to eat before their capitulation’.7 Suspicion was mutual. With aid flights open targets for the Federal air force – to the extent that they flew only at night – repeated efforts to negotiate a land-based relief corridor met with accusations on the Biafran side that the Federal army would use any agreement to its advantage. ICRC’s relatively positive relationship with Lagos also placed it under suspicion. In many instances Biafran refugees refused its food supplies in the belief that they had been poisoned during transit through Lagos. By June 1969, when Federal pilots shot down a Swedish DC-7 plane carrying Red Cross supplies, the relationship between the Nigerian Government and the ICRC had disintegrated. To widespread condemnation the latter was instructed to transfer responsibility for relief to the sole custody of the Nigerian Red Cross. In the seven months to the end of the war, repeated efforts to re-start the operation failed, putting additional strain on the JCA airlift. Several JCA pilots perished in awkward landings at the barely lit Uli airstrip and those that continued lived in constant danger of attack from Federal jets. When news of Biafra’s collapse filtered through in January 1970 they were among the first to exit, fleeing Uli in the face of the advancing Federal army. Their covert operations, the JCA’s organisers believed, had made their presence in Nigeria untenable. They were immediately proved correct. With the re-imposition of territorial authority over the Eastern Region, the Nigerian Government moved quickly to expel all aid organisations that had operated unauthorised relief flights. Its attitude was in keeping with its disdain for outside interference, preferring to retain control of the (largely successful) postwar rehabilitation effort in the hands of the central Government and the Nigerian Red Cross. The origins of the Irish NGO system Prior to 1968 Ireland had little experience in the fields of aid and emergency relief. Fund-raising took place largely in a religious context, from collections at parish and school level for the Catholic missions to Protestant subscriptions to Christian Aid. Missionary magazines and publications dictated images of the developing world to the Irish public. Graduate volunteers travelled as guests of the churches and

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religious orders, on projects organised by Viatores Christi or the Protestant CMS. They and their clerical colleagues became what Seán Lemass described in 1963 as Ireland’s ‘own brand of “peace corps”’.8 The result was a vision of charity inseparable from the products of missionary endeavour. Wherever there were ‘black babies’, schools or hospitals in need of assistance, contributions from the Irish public – and later the Irish Government – followed. Yet there was little new in this formulation. Support for Ireland’s ‘religious empire’ had long been central to Irish identity, and the link between the Christian churches and aid echoed patterns visible elsewhere in Europe. Finland’s relationship with the developing world, for example, was strongly shaped by its missionaries in South West Africa (later Namibia) and Tanzania.9 Swedish missionary activities in postwar Ethiopia led directly to its selection as one of the first two countries to be included in the country’s bilateral aid programme in 1953.10 Religious groups were also strongly associated with the emergence of NGOs and patterns of nongovernmental aid. The World Council of Churches, for example, had long exhibited an interest in issues of aid and development and was the first to formulate an annual target contribution for aid at its annual meeting in 1958. Germany had two prominent confessional aid agencies, one Catholic (Misereor), and one Protestant (Brot für die Welt). And in Biafra, Nordchurchaid and the Dutch Catholic NGO Mensen in Nood both made important contributions to the relief effort. In Ireland, the difficulty lay in translating widespread sympathy for the missionaries’ activities into sustained public debate on the merits of development assistance. It did not help that secular activity in the sector was decidedly limited. The Irish Red Cross, which had operated a hospital in the Normandy town of St Lô in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and later deployed its resources to India, responded generously to ICRC requests for assistance but did little to encourage widespread public involvement.11 Between 1960 and 1965 it assumed an additional role, at the request of the Irish Government, undertaking the day-to-day operations of the Irish branch of the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) Freedom from Hunger Campaign (FFHC). Schools, businesses and small groups of interested individuals involved themselves in a variety of fund-raising schemes, including walks and flag-days. The overall response, however, was underwhelming. The FFHC remained peripheral to the Red Cross’s activities, doing little to translate pockets of active support into a broader education and awareness campaign. It nonetheless marked the beginning of a particularly Irish take on aid. The emphasis on long-term agricultural development carried

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an obvious attraction for a country still largely shaped by its rural traditions. The campaign’s outlook also retained a strongly Christian character. In April 1962 the FFHC decided to concentrate Irish efforts on Africa, ‘on the grounds of language, existing Irish connections, and popular appeal’.12 Two years later it selected Mlale in Tanzania as the site of the first Irish project: a village settlement scheme with a farmers’ training centre. Support for a number of similar initiatives followed, often run in conjunction with Irish missionaries. But so too did a number of harsh lessons, magnified by Irish inexperience. For every successful project, like that to bring water to the Kitui region of Kenya, there was the potential for the kind of disaster that eventually befell Mlale. In May 1967 ‘local manoeuvring’ ousted the Irish presence and the project handed over to the Tanzanian authorities.13 By then the Irish FFHC had adopted a new character. Rejecting overtures from the British NGO Oxfam, on 8 November 1965 the Minister for Agriculture Charles Haughey re-launched the FFHC as Gorta, its name (‘famine’ in Irish) a reflection that the Irish people ‘know well the meaning of famine and hunger’.14 Yet the problems remained. Moves intended to make Gorta reflective of all walks of Irish life – the President acted as patron, the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries as president, and the committee included representatives from agriculture, industry, political organisations, church bodies and various other sectors – burdened it with an over-complicated structure. Unlike its later rival Africa Concern, Gorta remained a movement from above rather than a campaign of the people. Haughey’s speech admitted as much, describing its primary aim as an attempt to ‘awaken public opinion . . . to an awareness of the problem of world hunger and the steps which must be taken to alleviate it’.15 The beginnings of Irish aid to Biafra While Gorta struggled to stimulate public interest in Ireland, norms of international aid-giving evolved to include an ever-increasing role for NGOs. Agencies like Oxfam, Catholic Relief Services, World Relief, the Cooperative for American Relief Everywhere (CARE) and Lutheran World Relief, all of which emerged in the 1940s, were joined by a growing number of national organisations and confessional-based groups. Institutions like the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the World Health Organisation (WHO) reinforced acceptance of aid as a form of international action, and had a visible influence at local level – in Gorta’s links to the FAO, for example, and in the activities of the Irish committee for UNICEF.

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Significantly for Ireland, by the mid-1960s the Catholic Church had also begun to strongly embrace the concepts of justice, human rights and development. The recommendations of the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio increased its emphasis on extra-pastoral work. In the shift from colonial rule to independence, missionaries assumed an important role in the provision of services like education and health, and later in building roads, schools, wells and other forms of physical infrastructure. Changing institutional dynamics in the Catholic Church after Vatican II also reinforced the link between missionaries and their parishioners, making them important mouthpieces for local communities. When the Biafran authorities announced their secession in May 1967, Dublin-raised Fr Raymond Kennedy, director of orientation in Owerri diocese, was in the United States on a training course in development techniques. Determined to have a positive impact, Kennedy began to canvass support for Biafra in various American circles. He used the connections of his brother Colm, an engineer resident in California, to meet with Hank Wharton, an American entrepreneur and active supporter and supplier of military assistance to Colonel Ojukwu’s secessionist regime. In December 1967 Kennedy returned to Biafra on one of Wharton’s planes and spent a week there assessing conditions. He met with Catholic and government officials, and was also reported to have arranged interviews with Ojukwu.16 Armed with a list of requests from the Catholic bishops for altar bread and wine and from doctors for medical supplies, Kennedy then flew to Dublin, where his brother John, a member of Viatores Christi, organised a press conference for 12 December. They had reckoned without strong opposition from Aiken and the religious order, however. Kennedy’s Holy Ghost superior withdrew approval, refused Kennedy permission to participate, and the press conference was accorded only a few lines in the media after ‘somebody’ rang the newspapers and ‘killed the story’.17 Their actions had at least sown seeds of interest in the unfolding crisis; a supply of fibrinogen was immediately dispatched from Ireland, followed later by a consignment of dried milk, paid for from the money collected as a result of the appeal. When Raymond Kennedy returned to the United States to work with Fr Dermot Doran and Fr Fintan Kilbride in calling attention to Biafra’s plight, it was left to his brother John and sister-in-law Kay to raise awareness in Ireland. On 19 March 1968, using their contacts in Viatores Christi, the Kennedys invited members of that organisation, and others who had experience of working in West Africa as medical and educational personnel, including Vincent Grogan, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbanus, to a meeting

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in their home in Northumberland Road in Dublin. Adopting the name ‘Africa Concern’, the group decided to meet every Tuesday night ‘until we found some way of doing something’.18 Like Oxfam in Britain and Catholic Relief Services in the United States, however, they struggled to transform their actions into substantial public support in the absence of significant media attention on the crisis. In April the Irish Red Cross sent IR£5,000 worth of aid to Biafra in response to the ICRC’s worldwide appeal. The same month a number of interested groups joined to form the inter-denominational Nigeria/Biafra Refugee Fund. Yet neither campaign made any significant inroads; in eight weeks the refugee fund raised little more than IR£3,500 for relief. All changed in June, with the impact of the ITV broadcast and the arrival in Ireland of George Cockin, Anglican Bishop of Owerri, and Limerick-born Dr Joseph Whelan, his Catholic counterpart. The bishops came with the intention of initiating a campaign to raise relief funds and presented their case in terms designed to evoke the maximum response from the Irish public. In his speeches Whelan described the Irish people as ‘kin to the Biafrans’, their relationship forged by a common historical experience. Where Haughey defined the popular connection with Gorta in the broadest terms, Whelan made the link directly between Ireland’s past and the present difficulties of the Biafran people: ‘The Biafrans like the Irish suffered persecution for faith and Fatherland. And now there is one final and terrible likeness. Biafra is in the grip of a great hunger . . . Let the Voice of Ireland carry the message of Biafra to the world and save Ireland’s spiritual children from extermination.’19 In order to be effective, however, their campaign had to reach out to existing sympathy for the issue in Irish society. It helped, John O’Loughlin Kennedy and Fr Tony Byrne both later argued, that popular memory of famine in Ireland could be mobilised to give new and practical meaning to the link between Irish history and the contemporary developing world.20 The limited actions of Africa Concern and the Nigeria/Biafra Refugee Fund had also gone some way to preparing the ground for a positive response. But the primary shapers of popular discussion remained the missionaries whose stories filtered through to parishes, schools and homes across the country. Their accounts ignited the public imagination and their accessibility offered a direct link to the unfolding human crisis. The recollections of one Marist Brother based at Uturu in Biafra were typical: Two brothers had the early morning task of digging a grave and burying any child who died during the night. The grave was not then filled; just a

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light coat of clay covered the corpses. Invariably another little corpse had to be put into the grave before dinner, a few more during the afternoon and as darkness fell there were always five or more in the grave when the Brothers went to fill it in.21

Nor did the suffering respect religious boundaries. A former Senator, Robert Burke, and his wife worked with the CMS under Bishop Cockin in Owerri: Hundreds of hungry people come to us from 7 am to 7 pm and later appealing for food . . . even if our supplies were doubled, we would not have enough. Besides destitute individuals, the appeals come from over 300 refugee camps, more than 250 feeding centres, many hospitals and clinics, even from prisons . . . the human suffering in many of our camps is terrible. If I were in their condition I would pray for death.22

The Irish humanitarian effort As missionary accounts of human suffering became all-too-familiar in homes across Ireland, one overriding factor made the bishops’ appeal all the more potent: what Laurie Wiseberg described as ‘the reducibility of the issue to dimensions that can be readily understood by a large cross section of the population . . . “the need to feed starving children”’.23 On 28 June Whelan and Cockin appeared at a meeting at Ely Hall to launch the Joint Biafra Famine Appeal (JBFA), a combined effort between Africa Concern and the Nigeria/Biafra Refugee Fund. Its aim was simple – to raise IR£100,000 in five weeks to ‘Send One Ship’ (S.O.S.) of supplies to Biafra – and brought immediate success. News of its launch filtered out on the morning of 28 June and before the meeting that evening contributions of IR£5,000 had come in from the Irish public. Released from the constraints of government and religious concerns, the media threw their weight behind the campaign. On 2 July 1968 the Evening Herald ran large front-page photographs of starving Biafran children under the heading ‘Faces of Despair’. The images were striking, and the paper’s language was designed to evoke an emotive response, demanding that the Irish Government recognise the plight of ‘a young Biafran child too young to know what the civil war is all about and suffering too much to care’.24 Television coverage was not long in following. In early July, a little over five months since its reporters had been recalled from Lisbon, RTÉ’s Seven Days re-opened the question of Biafra, broadcasting a short film introduced by an Irish nun with the comment, ‘What you see is more eloquent than words’.25 Ken Gray’s

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review in the Irish Times noted a perceptible shift in public attitudes: ‘The continuous, animal-like crying of starving and emaciated children, for whom a quick death is the only merciful prospect, cannot be answered in terms of argument about the strategy of war or the niceties of diplomatic relationships.’26 The JBFA’s success lay in its ability to translate this media attention into popular action. Africa Concern drew on local connections to persuade businesses to donate space, furniture and office supplies. It installed its own telex machine to become a purveyor and shaper of news on Biafra. It published reports from volunteers, missionaries and others in the field of disease and depravation, but also documented the positive impact of humanitarian relief. By filling donated advertising space with photographs of malnourished Biafran children and emotional slogans such as ‘Is one meal a day too much to ask?’ the appeal’s organisers exhibited a canny ability to capitalise on the powerful imagery associated with the media campaign. They also knew how to utilise local rivalries to positive effect. To assist in its collections the JBFA introduced a system of quotas devised by John O’Loughlin Kennedy, giving each county in Ireland a target contribution that helped to instil a healthy sense of competition and to increase the amount collected at the same time. In July 1968 Africa Concern was reconstituted as a limited company to allow it to purchase its own ship, re-named the Columcille, for conveying relief supplies along the Nigerian coastline. By the end of August the JBFA had collected IR£148,819, easily surpassing the initial target of IR£100,000.27 The appeal generated a momentum of its own as success begat further public interest and involvement in fund-raising. Bishop Whelan announced to a press conference in Dublin in March 1969 that the JBFA had surpassed IR£300,000 and was, per person, ‘the highest contribution made in any part of the world’.28 In the course of the war Africa Concern’s income alone exceeded IR£1 million, a level not matched until the African famines of the mid-1980s.29 Its impact was not wholly positive, however. Established Irish NGOs found it increasingly difficult to cope in the face of such an overwhelming response. The Irish Red Cross was ‘swamped . . . with Biafran relief supplies donated by Irish people’ in the week after Bishop Whelan’s visit.30 It managed to stay afloat through its links to the ICRC and considerable experience of this form of emergency action. On 9 July 1968 the organisation shipped IR£40,000 worth of relief to Biafra, and in the course of the war it continued to offer considerable assistance, organising a number of medical teams that contributed to the international relief effort.

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By contrast, Gorta’s emphasis on long-term development, already struggling to generate public interest prior to the crisis, simply could not deal with the extent of the JBFA’s success. Projects planned for Onitsha, Owerri and Ogoja in Nigeria’s Eastern Region had to be cancelled after the outbreak of hostilities. Efforts to win public attention through smaller projects in Federal-controlled areas had limited impact. Underwhelming prior to 1968, Gorta’s fund-raising activities were now severely curtailed, and by July the following year the organisation privately complained of ‘a big reduction in subscriptions due primarily to the preoccupation of the public and press with the Nigeria/ Biafra situation’.31 It created something of an identity crisis, leading Gorta to publicly admit in March 1969 that it had considered ‘cooperating with emergency relief organisations in stricken areas such as Biafra’.32 In David Korten’s typology, Gorta exhibited the traits of a ‘second-generation’ NGO, with an emphasis primarily on ‘self-help’.33 Unlike the hybrid organisations that Concern, Trócaire and others later became, however (catering to both ‘acute need’ and development strategies), its mandate from the FFHC meant that it could not, nor did it purport to, deal with the immediate difficulties of food shortage, malnourishment and starvation. Gorta was instead left between two stools, caught between a desire to remain true to its defined objectives and the pressure exerted by the more immediate question of disaster relief. The Irish Government’s humanitarian response In the global provision of aid, Biafra proved, for the first time, that with strong media involvement and an appropriate organised response, an individual crisis could create unforeseen levels of awareness of famine and disaster in the developing world. In Ireland, Canada, the Netherlands, Britain and the Nordic states the crisis captured public attention, stimulated by a broader culture of civil protest. At one level it illustrated, as Aengus Finucane argued, ‘that there was indeed a niche and a role for NGOs on the international stage’.34 But the crisis also had a sizeable impact on the international culture of aid-giving. State responses across the industrialised world reinforced Carol Lancaster’s later assertion that massive external humanitarian disasters ‘led both to an expansion of the constituency for development aid .  .  . and to strengthening the norm among publics and elites that governments had a responsibility to respond to human suffering abroad’.35 Nowhere was that more in evidence than in the Irish Government’s policies. Prior to June 1968 it had largely succeeded in suppressing public debate on the politics of Biafran secession, but the immediacy of

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the JBFA’s message radically altered the playing field. It presented officials with a serious dilemma: how to marry a genuine desire to assist with the relief efforts with an inherent conservatism that aimed to minimise the political impact of Irish policies? For the Irish Ambassador to Nigeria, Paul Keating, aid was essentially political; ‘we should consider everything done by the State . . . not merely in terms of relief for Nigeria but in terms of political consequences for us’.36 There was also the principle of non-interference to take into account, along with a desire to avoid any activity that might associate Irish citizens with the Biafran cause. The Government’s answer was to channel its relief through multilateral agencies – the ICRC and, later in the war, UNICEF – in keeping with its own commitment to internationalism. The ICRC’s neutrality of action made it, in Frank Aiken’s view, ‘a most valuable organisation in a situation such as the civil war in Nigeria’.37 Yet the policy also had a clear political motivation. Invited to participate under the terms of the Geneva Convention, the ICRC was the only relief channel acceptable to the Nigerian Government. The Irish were not alone, however, in linking political priorities to official relief policies. The Canadian Government, whose assessment of the war the Irish Government closely matched, channelled all of its aid contributions through the ICRC, and argued that that to do otherwise ‘would violate the principle of non-interference in Nigeria’s internal affairs’.38 The Nordic governments, the United States and West Germany, more willing to become involved pro-actively in mediation, provided relief through both the ICRC and the JCA airlift. And the French Government, which offered support but not recognition to Biafra, directed its assistance through the independent French Red Cross airlift from Libreville in Gabon. In each case the nature and timing of the official response corresponded closely with levels of public activity. The Irish Government chose 28 June 1968, the day Cockin and Whelan launched the ‘Send One Ship’ appeal in Dublin, to announce its intention to contribute IR£100,000 to the Irish Red Cross. As the JBFA gained momentum, on 29 August 1968 the Government donated a further IR£25,000 through the same organisation. In the next eighteen months its actions retained a similar character. Efforts by the newly appointed Minister, Patrick Hillery, to review policy the following July were a direct reaction to the evolving public debate. Similar patterns were visible in Canada, where little attention had been paid to the Biafran crisis until the summer of 1968. Once the story broke, it became a cause célèbre, kept to the forefront of the media by sympathetic religious groups, prompting massive public interest, and leading to the creation of an NGO – Canairelief –

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specifically to deal with the distribution of emergency aid. The parallels did not stop there. The Canadian Government’s staunch adherence to the principle of non-interference did little to endear it to the public, but it could not wholly ignore their insistent calls for action. In 1968 it made three official contributions to the ICRC relief effort – in May, July and September – each the result of considerable domestic pressure.39 Neither the Canadian nor the Irish Government, however, could avoid the accusation that their exclusive support for the ICRC reflected a re-active rather than a pro-active approach to relief. Their shortcomings were magnified by the success of the independent relief efforts. In Ireland Africa Concern continued its regular updates from the conflict zone, newspapers carried heart-breaking stories from Irish missionaries and relief workers, and in February 1969 RTÉ’s Radharc broadcast ‘Night flight to Uli’, a documentary film that followed relief supplies on their journey from São Tomé to the missionary-run feeding stations in Biafra. Other groups, like the loosely based Irish Movement for Peace in Nigeria/Biafra, joined in the criticism, arguing that the Irish public would ‘not easily be convinced that financial contributions to the Red Cross relieve their Government of the obligation’ to live up to its duties.40 They had a point. By 1969, the Biafrans’ refusal to accept food aid channelled through Lagos and mounting tensions between the ICRC and the local authorities rendered relief operations increasingly ineffective. From June, they became almost non-existent after the Federal Government ordered the operations to be transferred to the sole responsibility of the Nigerian Red Cross. The official Irish reaction highlighted broader changes in the country’s political culture. Aiken, veteran of the revolutionary period and wartime propagandist, who regarded foreign policy as something of a personal fiefdom, could not countenance the kind of public discussion he saw as uninformed and with potentially dangerous consequences. He continued to negotiate in private, cautiously impressing on the Nigerian Government the need to re-start the ICRC airlift. But times had changed. Public opinion had been energised by events across Europe, in the United States, in Northern Ireland and in the campaigns of the IAAM. The June 1969 Irish general election returned a number of new deputies, including Conor Cruise O’Brien, Barry Desmond, Garret FitzGerald and Hugh Byrne, many of them vocal on Biafra and other issues of foreign policy. In the new Fianna Fáil cabinet, Aiken was replaced by Patrick Hillery, a respected minister with experience of conflict of another kind from his time in the Departments of Education, Industry and Commerce, and Labour, where he had played an important role in dealing with escalating industrial unrest.

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The contrast in ministerial styles was striking. On his appointment in July Hillery initiated an immediate review of government policy, meeting with officials from both sides of the war, representatives of the missionary orders, and officers from various Irish relief agencies. He instructed Keating to approach the Federal Government to explore ‘most urgently, for the short-term, ways to restart relief supplies going into Biafra’.41 When Keating’s efforts proved less than fruitful, Hillery turned his attentions elsewhere. Irish officials remained in close contact with ICRC headquarters in Geneva, and in September 1969 DEA official Eamon Ó Tuathail represented the Government’s interests at a conference in Istanbul aimed at re-starting the airlift. Importantly for Hillery, the intensity of these efforts was not lost on the Irish public. After his first major speech as Minister in October 1969, Hillery drew praise from the Irish Times for his ‘willingness to listen’, a thinly veiled criticism of his predecessor.42 By November, in the belief that ‘we cannot postpone further assistance any longer’,43 he entered into negotiations with Africa Concern’s representatives about the most effective form of aid to Biafra. The result – a IR£25,000 loan to UNICEF to charter the Columcille for use in the shipment of relief supplies and equipment along the Nigerian coast – was in many ways indicative of Irish decision-making, balancing between Aiken’s commitment to multilateral channels and Hillery’s determination to take positive action. Hillery also had an eye on the broader picture, not least Ireland’s application to join the EC. In May 1969 Keating had written to Ó Tuathail to express his misgivings about the official approach to the humanitarian crisis. He wondered if the Irish Government ‘should not be much more active in its co-ordination of relief activities’, referring to the positive impact of the Luns/Hague group of states, formed in the early part of that year at the behest of the Dutch Foreign Minister Dr Joseph Luns. Its members were the EC states (except France), Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the United States and Canada – all major aid-giving states to Nigeria, and all of whom, Keating commented, took ‘a much more positive line with regard to relief and can depend on considerable co-operation from their relief authorities’.44 Ireland was in fact already participating in the Luns group, which it joined at the end of March alongside Austria, Finland and Switzerland, but Keating could be forgiven for his ignorance. His Minister, Aiken, had shown a characteristically conservative attitude to the discussions. Originally opposed to Irish participation – he foresaw ‘many possible difficulties . . . in view of the great delicacy of all aspects of the Nigerian civil war at present’ – he had reluctantly allowed himself to be persuaded by his officials to accede to the country’s involvement.45 Even then, he

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eschewed any publicity for the meetings, transferring his reservations to the Irish delegates’ visible nervousness at the potential implications of the group’s activities. Hillery took a more positive approach. In a meeting with Luns on 15 July 1969 he expressed Ireland’s ‘appreciation . . . for the initiative he had taken in relation to the Nigerian conflict’ and asked whether there was ‘anything further which he thought could be usefully done in the matter’.46 He openly used Irish participation in the group to his advantage as evidence of his constructive approach to the humanitarian crisis. In reality, as Hillery showed, the actions of the Luns group were of little significance to the Federal Government or to the Biafran authorities. Hillery’s statements had no impact on Irish missionaries and did not bring any negative action against them. He recognised instead that Ireland could only benefit from its participation, in terms of its position on the conflict, its contribution to the relief effort, and, indirectly, its standing in Europe by being involved with a group that promoted pan-European co-operation. NGOs, the Irish Government and a new aid environment In spite of Hillery’s best intentions, however, the manner in which the Government had dragged its feet over its donation to the Africa Concern/JBFA airlift was revealing. That it contributed indirectly – through UNICEF – and only after all other options had been exhausted, hinted at serious strains in the relationship. From its inception Africa Concern’s impatience with bureaucracy was in marked contrast with the Government’s cautious approach to the conflict. John O’Loughlin Kennedy remembered that the Irish Government ‘found us impetuous and too ready to take a risk. We would have found them totally unready to take a risk.’47 The relationship was, in essence, a clash of opposites, fuelled by the emergence of a new form of activism with which Irish officials had little patience or experience. In a conflict in which Ireland had no direct interest, Africa Concern’s approach might have tested the Government’s patience. Given the situation of the Irish missionaries across Nigeria, its tactics and perceived political bias became a source of constant irritation. It did not help that the NGO’s close association with the Holy Ghost Fathers drew the suspicions of the Nigerian authorities. The involvement of Raymond Kennedy in particular – in October 1968 appointed general manager of Africa Concern and the following month labelled the head of ‘an alleged gigantic Catholic operation currently bringing hundreds of mercenaries into Biafra’ – confirmed its bias in

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Federal eyes.48 But it was simply one in a list of accusations made by the Nigerian administration against the Irish NGO. After its relationship with JCA on São Tomé became increasingly ‘testy’, in February 1969 Africa Concern began its own airlift from Libreville in Gabon directly to Biafra (though it continued to provide supplies for the JCA airlift).49 On its own, the action might have been enough to arouse further suspicion, but the decision to co-operate with Belgian International Air Service, which transported arms to Biafra, only compounded the NGO’s dubious reputation in the eyes of the Nigerian authorities. The accusations appeared to matter little to the Irish public, but they clearly worried the Government. Raymond Kennedy, known personally to Aiken (his father had fought alongside Aiken in the civil war) and to Ó Tuathail (whom he had taught at school), was again to the forefront. Before he departed for Biafra in December 1967, Kennedy travelled to New York to meet with Aiken in an attempt to persuade the latter to act in favour of the secessionist regime. He was not impressed; Kennedy later recalled that Aiken ‘more or less patted me on the back in a benign way, advised me not to go to Biafra, but rather to return to my comfortable parish in California and the saying of my prayers piously, and leave weighty affairs of State to competent mature experts like himself’.50 Suspicion about Kennedy’s motives was easily extended to Africa Concern. Before the Columcille left Dublin for São Tomé in August 1968, Seán Ronan told the general manager of Irish Shipping Limited of his department’s anxiety ‘that the ship might carry arms’, possibly loaded outside Irish jurisdiction.51 In Lagos Keating viewed the shipment as tarnished simply by its close association with Fr Kennedy and perceived association with Fr Des Byrne (another Irish Holy Ghost missionary) of the Catholic Secretariat. The Ambassador was ‘sorry to see so much goodwill and energy going to waste because the misdirected zeal of the organisers inevitably is pushing it to a dead end’. He worried that John O’Loughlin Kennedy might endeavour to gain publicity for his organisation by setting out ‘to embarrass both the Government and me by an approach to this Embassy should the opportunity arise’.52 The pattern was repeated through 1968 and into 1969 as Africa Concern became more successful in raising public donations and more insistent in its demands that the Government should step up its commitment to the relief effort. Hillery’s review of policy on Biafra in July 1969, which asked officials to comment on the possibility of channelling relief directly through Africa Concern, simply re-emphasised the distance between the two parties. Ó Tuathail – viewed in hindsight by  John O’Loughlin Kennedy as ‘immensely helpful’53 – argued that to  provide official assistance through Africa Concern would

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set an undesirable precedent for funding individual NGOs. In Lagos Keating went even further. He worried at the level of control the Irish Government would retain over the funding, given what he rather disingenuously described as the ‘poor’ methods of organisation employed by Africa Concern.54 Comparison between Ireland and its peers reveals the depth of mistrust between the two bodies. In Canada persistent public pressure eventually caused the Government eventually to offer a donation to Canairelief, just in time for the collapse of the Biafran state to render the contribution meaningless (and eventually unpaid). The Nordic Governments, who shared Irish attitudes to non-recognition, channelled substantial amounts of relief through, and co-operated closely with Nordchurchaid. Irish officials, by contrast, remained intransigent to the last. In November 1969, during the discussions surrounding the lease of the Columcille through UNICEF, Keating easily fell back on his earlier arguments. He repeated his warning against any direct funding for the NGO and denounced ‘the general amateurishness of Africa Concern’s organisation, accounting procedures, etc, and the possibility of the danger of scandal at home if anything went wrong and the danger to the Government if too closely associated with Africa Concern’.55 Finding it impossible to control the direction of debate on Biafra, officials struggled to find an alternative strategy. Praise for the activities of Caritas Internationalis could not dispel the perception among Irish missionaries in Biafra that the relief organisation was frowned upon by the Government. Their suspicions were correct. In spite of Fr Tony Byrne’s support for the Irish policy of non-recognition and JCA’s strict policy of checking its cargoes, the Irish Government preferred to err on the side of caution in the face of Nigerian accusations of gun-running. When Byrne was appointed acting director of Caritas in Rome in January 1969, Ó Tuathail could not hide his disappointment; ‘a lay-man or a non-Irish and non-C.S.Sp. [Holy Ghost] priest would have been better. Father Byrne’s appointment can only feed the fears and suspicions of the Federal Government of a Caritas/Catholic/Irish C.S.Sp. anti-Federal conspiracy.’56 Byrne had conspiracy theories of his own. In January 1969 a proposed interview on Radio Éireann’s Weekend Round About was pulled at the last minute. Byrne claimed that Jim Sheeran, the programme’s presenter, telephoned him the night before and told him, ‘in an agitated manner, that his authorities were not agreeable to his interviewing Father Byrne during the Radio Programme’.57 Ó Tuathail’s denial of any official involvement in the decision could not disguise his department’s inherent sobriety in dealing with Caritas Internationalis. Its

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conservatism was made all the more striking by the Government’s preference to hide behind (unsubstantiated) arguments that constitutional restrictions on endowing any religious group precluded it from contributing to the JCA. The same attitudes were visible in the Government’s relationship with Gorta. In Lagos Keating complained at the organisation’s misguided motives and warned that ‘Gorta may cause the Government and Irish missionaries in Nigeria grave embarrassment if it proceeds to dash money around without proper thought in an effort to compete with Africa Concern’.58 In Dublin officials grew increasingly insistent in their attempt to control the direction of Gorta’s aid. From January 1969 Ó Tuathail involved himself closely in its activities, meeting with missionaries, relief officials and Gorta representatives. He attempted to direct the organisation’s efforts to more politically acceptable schemes in the West, North and ‘liberated’ areas of the East of Nigeria. The new environment of decision-making created by Africa Concern’s success, however, left Ó Tuathail increasingly frustrated. A comment from May 1969 was typical: ‘I wish I could get Gorta straightened out . . . they are taking up much too much time and unlike the Red Cross we do not see any worthwhile end product’.59 The end of the crisis When the war ended on 11 January 1970, the world feared the worst. The Federal Government moved quickly to ban foreign aid organisations, journalists or observers from entering the Eastern Region. It appealed to ‘friendly governments’ for aid and rejected offers from any administration thought to have been ‘studiously hostile to the Federal cause’.60 A list was produced of international relief agencies, including JCA, Caritas Internationalis and Africa Concern – anyone who had operated direct flights into Biafra – that were unacceptable in the new environment, and the task of picking up the pieces was assigned to the National Committee for Rehabilitation and the vastly improved Nigerian Red Cross. By early January Irish officials had already begun planning for this eventuality. As in war, so in times of peace, and missionary and Nigerian Government interests remained to the forefront. Ó Tuathail recommended that relief be provided ‘in a way acceptable to the Nigerians who are very sensitive of appearing to rely on outside (white) help’.61 The Irish Government pledged IR£80,000 for the use of the National Rehabilitation Commission and IR£10,000 to the Nigerian Red Cross. It called on Irish relief agencies – and, by interference,

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the banned Africa Concern – to ‘co-operate fully with the Nigerian Government in the relief effort’.62 Gorta’s attempts to establish projects in Nigeria were repeatedly discouraged. And, in a show of unintentional unity that betrayed the similarity of their political attitudes to the war, public pressure meant that it was the first, alongside Canada, to pledge IR£10,000 to UNICEF to help in reconstruction. The spectre of Africa Concern continued to hover over the Government’s efforts. Banned by the Nigerian Government, the NGO continued to operate surreptitiously in Biafra throughout 1970. As Irish officials pressed for the normalisation of relations with the Federal administration, its activities put a strain on the organisation’s relationship with the Holy Ghost Order. Bishop Whelan told Ó Tuathail in April 1970 that the Holy Ghost authorities ‘were considering cutting themselves adrift altogether from Africa Concern if Africa Concern persisted with their present activities’.63 The Irish Government was equally concerned and Keating was accordingly incensed when John O’Loughlin Kennedy arrived in Lagos in July 1970 under the surname Ó Cinnéide in order to avoid detection by the Lagos authorities. The emotion created by the war took a long time to dissipate, even as Africa Concern began to diversify its activity elsewhere in the developing world. In February 1971, with the organisation still in a state of re-definition, a joint statement issued by the Nigerian Embassy and Grogan emphasised that from then on, ‘Africa Concern would at all times consult with the Nigerian Embassy to ensure that future activities of Africa Concern are objective and reflect the actual situation’.64 It took even longer for the Irish authorities to make their peace with the NGO – until the mid-1970s at least, by which time the Government had changed, a structured aid programme had been put into place and government officials had finally begun to overcome their deeply held suspicions. Discharging Ireland’s duties to the developing world In the years that followed its exit from Nigeria, Africa Concern shortened its name, branched out to pastures new – in Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Yemen – and began the steps to realising its role as a ‘secondgeneration’ NGO with an emphasis on both emergency relief and long-term development.65 But this successful future was by no means pre-ordained. Cormac Ó Gráda divided agencies established to deal with single issues like Biafra into two categories: those ‘wound up once the crisis had passed’, and those that ‘tended to transform themselves into more durable organisations’.66 The former included Canairelief and

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the groups that directed the global response to the African famines of the mid-1980s, Band Aid and Live Aid. Concern’s directors consciously led the organisation on the alternative path. By 1972, when it began its operations in Bangladesh, the organisation could count itself firmly as a member of Ó Gráda’s second category, alongside established agencies like CARE and Oxfam. Concern was fortunate to have emerged at a time of global upheaval in the aid sector. While Gorta’s narrowly defined structures reduced its competitiveness in the eyes of the Irish public, Africa Concern’s dynamism and rapid transformation from pressure group to international NGO echoed patterns elsewhere in the industrialised world. Emergency aid came to be seen as an essentially global undertaking, with NGOs accorded an important role in reaching the areas that official aid could not. The character of that aid also changed. In spite of the prominence of confessional organisations in the Biafran relief effort, growing numbers of specialised, non-denominational or – in the case of Africa Concern – multi-denominational groups found their own particular niche. The crisis also brought about a marked rise in the sheer number of NGOs, and led indirectly to the formation of others, including the French organisation Médecins Sans Frontières, whose members included a group of doctors who had served in Nigeria with the ICRC.67 At a time of protest and social upheaval across the industrialised world, the politicisation of Biafra’s humanitarian crisis transformed many NGOs into hybrid agencies that combined relief and development aid with campaigning on issues such as trade and global economic reform. Development education became an important constituent of their activities, informing individuals, communities, groups and their elected representatives of their responsibilities towards the global South. In Ireland, the zeal of Africa Concern’s operations had a similar effect, and collectives like the Irish Movement for Peace in Nigeria/ Biafra and the considered media analyses produced by the Irish Times and on RTÉ by Seven Days and Radharc further alerted the public to the underlying political origins of the crisis. But it was the religious organisations embrace of the issue that was of greatest significance. In its initial stages, the missionaries’ reach was important in bringing Biafra into homes and local communities. Subsequent changes from within the churches themselves altered the prevailing culture and helped to make society more receptive to – although not always more active on – the dual concepts of aid and human development. In his Christmas Day address on RTÉ television in 1968, for example, the Archbishop of Armagh Cardinal

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William Conway concentrated on the need to invigorate public opinion in favour of finding a solution to the question of poverty and global under-development. In October 1969 the Catholic Church established the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace (ICJP), one of whose first publications, titled The Third World War, warned of the Irish public’s shortcomings in contributing to development; ‘simply to support missionaries [was] emphatically not sufficient to discharge our duties to the rest of the world’.68 The creation of Trócaire (the relief agency of the Irish Catholic Hierarchy) in 1972 was another significant progression, and the Protestant churches were equally forward in formalising their responsibilities to the developing world. As indigenous control of church structures increased and missionaries shifted the focus of their activities elsewhere, the public portrayal of an Africa dominated by rural missionary stations grew increasingly outdated. It was replaced by an at times patronising view of a continent inhabited by children with swollen feet and distended stomachs, their bodies ravaged by disease and malnutrition. But that image, however simplistic, at the very least created a sense of obligation among the Irish public to assist the populations of the developing world. Slowly but surely the message filtered through to elected officials and the higher echelons of the Irish Government. It helped that the members of Ireland’s peer group – the Nordic states, Canada and the  Netherlands – had all embraced the concept of foreign aid, and that the influential report of the World Bank’s Pearson Commission, published in 1969, pointed the way for expanded state involvement in the sector. Changes from within Irish society also played a significant role, creating cultural norms of aid-giving that forced officials to rethink their position. In the context of its efforts to protect the safety of Irish missionaries in Nigeria, the conservative nature of the Irish Government’s response was understandable and in a different social environment it might arguably have escaped without criticism. The intense scrutiny of its approach, however, made it difficult to hide its shortcomings. To have contributed to the JCA airlift, as the Nordic states did, might have deflected some criticism and indicated publicly that the Irish Government desired to take a more positive attitude. The rigid policy of channelling all official relief through the ICRC was broadly in keeping with this attitude to international affairs and the principle of non-intervention. But as the limitations of the Red Cross relief effort became apparent, it left the Irish Government open to criticism that its desire to maintain its relationship with the Federal authorities was more important than its concern for those suffering the consequences of the conflict.

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In a changing social context, abetted by the campaigning of the IAAM, the public’s growing desire for a more transparent approach to foreign policy-making presented officials with a set of challenges unlike anything they had faced before. Aiken’s aloof style of decisionmaking was no longer sufficient to appease a critical constituency of Irish voters, as his replacement by the more pro-active and accommodating Hillery reflected. The latter’s political attitudes towards the Biafran war may have diverged little, but his embrace of Ireland’s involvement in the Luns Group pointed to a more broadly European focus for the state, and his willingness to engage in dialogue on the Biafran issue recognised the changes in the relationship between policy-makers and the Irish public. It was in the field of foreign aid, however, that Hillery had a lasting impact on the nature of Ireland’s relationship with the developing world. Within weeks of coming to office he instigated a comprehensive internal review of the Irish Government’s policy in that area. Born of the pressures of the Biafran crisis and the debate it stimulated in Irish society, its fruits became evident in the years that followed. Notes 1 Quoted in Cronje, The World and Nigeria, p. 293. 2 For an introduction to the history of foreign aid, see John DengbolMartinussen and Poul Engberg-Pedersen, Aid: Understanding International  Development Cooperation, trans. Marie Bille (London, 2005); Lancaster, Foreign Aid; Pharo and Fraser (eds), The Aid Rush; and Roger C. Riddell, Does Foreign Aid Really Work? (Oxford, 2007). 3 F. Sheridan, ‘My Dear Readers’, Missionary Annals (March 1970), p. 3. 4 Aengus Finucane, ‘The Changing Roles of Voluntary Organisations’, in Kevin M. Cahill (ed.), A Framework for Survival: Health, Human Rights and Humanitarian Assistance in Conflict and Disasters (London, 1999), p. 247. 5 De St Jorre, The Nigerian Civil War, p. 208. 6 Ibid. 7 Quoted in Tony Farmar, Believing in Action: Concern the First Thirty Years, 1968–98 (Dublin, 2002), p. 25. 8 NAI DT 98/6/404, ‘Address by Mr Sean Lemass, Taoiseach, at Luncheon of  National Press Club, Washington, DC, Wednesday, 16th October, 1963’. 9 Kimmo Kiljunen, ‘Finnish Development Cooperation: Policy and Performance’, in Olav Stokke (ed.), European Development Assistance: Volume I Policies and Performance (Oslo, 1984), p. 149. 10 Sixten Heppling, ‘The Very First Years: Memories of an Insider’, in

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11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

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Pierre Frühling (ed.), Swedish Development Aid in Perspective: Policies, Problems and Results Since 1952 (Stockholm, 1986), p. 16. For a history of the Irish Red Cross operations in France, see Phyllis Gaffney, Healing Amid the Ruins: The Irish Hospital at Saint-Lô (1945–46) (Dublin, 1999). NAI DFA 2001/43/1167, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, ‘Note of Discussion [re FFHC] on 11th April, 1962’. NAI DFA 2001/43/1175, Nagle to Blaney, 23 June 1967. NAI DFA 2001/43/1156, ‘Address by the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Mr Charles J Haughey, at the inauguration of GORTA, the Freedom from Hunger Council of Ireland, at the Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, on Monday, 8th November, 1965’. Ibid. NAI DFA 2000/14/19, Ó Tuathail to Gallagher, 19 Dec. 1967. Interview with John O’Loughlin Kennedy, Dublin, 16 Jan. 2006. John O’Loughlin Kennedy, quoted in John A. Daly and Anthony G. Saville, The History of Joint Church Aid: Volume III (1971), p. 844; a copy of this three-volume unpublished manuscript is held in the HGPA. HGPA BP Box 1: Bishop Whelan Papers, Bishop Joseph Whelan, ‘The Great Hunger: Biafra and Ireland’, 26 June 1968. Interview with Kennedy (16 Jan. 2006); and interview with Fr Tony Byrne, Dublin, 21 Feb. 2007. HGPA BP Box 7: Wartime Accounts, ‘Brother Francis writes on Marist Mission in Nigeria’. Quoted in Jack Hodgins, Sister Island: A History of the Church Missionary Society in Ireland 1814–1994 (n.p., 1994), p. 22. Laurie Wiseberg, ‘The International Politics of Relief: A Case Study of Relief  Operations Mounted During the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970)’  (PhD  dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1973), p. 550. ‘Faces of Despair’, Evening Herald, 2 July 1968; ‘Please Mr Lynch’, Evening Herald, 6 July 1968. Ken Gray, ‘The Biafran Horror – Television’, Irish Times, 11 July 1968. Ibid. Figures from Africa Concern, First Annual Report of the Joint Biafra Famine Appeal for the Year Ending 30th June 1969 (n.p., n.d. [1969]), p. 18. Quoted in ‘Lead World in Aid for Biafra’, Irish Independent, 29 March 1969. Farmar, Believing in Action, p. 24. ‘No Stop in Famine Aid to Biafra’, Irish Press, 8 July 1968. NAI DFA 2005/145/1608, Blaney to Hillery, 29 July 1969. ‘Gorta May Help Famine Fighters’, Irish Press, 20 March 1969. David Korten, Getting to the 21st Century: Voluntary Action and the Global Agenda (West Hartford, 1990), chapter 10. Finucane, ‘The Changing Roles of Voluntary Organisations’, p. 248.

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35 Lancaster, Foreign Aid, p. 214. 36 NAI DFA Lagos P13/7/2, Keating to Ó Tuathail, 28 Oct. 1968. 37 UCDA Aiken Papers P104/7148, hand-written notes by Aiken on Nigeria, undated. 38 David R. Morrison, Aid and Ebb Tide: A History of CIDA and Canadian Development Assistance (Waterloo, ON, 1998), p. 75. 39 Wiseberg, ‘The International Politics of Relief’, pp. 255–6. 40 NAI DFA 2001/43/133, Hanahoe to Aiken, 4 March 1969. 41 NAI DFA 2000/14/35, Ó Tuathail, ‘Briefing Note No. 4 on Nigerian Relief’, 1 Sept. 1969. 42 ‘Foreign Policy’, Irish Times, 29 Oct. 1969. 43 NAI DFA 2002/19/24, Hillery to de Barra, 27 Nov. 1969. 44 NAI DFA Lagos P13/7/1, Keating to Ó Tuathail, 29 May 1969. 45 NAI DFA 2001/43/153, Ronan to MacWhite, 21 March 1969. 46 Ibid., ‘Report of [a] Meeting Between Dr Hillery, Minister for External Affairs, and Dr Joseph Luns, Netherlands Minister for Foreign Affairs, on 15th July, 1969’. 47 Interview with Kennedy (16 Jan. 2006). 48 ‘Priest “Isn’t Mercenary Organiser”’, Irish Press, 28 Nov. 1968. 49 Interview with Kennedy (16 Jan. 2006). 50 Quoted in ‘Government Inaction Over Biafra Is Condemned’, Irish Times, 21 June 1969. 51 NAI DFA 2000/14/36, note by Ronan, 9 Aug. 1968. 52 Ibid., Keating to Ronan, 27 Aug. 1968. 53 Interview with Kennedy (16 Jan. 2006). 54 NAI DFA 2001/43/134, note by Ó Tuathail, ‘Question of contributing Governmental funds towards Africa Concern air lift’, 30 July 1969. 55 NAI DFA 2000/14/39, Keating was paraphrased by Ó Tuathail in his note, ‘Re Government’s proposed contribution of £25,000 for Biafran relief’, 16 Nov. 1969. 56 NAI DFA 2000/14/38, hand-written note, Ó Tuathail to Holmes, 2 Jan. 1969, appended to cutting of ‘Plans to beat Biafra famine’, Evening Herald, 2 Jan. 1969. 57 Ibid., note by Ó Tuathail, 9 Jan. 1969. 58 NAI DFA Lagos P13/7/1, Keating to Ó Tuathail, 25 Feb. 1969. 59 Ibid., Ó Tuathail to Keating, 16 May 1969. 60 Quoted from the Federal Government’s press release, ‘Nigeria Bans Irish Relief Agency’, Irish Times, 16 Jan. 1970. 61 NAI DFA 2001/43/136, Ó Tuathail, ‘Planning for Relief and Reconstruction in Nigeria’, 9 Jan. 1970. 62 ‘Co-operate with Nigerian Leaders: Lynch’s Plea to Charities’, Irish Times, 17 Jan. 1970. 63 NAI DFA Lagos P13/7/3 D, note by Ó Tuathail, ‘Interview with Bishop Whelan of Owerri, Fr C. O’Brien, Superior, Kimmage Manor, and Messrs

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J. O’Brien and E. Ó Tuathail of the Department re Africa Concern’, 23 April 1970. UCDA Aiken Papers P104/7185, statement issued by the Nigerian Embassy, Dublin, signed by Vincent Grogan (Africa Concern) and S. Kolo, the Nigerian Ambassador, 11 Feb. 1971. This typology is adapted from Korten, Getting to the 21st Century, chapter 10. Cormac Ó Gráda, Famine: A Short History (Princeton, 2009), pp. 219–20. For a history of the organisation, see Anne Vallaeys, Médecins sans Frontières: La Biographie (Paris, 2004). Jerome Connolly, The Third World War (Dublin, 1970), p. 44.

6

‘Boks Amach’ Southern Africa, popular protest and foreign policy

On 5 May 1964, acting on a resolution passed at the movement’s first meeting at the Mansion House almost two weeks earlier, the IAAM Secretary Barry Desmond wrote to Frank Aiken to request that pressure be brought on the South African Government to release African political prisoners. The movement, he stated, appreciated the Irish Government’s stance against apartheid, but felt that ‘it might be possible . . . to take some step to remind South Africa of her attitude’.1 He asked that Aiken might see fit to receive a delegation, ‘entirely in private’ if preferred, to discuss the matter. The reply, issued through the Minister’s private secretary Róisín Ennis, was short but succinct: ‘[The Minister] is fully aware of the developments in that situation . . . there is no need for a deputation from your organisation to see him on the subject.’2 Delivered almost three years prior to the Biafran crisis and the DEA’s private war of words with the relief sector, Aiken’s response said much about his attitude to public debate. Long absences in New York each autumn left him physically out of reach of critics and supporters alike. When in Dublin, his curt answers to parliamentary colleagues did little to encourage dialogue. In contrast to the high levels of ‘active citizenship’ in the Nordic states, there was little or no history of consultation between interest groups and foreign policy-makers in Ireland and – as the IAAM quickly found out – even less opportunity for them to consult.3 Yet the lack of discussion was not the fault of Aiken alone. The Minister’s reticence was matched by the Irish public, who showed themselves more interested in the vagaries of parish-pump politics than debates on international affairs. Foreign policy was emphatically not an important electoral issue, as Patrick Keatinge noted in 1973: ‘Special knowledge about breeding pigs may be a useful electoral aid in a pigbreeding constituency, but special knowledge of foreign affairs is not a qualification that recommends itself to Irish electors’.4 The IAAM’s very existence, however, was an indicator of change. In

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its first four years the movement succeeded in drawing limited public attention to the situation in southern Africa, building a support base that served it well in the years to come. When the opportunity arose to translate its gains into action, the IAAM was well-placed to capitalise. By 1968 its growing voice and pressures to maintain Ireland’s independent standing visibly impacted on the Government’s policies at the UN, leading it to support ever more radical resolutions on apartheid, Rhodesia and Portuguese Africa. In New York officials struggled to bridge the growing gap between the ‘fire brigade’ and the radical AfroAsian group. At home pressures from below – for so long a contributing factor in the foreign policies of states like Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway – assumed an increasingly important role. Allied to a broader process of change across Irish society, the open debate that surrounded the Biafran conflict, mass media coverage of the American civil rights movement and the anti-war campaign, student and worker strikes in France, Germany, Italy and Britain, and the growing tensions in Northern Ireland, created an atmosphere unlike anything seen in Ireland before. The IAAM’s protests against the South African rugby tour in January 1970 became one of the period’s defining moments, a campaign that altered the dynamic of Irish foreign policymaking. Yet a number of questions remained: was Ireland’s experience unique? What role did the IAAM play in the global struggle against apartheid? And what did this radically changed environment mean for the DEA? The entrenchment of minority rule The years following the Rivonia trial and the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and his ANC colleagues were marked by the continued entrenchment of minority rule in southern Africa. In South Africa military support from Britain, and United States opposition to economic sanctions allowed the Government not only to survive but to broaden the scope of its apartheid policies. The death of Prime Minister Verwoerd – stabbed by a white parliamentary messenger in the House of Assembly in September 1966 – did little to alter its course of action. With the UN effectively sidelined, the regime turned its attention to a more pressing threat: the risk of internal uprising or attempts at violent liberation from outside its borders. In 1969 the ANC announced from its base in Tanzania that it was committed ‘to the armed struggle and the mobilisation of the people for revolution’.5 But its activities, and those of the PAC, were not limited to the African continent. Across the Western world, the campaign grew in momentum, enlisting

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anti-apartheid organisations, NGOs and left-wing political parties, along with sympathetic governments like the Netherlands and the Nordic states in support of their goal of African liberation. While South Africa drew the headlines, considerable attention continued to be focussed on its role in South West Africa. In July 1966, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its verdict on the territory, in which it declared that the case against South Africa had not proven the legality of its claims and that it could not make a decision one way or the other. At the UN, the judgement drew an immediate reaction. The General Assembly voted to terminate the South African mandate and recognise the territory as the re-named Namibia. In 1969 the Security Council followed suit, calling upon South Africa to withdraw its administration. By then, the nationalist organisation SWAPO had also stepped up its activities, forcing the regime to introduce the Terrorism Act in 1967 and to arrest a number of nationalist leaders. For SWAPO, the ICJ’s decision marked the end of passive resistance and the beginning of a new phase of militant nationalism. The verdict, it believed, ‘would relieve Namibians once and for all from any illusions which they may have harboured about the United Nations as some kind of saviour in their plight . . . We have no alternative but to rise in arms and bring about our liberation.’6 SWAPO’s indictment of the UN was symptomatic of that organisation’s limited influence in resolving the escalating crisis in southern Africa. What had been in evidence in the earlier part of the decade was now made strikingly apparent to observers from the ‘fire brigade’ states: in spite of growing Afro-Asian dominance in the General Assembly, the potential for real and lasting change lay in the co-operation of the major Western powers. The same could be said in the case of Southern Rhodesia. The Rhodesian Front’s unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) on 11 November 1965 laid a challenge to the international community. Economic sanctions introduced first on a voluntary and later on a mandatory basis by the Security Council had limited effect as goods continued to arrive through Mozambique and South Africa. Divisions within the African resistance movement, between the Zimbabwe African Peoples’ Union (ZAPU) and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), did little to help the majority’s cause, and successive British attempts to impose a solution, most notably aboard the HMS Tiger in 1966 and HMS Fearless in 1968, failed to end the regime’s intransigence. In fact they had the opposite effect: Rhodesian society, though ‘full of the contradictions and paradoxes which mark every society of human beings’, was galvanised by the fact of being ostracised from the international community.7

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UDI embroiled Ireland and the other ‘fire brigade’ states in a familiar debate with the Afro-Asian group. In an address at St John’s University, New York, on 15 November 1965 Frank Aiken joined his African colleagues in condemning the Rhodesian Front’s decision. His government, he told the assembled, could not support any attempt ‘to proclaim a sovereignty based on a denial of fundamental democratic principles’.8 Yet the remainder of his speech hinted openly at the Minister’s growing frustration with the Afro-Asian group. Turning his attention to the UN, he offered a strong reminder that ‘all states, including the newly-independent states of Africa and Asia, were fortunate to have a forum in the United Nations in which free discussion could take place, and a settlement be sought, of the issues which tended to disturb international peace and stability’.9 Seán Lemass’s statement to the press, issued three days earlier, was even more revealing of his government’s patient, deliberated approach: ‘It is our hope that the pressure of world opinion will compel those who at present exercise power in that country to accept the justice and inevitability of majority rule, under which an independent Rhodesian state could develop, with harmony within its borders and with the goodwill of the other nations of the world.’10 As it had in the 1962 debates on the territory (see Chapter 3), the Irish Government balanced its support for the fundamental aims of African nationalism with a pragmatic reading of international affairs that recognised its important relationship with the British Government. To Irish officials, the latter remained the best hope of finding a solution to the impasse. They were not alone in their appraisal. The DEA’s policy accorded closely with that of the Swedish Government, which largely followed the ‘British line’ of argument and supported continued bilateral negotiations between British officials and the Rhodesian authorities.11 Irish and Swedish policy-makers also adopted a common approach to economic sanctions, based on the related premises that only resolutions enacted by the Security Council carried the force of law and that such measures would be effective only with the support of the major powers. On 20 November 1965 both governments welcomed the Security Council’s recommendation that all member states should take measures to boycott the Rhodesian economy by condemning the regime. Yet their support was tempered by shared anxieties at the potential shortcomings of the move. The Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander praised the Security Council decision as ‘extremely important’ but warned that ‘the pre-requisite condition for a policy

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of  sanctions against Southern Rhodesia [.  .  .] is [that it is] generally supported [. . .] It is our hope that all states, loyally and without delay,  will  sustain the United Nations in its endeavours.’12 Aiken echoed his concern: ‘sanctions should only be imposed when they are likely to be politically and economically effective’.13 Ireland’s proximity to Britain – not least the conclusion of the AngloIrish Free Trade Agreement in December 1965 and the free movement of goods that it portended – added a further layer to its response. On 11 January 1966, to add to its restrictions on the export of arms, ammunition and military equipment, the Irish Government announced that sanctions would be extended to include imports of tobacco, asbestos and all other commodities. In private, officials admitted that the decision had been made with two essential factors in mind: the Security Council resolution imposed ‘a moral obligation’ on Ireland; and failure to implement sanctions would leave the country open to accusations of ‘frustrating British action’.14 The continued alignment with British interests led to criticism that the Irish Government had ‘abandoned the effort to exercise an independent judgement’.15 Yet the reality was more complicated. As early as March 1966 Aiken instructed one of his aides to tell the British authorities that the Irish Government could not agree to its actions ‘being policed’.16 Irish officials were conscious of British interests and sensitive to British representations, but the decision to implement trade restrictions, including the mandatory sanctions introduced by the Security Council on 16 December 1966, was in keeping with their government’s attitudes in the earlier part of the decade. It signalled the DEA’s support for the institutions of the UN. It reinforced its commitment to constructive, deliberated reform. And it coincided with the view that the UN should offer Britain – as the interested major power – assistance in breaking the Rhodesian Government’s resolve. Comparison between Ireland and Finland is instructive. The Finnish Government adopted a cautious approach to the Rhodesian question based on the fulfilment of its obligations to the UN and its support for African political freedom, but also on the fact that its interests in relation to Britain and the West ‘were greater than its solidarity with the Zimbabwean people’.17 At the same time Finland’s low levels of trade with Rhodesia also meant that there was not much to lose in applying sanctions. The same was true of the Irish case. What little trade occurred between Ireland and Rhodesia was restricted through a licensing system that operated on a case-by-case basis. At the UN the debate on Rhodesia followed a familiar pattern. The Irish delegation supported calls for independence ‘based on uni-

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versal adult suffrage, by which we understood an electoral system acceptable to all people, including the Africans’.18 In keeping with its preference for a negotiated settlement, it rejected any suggestions that  appeared to interfere with the ongoing consultations between the British Government and the Rhodesian regime. The actions of the Afro-Asian group, in particular its appeal for the UN to support the use of force, continued to distance it from Ireland and other Western European moderates. Yet in its language and voting patterns, the Irish delegation exhibited an increasing susceptibility to pressure from the same quarter. Its policies struck a balance between its natural support to the Western powers in the hope of promoting negotiated settlement and the need to buttress its waning influence with the Afro-Asian group. In March 1968 it condemned the execution of political prisoners by the Rhodesian Government as ‘an abhorrent violation of fundamental rights which endangers international peace’.19 In October of the same year Aiken instructed his delegation to vote in favour of a draft resolution that came before the Fourth Committee which reiterated the need for majority rule before Rhodesia might become independent, ‘as a statement of principle’, leaving it in a more radical position than the Nordic states, who abstained.20 The search for solutions in southern Africa Writing in the Irish Times on 21 January 1970, Dennis Kennedy offered a simple but accurate appraisal of the Irish Government’s policies at the UN: ‘If there is a pattern to the voting [on southern Africa] it is one in which Ireland is rarely seen in direct opposition to the two major Western Powers though by no means following their lead’.21 A decade of toing and froing with the Afro-Asian group had only convinced Aiken – and Patrick Hillery after him – that the most effective solutions, in Africa and elsewhere, were those supported by the major powers. Yet this growing pragmatism had not precluded the Irish Government from the pursuit of constructive change. Aiken believed that the solution in southern Africa lay not in attempting the ‘impossible’ with the intransigent regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia but in concentrating international efforts on South West Africa: ‘That would change the whole picture in that part of the world.’22 His analysis was simple: the South Africans would not fight for the territory with the same vigour as they might defend their own republic – South West Africa’s established business interests were mainly foreign-owned – while to the Western powers the territory carried less strategic importance. The ICJ’s failure to pronounce on the issue in July 1966 removed an

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obstacle to Aiken’s resolve – his commitment to, and respect for, the processes of international law. Having refrained from putting forward their ideas while the Court’s deliberations were ongoing, the verdict prompted the DEA to engage furtively in analysing its implications. The result was a considered but assertive response. In a speech to the UN General Assembly on 3 October 1966 Aiken described the judgement as ‘an outrageous waste of time and money . . . I submit that, since South Africa has not only repudiated the Mandate but has now openly proceeded to govern South West Africa as part of her national territory, we require no further opinion of the Court.’23 The UN, he argued, should either recognise South Africa’s power or ‘proceed to exercise sustained pressure and persuasion to secure the peaceful and orderly transfer of the administration of the territory to the United Nations for the purpose of bringing it to independence’.24 Aiken’s words were no empty posturing. He used the opportunity to propose a constructive but immediate response: the formation of a committee to report on ways to terminate the mandate of South Africa, and to provide – as soon as possible – a clear path to political freedom. The fortunes of Aiken’s plan – known informally as the ‘Irish Formula’ – offered an important insight into the influence of the ‘fire brigade’ states at the UN in the mid-1960s. Viewed by several delegations as a model of moderation and restraint, the approach drew praise from officials from the Western states, the Latin Americans and several members of the Afro-Asian group. Yet the familiar divisions remained. At the May 1967 special session of the General Assembly, reconvened to deal with the South West African question, the Irish delegation based its approach on the premise that Security Council involvement was the most effective way to achieve independence and African self-rule. Aiken held talks with a number of delegations in New York to outline Irish proposals that the General Assembly should request that a special UN representative to the territory be appointed immediately by the Security Council. But the move only exposed the underlying difference in approach between the ‘fire brigade’ and Afro-Asian groups: a commitment to procedure and the hierarchy of the UN. Along with Sweden, the Irish delegation abstained on a General Assembly resolution of 4 May 1967 that created a UN Council to take over the administration of the Territory. Aiken was clear in his appraisal of the situation; on 19 May he told delegates that ‘the people of the territory can only be brought to freedom in the most peaceful and orderly manner if the Assembly resolves to place the responsibility where the authority and power belong – that is, on the Security Council and particularly on the permanent members thereof’.25 The principles established over a

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long period were readily in evidence: support for constructive action, peaceful settlement and the institutions of the UN, and a strong belief in the principle of self-determination. But by then they had been surpassed by the voting power of the Afro-Asian group. Three days earlier the Nigerian Ambassador Chief Adebo told the General Assembly that though Aiken ‘gave a clear demonstration of the interest that he and his country have in this subject . . . we were not able to subscribe to the suggestion that he made’, not least because of its recourse to ‘that dreaded institution . . . the Security Council’.26 Adebo’s response showed the Irish delegation to be in a state of transition. Frustrated by the attitudes of the Afro-Asian group, Aiken’s active pursuit of a solution indicated that, far from lost, Ireland’s independent stance could be re-directed to potentially more profitable, and, in many ways, less visible targets. It took time for other delegations to see the merits in his argument. In December 1968 the General Assembly requested that the Security Council take steps to bring the re-named Namibia to independence, supported by the Irish delegation. The following year the Security Council terminated South Africa’s mandate and requested it to withdraw from the territory. Yet the Irish Government’s very commitment to the UN had by then begun to hinder its effectiveness. Though Aiken later admitted that in private he had made it clear to African delegates that ‘he supported the use of force by the United Nations to expel South Africa from South-West Africa’, his government’s strong dedication to peace and stability through international law lacked an essential flexibility to undertake positive action when that organisation was beset by the kind of deadlock caused by Afro-Asian intransigence and the withheld support of the major powers.27 Within the UN Irish policies were limited further by a suspicion of the motives of the Afro-Asian group and an increasing emphasis on the Security Council – to the exclusion of other, equally profitable, forms of assistance. This self-limiting approach gradually marked the impact – if not the intent – of the Irish Government’s policies as distinct from its Nordic counterparts in the ‘fire brigade’ group. In March 1966, for example, it declined an invitation to the first international conference on South West Africa at Oxford, at which Sweden was represented by Minister for Transport and Communication (and later Prime Minister) Olof Palme. Prompted by public activism on a level the IAAM could not match, the Swedish Government began to act increasingly outside the boundaries of the UN. In October 1964 it became the first Western government to donate funds directly to the London-based International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF), which provided financial assistance to

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the families of political prisoners in southern Africa. Sweden was not alone; in 1965 the governments of Denmark and Norway followed suit by making their first contributions to the fund. The Irish Government was more circumspect. Fearful of IDAF’s links with the liberation movements, it left it to the IAAM to collect for the organisation and quietly send contributions to southern Africa through the Irish Defence and Aid Fund, created by the movement in October 1967. If it had matched its political commitment to the UN with a dedication to that organisation’s multilateral aid channels – particularly the UN Educational and Training Programme for Southern Africa (UNETPSA) and the UN Trust Fund for South Africa (UNTFSA) – the Irish Government might have deflected some of the criticism for its approach to IDAF. As it was, not even the recognition of ‘the extremely low level of Ireland’s contributions . . . as compared with those of other countries in Western Europe’ served to spur the Government to effective action.28 In February 1966 the DEA argued that the UN-sponsored programmes were primarily politically motivated, and therefore should not be supported. Instead, it preferred to ‘wait to see what support the appeal gets’ in view of the ‘phase of national economic stringency’ which Ireland was then experiencing.29 Political prudence led it to consider a contribution to the UNTFSA in August of that year – Irish official Seán Ronan argued that the Government should ‘not expose ourselves to the charge of seeming indifference to the lot of the victims of apartheid’ – but it was not until January 1967 that the delegation pledged its first contribution of $1,000 to the fund.30 The question of contributing to the UNETPSA had to wait even longer – until the autumn 1967 meeting of the General Assembly, when a total of $5,000 was earmarked for the programme. The Irish Government’s approach was once more in marked contrast to that of the Nordic states. While admittedly more affluent, their governments openly embraced their commitments in the field of development assistance as another element in their foreign policy ethos at the UN. The Swedish Ambassador chaired the UNTFSA, and his government had already begun to make significant contributions to development assistance. In 1964 the Danish authorities established a special humanitarian budget allocation, nicknamed ‘the Apartheid Appropriation’. Initially a source of small grants for South African students in exile, the fund later expanded to provide what Morgenstierne described as ‘a channel for almost bilateral relations with national liberation movements struggling for independence throughout Southern Africa’.31 The Norwegian Government also adopted a similar approach – in recognition of what it saw as the effectiveness of the UN funds. In all three states the official resources allocated through IDAF,

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UNTFSA and UNETPSA were backed by considerable public fundraising and a close correlation between interest group activism and political decision-making. In Ireland the IAAM’s influence grew slowly. Conor Cruise O’Brien, once a close confidant of Aiken’s before his exploits in the Congo (see Chapter 2), became a thorn in the Minister’s side through his involvement with the IAAM. In July 1966 he publicly attacked Aiken’s policy on southern Africa for ‘closely following that of Britain and the United States’.32 A year later, the continued growth in trade between Ireland and South Africa – imports rose from IR£1,424,161 in 1965 to IR£2,378,930 in 1969, with a concurrent rise in exports from IR£153,620 (1965) to IR£996,962 (1969) – was highlighted by the DEA as a potential cause for embarrassment, both at the UN and at home. Criticism ‘might be directed at the Minister . . . both by the Anti-Apartheid Movement as well as by certain opposition deputies in the Dáil’.33 Aiken, however, remained unconvinced of their influence. In July 1968 the Minister wrote privately to his friend Andrew Cordier at the UN that O’Brien’s approach was an attempt ‘to secure publicity by goading me into a public controversy with him’ and was equally dismissive of his former colleague’s ‘pinkish friends’, among whom he no doubt included members of the IAAM.34 In a rapidly changing domestic environment, Aiken’s aloof attitude became increasingly difficult to sustain. By the end of 1968 public debate had taken a turn in favour of the IAAM, Africa Concern and other groups campaigning on international affairs. It was reflected in an increasing sensitivity among DEA officials to outside criticism. At the UN the Irish delegation had already extended itself to vote for increasingly radical resolutions on Rhodesia and South West Africa, and in November 1968 intervened at the Special Political Committee ‘because of its belief in the importance of stressing and repeating that the world community unequivocally rejected the principle upon which the policy of apartheid was based’.35 The following March (1969), Aiken responded hesitantly to a suggestion made by a Ghanaian official at the UN that the Special Committee on Apartheid might meet in Dublin that summer. He felt that the visit ‘could give rise to some difficulties here vis-à-vis the Irish anti-apartheid movement and from the publicity point of view’.36 Timing was of primary concern. The committee’s arrival in late May or early June potentially coincided with the annual External Affairs debate and/or a general election. The possibility that the IAAM might use the visit to stir up debate during a politically sensitive period led Aiken to instruct Con Cremin to ‘gently discourage the Committee from having a meeting here this year and indicate that we should be glad to have them at another time’.37

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The IAAM’s fortunes were closely related to broader patterns of social change in Ireland and across Western Europe. On 5 January 1968 Robert Fahey, a University College Dublin arts student from Raheny, wrote to the IAAM to request information about its aims and activities. By his own admission Fahey knew little about the movement. Yet his characterisation of it – heavily reliant on media depictions of American civil rights protesters – said much about the IAMM’s position in the international milieu: ‘Whenever I hear the words “Anti-Apartheid Movement” an image of folk-singers and Communists are [sic] brought to mind.’38 In a year of global protest, that influence was inescapable. In Sweden, Denmark and Norway the boycott movement evolved into a strong popular and political expression of solidarity with the African liberation movements. Swedish society embraced debate on international issues, and the influence of the European New Left and the antiVietnam war campaign created a broad-based anti-imperial movement that expanded discussion on southern Africa far beyond the apartheid regime. The political repercussions were not long in arriving. In 1969 the Swedish Government offered official humanitarian assistance to the PAIGC in Guinea-Bissau, the first direct support of its kind between a Western government and an African liberation movement. In Finland, where public participation in foreign affairs was at a level similar to Ireland, the effect of global media and international protest movements was equally visible. The Committee of 100, the Finnish Students’ UN Association, and the South African Committee played a vital role in stimulating active public debate on southern Africa. The Year 1968 became a ‘crucial’ one, creating unprecedented levels of activism and radicalising political divisions within Finnish society.39 Geopolitical and cultural differences aside, the parallels to the situation in Ireland were obvious. The spread of television, mass media consumption and the creeping cultural Americanisation that characterised Irish society in the 1960s brought with them an openness to new ideas and influences from across the Western world. The lessons of civic protest they carried – not least from the United States – made the recourse to public activism all the more popular, particularly on such a relatively straightforward moral issue as apartheid. The student strikes that swept France, Germany, Italy and Britain provided an obvious source of inspiration. But so too did the radicalisation of protest in Northern Ireland. Carol Coulter recalled that Dublin in the summer of 1968 ‘sparkled with excitement. The feeling, experienced by students

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and young people everywhere, that the world was going to change and that we were the generation that was going to bring this about, had taken root.’40 For others, the allure of the American civil rights movement proved stronger. Bernadette Devlin of the Belfast-based People’s Democracy rejected the ideas of the ‘weirdos’ in Paris and London; ‘we saw ourselves basically as blacks. Many of us weren’t even aware that we lived in ghettos until we discovered the black ghettos and said, that’s our position, we’re all stuck here on the edge of towns with the worst social conditions.’41 The IAAM’s experience of those changes fitted into broader global patterns of protest movement activity. In the exchanges described by Doug McAdam and Dieter Rucht, the successful adoption of ideas between movements depended ‘on the interplay of relational and non-relational channels’.42 In Ireland the latter was visible in Coulter’s references to Europe in 1968, Devlin’s evocation of the American civil rights movement and Fahey’s characterisation of the IAAM. Students and others who travelled to the United States brought back ideas from the streets and university campuses. At an IAAM gathering in April 1965 Peadar O’Donnell, a veteran Irish republican also involved with Irish Voice on Vietnam, spoke proudly of ‘the news that at a public meeting in Dublin apartheid was denounced and the Alabama marchers acclaimed’.43 Yet the IAAM could also rely on relational channels in its links with other anti-apartheid groups. Kader and Louise Asmal’s personal connections with the British AAM were important in the transfer of ideas and continued dialogue between the two movements. Campaign literature, posters, flyers and, occasionally, financial assistance from Britain greatly helped its Irish counterpart, though the exchange was not solely one-sided. Kader Asmal remembered that the two movements ‘shared information, we shared material, we often ran campaigns jointly with them, or we picked up on campaigns that they had started and inaugurated’.44 The IAAM also looked to other movements for inspiration. Kader Asmal’s membership of the ANC fostered a close association with that organisation, its aims and objectives. The IAAM’s involvement with IDAF and participation in international conferences and seminars on southern Africa strengthened its international links. There were also more formal gatherings at which ideas, campaign tactics and information were exchanged, such as the March 1966 meeting hosted by the British AAM that brought together antiapartheid groups from Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United States and Ireland. Yet the importance of these exchanges and the influence of international media could not obscure the distinctly Irish character of the

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movement. The structures, methods, ideas and campaigns borrowed from counterparts elsewhere in Europe and beyond were adapted and re-cast to suit an Irish context. Most importantly, the movement attempted to frame its support for southern Africa in a manner that closely paralleled the Irish Government’s description of the state’s identity at the UN. It based its call for members on the assertion that ‘[t]he Irish people have always opposed oppression. As the first country in this century to take up arms for national freedom, the African people look especially to us for help.’45 In a 1965 pamphlet it called on the Irish Government ‘to let no pressures or considerations of expediency deter it from acting on apartheid in a way that is consonant with the Irish people’s love of freedom’.46 The similarities were extended to create a direct bond between the Irish struggle for independence and contemporary events in southern Africa. At the outset of his visit to Ireland to mark South African Freedom Day on 26 June 1968, the ANC President Oliver Tambo visited Arbour Hill to place a wreath on the graves of those who died in the 1916 Rising on behalf of the ‘freedom fighters’ of South Africa.47 The emphasis on history and the Irish colonial experience formed part of a further attempt to follow the example of the ANC and the British AAM to appeal to as wide a cross section of society as possible. The IAAM’s first chairman was Ernest Wood, a Senior Counsel, and its list of sponsors included members of all political parties and a broad cross-section of Irish society. In recognition that ‘you were legit if you had somebody with a Roman collar, and you were respectable’, the movement invited Fr Austin Flannery, editor of the Catholic journal Doctrine and Life and active on Dublin’s housing crisis, to take a place on the committee.48 What it lacked in official Catholic support, it enjoyed in moral endorsement from the ordinary clergy. That pattern was repeated in the case of the other Christian churches, whose authorities exhibited an equal reluctance to offer official support but whose ordinary members the IAAM also counted as active followers. The Reverend Dr Terence McCaughey, Presbyterian minister and lecturer in Irish at Trinity College, was the most prominent example; invited to take a role on the committee early in its existence, he later became chairman of the movement. The IAAM adapted its approach to the demands of the period. Leftwing groups like Connolly Youth, the Communist Party of Ireland, the Maoist Internationalists, and Sinn Féin were important to its success though the IAAM, like its British counterpart, preferred to keep them ‘largely out of sight’.49 Nor did the importance of trade union support in the success of the Nordic boycott movements or the role played by the

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British AAM’s special sub-committee to deal with trade union work go unnoticed. Kader Asmal later described the unions as ‘the backbone’ of the IAAM, ‘and their material, financial and ideological support added enormous value to our struggle’.50 Donal Nevin of ICTU, Mick Reilly of the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers’ Union (ATGWU) and Communist Party member Mick Mullen of the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (ITGWU) offered consistent support from the beginning. ICTU’s Barry Desmond became the movement’s first honorary secretary, a position he held until 1969 when his election to the Dáil led him to resign his post in the IAAM. While the movement held seminars, meetings and conferences to stimulate the interest of trade union members in southern Africa, its aim to educate also led it to target secondary schools. It provided information leaflets and speakers to aid teachers, held a special conference on racism, and ran an annual essay competition. During campaigns and demonstrations, school pupils joined with university students – another mainstay of Western anti-apartheid groups – and trade unionists in offering considerable support to the IAAM. Yet, in its everyday work, the movement relied on a core committee of fifteen to twenty individuals who formulated campaigns, produced its literature – a monthly newsletter, Amandla, an annual report and occasional pamphlets – and organised the movement’s activities. The forceful character of Kader Asmal had a strong influence on proceedings, though the voices of his colleagues on the committee – occasionally leading to fundamental disagreement – ensured that he did not dominate. The movement’s aims were simple: ‘to inform the people of Ireland about apartheid’; to campaign for international action and action by the Irish Government; ‘to co-operate with and support South African organisations campaigning against apartheid’; and ‘to co-operate with and support the Defence and Aid Fund’.51 In practice they brought the IAAM a role in mobilising Irish support and encouraging political action on the part of the Irish Government that was inseparable from its responsibilities as part of the global campaign against apartheid. Its cultural boycott of South Africa, supported by a broad base of Irish playwrights, poets and authors, the relatively unsuccessful economic boycott and other minor campaigns contributed to this international debate. Yet they could not compete, either in their role in stimulating debate or their effect on southern Africa, with the campaign against apartheid in sport. The sports boycott created a ‘paranoid obsession’ among white South Africans rooted in what Rob Nixon described as ‘an ethnic nationalist exasperation at being denied just such opportunities to

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compensate for the smallness of their population, their geographical marginality, and their political ostracism’.52 A survey of white South Africans conducted in 1977 identified the loss of international sport as one of the three most damaging consequences of apartheid.53 White Rhodesian society exhibited a similar response: Godwin and Hancock’s study noted that its population ‘deified their heroes and relied upon their national teams to restore or sustain national morale’.54 But its impact was not limited to the white population. For the Africans who suffered under segregation, apartheid laws in education, health, voting, housing and access to amenities greatly reduced their ability to compete with white athletes. The South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee (SANROC) led the international campaign against apartheid in sport and in 1968 its pressure was crucial in securing the withdrawal of the International Olympic Committee’s invitation to the white South African team for the Olympic Games in Mexico City after African states threatened to boycott the event. The boycott had an equally significant impact in the West, where sporting campaigns afforded local anti-apartheid movements a striking visual representation of segregation in action. Encouraged by Kader Asmal’s friendship with Dennis Brutus, the head of SANROC, the IAAM was quick to capitalise on its potential. On 29 May 1964, just over a month after it was formed, the movement organised a picket at the Iveagh Grounds in Crumlin, Dublin, at an international match between a South African bowling team and the Bowling League of Ireland. In October of the same year it made the 1965 visit of the South African rugby team the focus of its activities. The campaign epitomised the status of the IAAM, its relationship with the Irish Government and public receptiveness to international issues at that point. Politically, it was moderately successful. President Eamon de Valera acceded to the movement’s request not to attend the international at Lansdowne Road on 10 April 1965 and the DEA warned that the receipt of the South African players by the President ‘would be bound to give rise to an outcry by the Anti-Apartheid Movement and it might be better for the President to avoid it’.55 Among the general public, however, the campaign had mixed success. IAAM protesters picketed the matches and some sections of the population proved willing to engage with the issue. One rugby supporter sent Louise Asmal his tickets for the Lansdowne Road match – ‘which unfortunately I had to buy’ – with the instruction that she ‘[u]se them entirely at your discretion. Two brave black S[outh] Africans should be able to create quite a din if given them.’56 Singing the American civil rights anthem ‘We Shall Overcome’, the

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350 protesters who marched from St Stephen’s Green to Lansdowne Road on 10 April were evidence of the minor, though not insignificant, levels of support for the campaign. Their numbers, praised by the IAAM as ‘very heartening’,57 were not sufficient to rouse widespread public attention in the week of a general election. Four days previously, only fifteen people had protested at the match between the Springboks and a Combined Irish Universities side in Limerick. Although several prominent politicians, public figures and organisations such as the Union of Students in Ireland indicated their support for the IAAM’s campaign, the lack of a large trade union presence hampered its success. The Irish public was not sufficiently informed or roused from apathy to engage widely with the issue put before it. The Minister for Agriculture Charles Haughey may not have attended the match, but his explanation was indicative of many attitudes towards the tour: ‘As I never go to rugby matches the question of attending, or refusing to attend, does not arise.’58 The 1970 Springbok tour Progress was gradual. In October 1966 about a hundred demonstrators, including a large proportion of African students, marched to the National Stadium in Dublin to protest against an international boxing match between Ireland and an all-white South African team. Inside, the match took place in front of a full house, and, Seán Ronan of the DEA commented, the protest ‘did not seem to attract any great interest or support’.59 Yet in spite of its relative failure, the protest maintained the IAAM’s visibility. The message slowly began to permeate through Irish society. In 1968 the movement amended its constitution to include all of southern Africa and continued its focus on the sports boycott. With SANROC’s assistance, it ran campaigns against Irish participation in that year’s Olympic Games and another calling for the withdrawal of Irish rugby internationals from the British and Irish Lions’ tour of South Africa that summer. In the same year that the Security Council adopted comprehensive sanctions against Rhodesia (1968), the movement persuaded the Irish Ploughing Association not to send competitors to the World Ploughing Championship in the rebel state. The IAAM drew two important lessons from the campaigns: the necessity for greater trade union involvement; and the need to translate the widespread moral support the movement enjoyed into concerted pressure on the Irish Government. By 1969, thanks to its minor successes and the changes in Irish society over the previous year, the movement felt itself in a position to capitalise on this undercurrent of

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popular sympathy. Eager to cultivate the kind of cross-party political support so important to the success of similar movements in the Nordic states, in June 1969 the IAAM sent a questionnaire to all candidates in the forthcoming general election to ascertain their views on southern Africa. The results revealed a great deal about the movement’s support base. Of the seventy-four, overwhelmingly positive responses, almost half (thirty-six) came from candidates in the capital, indicating the Dublin-centred nature of the movement.60 It drew most of its support from the Labour Party, whose thirty-eight replies made up a disproportionately large number of the total. Labour’s Michael O’Leary responded to the question ‘[h]ave you any suggestions that might help us?’ by answering simply, ‘Vote Labour’.61 Outside that base, however, there existed a notable cross-party agreement on the issue. Senator Garret FitzGerald, a Fine Gael candidate, noted the potential for differences on questions such as sanctions, but stated that ‘all the Irish political parties were opposed to apartheid’.62 The IAAM, defining itself as ‘a strictly non-party political organisation’, promoted named candidates from all parties associated with the movement.63 But the results also indicated the movement’s limitations. The number of responses from outgoing TDs (thirteen) and Fianna Fáil candidates (eight) was low. Aiken regarded the questionnaire as having little importance, undermining the Fianna Fáil Senator (and IAAM supporter) Eoin Ryan’s assertion that his party’s candidates had not replied since they ‘were aware that the views of the party had been consistently expressed at the United Nations, and were well-known’.64 While the movement understood that there were ‘very few votes to be won by a public statement of issues touching upon race’, it could at least count itself part of the way towards achieving its goal of influencing official policy.65 With the IAAM increasing its influence in Ireland, events in Britain focused public interest on the apartheid issue. The inclusion of ‘coloured’ South African-born cricketer Basil D’Oliveira in the England squad and the subsequent cancellation of England’s tour of South Africa in 1968 inspired a group of anti-apartheid activists (‘Stop the Seventy Tour’) to protest against a proposed return visit. What began as a trial run for the cricket quickly focused on the South African (Springbok) twenty-five-match rugby tour of Britain and Ireland scheduled to begin in October 1969. The direct nature of the protests revealed a great deal about student confidence across Europe and the United States in the late 1960s. Student demonstrations against a Davis Cup tennis tie between Sweden and Rhodesia at Båstad in May 1968 have been viewed as ‘the first major manifestation in Sweden of the 1968 worldwide student revolt’, and the protests against apartheid

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in Dublin were symptomatic of the radicalisation of activism on the island of Ireland.66 In July 1969 the IAAM staged a protest against a cricket match between Ireland and an all-white South African team selected by the South African businessman Wilfred Isaacs. Dominated by a Co-ordinating Committee Against Racialism formed specially for the tour and made up of ‘members of various left-wing groups’, the protest quickly became more radical than the IAAM envisaged.67 While the movement picketed the entrances to the Leinster Cricket Ground in Rathmines, members of Committee threw smoke bombs on to the field of play, and three of its members sat on the crease until they were removed by Gardaí (police). The angry scenes were repeated in Britain, where the radical tactics of Stop the Seventy Tour’s organisers almost led the British AAM not to participate in its campaign. The protests themselves were sporadically successful. Two matches were cancelled – in Oxford protesters sprayed ‘Oxford Rejects Apartheid’ in weedkiller on the pitch; in Belfast the match scheduled for 29 November was cancelled owing to the threat the match posed to the maintenance of peace. And on 20 December, around five thousand people turned up at the demonstration at the international against England at Twickenham. Yet their efforts could not, as the head of Stop the Seventy Tour Peter Hain admitted, compete with the reaction that the South Africans received in Ireland in January 1970.68 The IAAM began its campaign early. On 8 January 1969 Noel Harris wrote to the Secretary of the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) to make ‘a final appeal . . . to reconsider your invitation’ to the Springboks.69 The response was unsurprising: within its jurisdiction the IRFU permitted ‘the playing of matches by its members against any team, regardless of race, nationality or political affiliations, which conforms to the accepted principles and disciplines of amateur rugby football’.70 IAAM letters to all Irish rugby clubs, leaflets at club matches, pickets and public meetings in opposition to the tour did little to change its attitude. Playing the match was not an endorsement of racism, it claimed, and as a body it existed ‘solely to foster, control and safeguard the game of amateur rugby in Ireland’ and would not ‘engage or take sides in any political controversy or agitation’.71 The success of the IAAM’s campaign lay not in its impact on the IRFU, therefore, but in the broad support it enlisted among the Irish public. Trade union support – built on what Michael Mullen called ‘one of the avowed principles for which the trade union movement stands, i.e. the brotherhood of man’ – was vital.72 The unions at times drew criticism, particularly for their suggestion of a media boycott, but the organisation they offered was central to the success of the protests. It

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provided the IAAM with the support of a sector of the population sorely missing in the movement’s previous campaigns. But it was not its sole success; the varied backgrounds of the 131 signatories to an IAAM declaration condemning the tour in December 1969 indicated the support it enjoyed across Irish society. Organisations as diverse as Bray Literary and Debating Society and Sinn Féin came out in opposition to the tour, and three rugby clubs – Greystones, Palmerston and Trinity College – refused to allow their grounds to be used for training purposes. Kader Asmal was in little doubt as to the importance of this popular support: ‘the captains and the kings . . . gave us public respectability, [but] the real passion came from the ordinary people of Ireland’.73 The breadth of this support did not go unnoticed by the Irish Government. In October 1969 Noel Dorr, an official at the Irish Embassy at the UN, commented that ‘recent developments in Dublin on the question of our attitude to Apartheid’ meant that the issue was likely to be ‘a particularly sensitive one for us this year’.74 The IAAM attempted to capitalise on this discomfort. In October 1969 it suggested to the Taoiseach (prime minister) Jack Lynch that ‘a restatement of your attitude to apartheid in sport would be of great significance and would be a concrete manifestation of Ireland’s policy as expressed at the United Nations’.75 A further letter called on the Taoiseach to ‘prohibit the all-white South African rugby team from entering Ireland’.76 To the IAAM’s disappointment, Lynch stood firm on the Government’s policy on sporting contacts: ‘I am not satisfied that the refusal of all contacts, including sporting contacts, with citizens of a country whose Government practises discrimination is necessarily the best way to end it.’77 Nor would the Government interfere with any sporting organisation on political grounds. Yet its confidence could not disguise the impact of IAAM pressure. President de Valera and all members of the cabinet declined to attend the match, and the Number 1 Army Band, which traditionally played at all internationals, withdrew its participation. In private the DEA admitted that it ‘would not be distressed if the visit were cancelled’.78 In January 1970, after months of campaigning to stop the visit, the IAAM changed its emphasis ‘to make the opposition to the tour so clear that no future invitation will be issued to a racialist South African team’.79 In fact, it benefited more from the exposure afforded to its protests than if the tour had been cancelled. Terence McCaughey recalled the tour’s impact among middle-class Protestants: ‘Some of them were very very angry and against it, but at least they were angry, instead of just ignoring us.’80 Austin Flannery emphasised that ‘the important thing was that there was a large crowd of Irish people [who] came

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together to protest about apartheid’.81 The Springboks’ visit became a central news story for the duration of their stay. Sixty protesters met the team on its arrival at Dublin airport on 7 January. The Starlight Hotel in Bray, where they stayed for their visit to Dublin, took on ‘the appearance of a place under siege. Gardaí protected every point, inside and out; the front doors were barred; the rear entrances were barricaded with vans and the fences were topped with barbed wire.’82 An attempt was made to throw a homemade incendiary device at the hotel, and several fake bomb warnings were phoned to its management. On 9 January, the day before the match, there were clashes between the Gardaí and protesters outside Leinster House after opposition TD Dr Hugh Byrne, branded ‘Fine Gael’s Enoch Powell’ by protesters, invited the Springboks on a tour of the premises. The following afternoon an estimated eight thousand protesters marched from Parnell Square to Lansdowne Road, where the international took place. The radical politics of the period went hand in hand with the IAAM’s broad support base. The march was led by the ITGWU band, whose members walked alongside the Workers’ Union of Ireland, the Dublin Trades Council, the ATGWU, Bray Trades Council, Limerick Trades Council and other trade union activists. Protesters from Connolly Youth and the Young Socialists with ‘short anoraks, long hair’ lined up alongside the trade unionists with their ‘short hair, long coats’.83 Banners from all Irish political parties were visible, as well as those of Coiste Cearta Sibhialta na Gaeltachta (the Gaeltacht Civil Rights Movement), People’s Democracy, Students for Democratic Action, and other social movements. Their banners said it all, among them ‘Boks Amach [Springboks out]’ and ‘Ná bac leis na Boks [Ignore the Boks]’. The march was headed by Patrick Lynch (Professor of Economics in UCD and chairman of the IAAM), Bernadette Devlin, Conor Cruise O’Brien and Alec Foster (a former Irish international). At the ground itself, Garret FitzGerald, Noel Browne and several members of the IAAM picketed the supporters who attended the match. The march passed off with only a few minor incidents. At the ground Gardaí had to step in to halt the exchanges of stones, fruit and eggs that flew between rugby supporters and marchers. Inside, Lansdowne Road resembled a prisoner camp. The small crowd of nineteen thousand watched from behind a cordon of barbed wire and a five-foot barrier of straw. That sense of siege and conflict extended to the protesters themselves. That evening the ‘whiff of Northern air’ the march brought to Dublin broke into further scuffles between Gardaí and members of People’s Democracy, Young Socialists and the Connolly Youth Movement outside the Royal Hibernian Hotel, where the IRFU treated

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the Springboks to dinner.84 Some of the protesters followed the visitors to Limerick for their match against Munster on 14 January. There they met with more fierce opposition from those who supported the Springboks and rejected perceived interference from Dublin. Local TD Steve Coughlan clashed with fellow Labour Party member Barry Desmond, and locals worried at the spread of Maoism in the city branded the protesters ‘left-wing political perverts’.85 ‘The coming of age of the politics of the street’ Though minor in comparison with the numbers that turned out in Dublin four days earlier, the four hundred protesters present in Limerick – and the counter-protests they generated – were evidence of the IAAM’s success. The huge public and media interest in the tour had involved an ever-widening number of people in the movement. But the vocal support base and cross-section of interests it now represented had another effect: it gave added legitimacy to the movement’s aims and its negotiating power with the Irish Government. Where once it might have been dismissed as a movement dominated by communists and ‘Trinity pinks’, the IAAM could now validly claim to speak for a large proportion of the Irish population. One IRFU official later admitted that, had the tour began in Ireland, the matches would almost certainly have been cancelled.86 The impact of the tour was not limited to the IAAM. The protests represented something more than a localised reaction to apartheid – they placed Ireland firmly within the milieu of international protest and linked its experience to a broader process of Western social and political change. The Irish Press felt that the march ‘marked the coming of age of the politics of the street’; it was symptomatic of the rejection of ‘everything symbolising the State’ among the youth in Western democratic society.87 Its consequences were equally widely felt, first in the British Isles, and secondly in the global campaign against apartheid. However bemused the Springbok team and its staff may have been at the reaction they received, it brought home to the South Africans the weight of public opinion against apartheid, at least in sport, and led indirectly to the introduction of the pseudo-integration laws in sport in 1971 and 1976. At home the IAAM’s success in persuading the Irish Government to boycott the match and the latter’s nervousness surrounding the tour indicated a radically different policy-making environment to that which had prevailed earlier in the 1960s. Then foreign policy had been the sole preserve of Aiken and the officials in the DEA, its influence at the

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UN of paramount importance to the Irish Government and its assertion of an independent role in international affairs. The situation looked a lot different in 1970. Aiken’s replacement by Hillery, the lessons of the Nigerian civil war and the strength of the IAAM’s campaigns taught Irish officials that they could no longer exclude public opinion in the formulation of foreign policy. The stronger language and voting pattern adopted at the UN testified to an Irish delegation struggling to come to terms with this increased influence from below and pressures from the continued re-definition of the country’s role in the international system. The extent of that change was more than evident to officials in the DEA. In May 1970, in response to a request from Hillery to investigate future roles for Ireland at the UN, Seán Ronan painted a disheartening picture for the ‘fire brigade states’: ‘it was very difficult any more to think of initiatives, even in the disarmament field where we still had a part to play . . . the only really new initiatives in the UN in the last couple of years had been the Swedish one on the Environment Conference and the Dutch one last year on hijacking’.88 Later that year the Irish Ambassador to the UN Con Cremin wrote an assessment of Ireland’s standing at the UN that carried an equal degree of realism and pessimism for the state’s future role. The Irish public, Cremin asserted, ‘tended to overestimate, or wrongly assess, our standing in the Organisation at given times’.89 In the General Assembly of 1970, ‘the need for intermediaries of the kind who proved useful in the late ’50s [was] no longer so great’.90 The Afro-Asian reaction to the ‘Irish Formula’ in the debate on South West Africa in 1967 was a perfect example of this change; Aiken’s attempt to propose a solution based on his and the other European moderates’ interpretation of the proper use of the UN’s institutions met with Afro-Asian intransigence. The power of the latter made Ireland’s realistic appraisal of the situation, based on the need to secure Security Council support for an end to South Africa’s mandate, unworkable, even as it adopted ‘a stronger line than the Africans themselves’.91 Yet Cremin’s and Ronan’s appraisals of Ireland’s role in international politics – while they carried a great degree of accuracy – adopted a typically narrow view of the potential Irish contribution to international relations. It was not enough to excuse the Irish Government’s inaction simply on the changed nature of the UN. The actions of the Nordic governments, including Finland which, in spite of its relatively conservative approach to international affairs, adopted a more active approach to the southern African question from the end of the 1960s, showed that considerable scope existed to pursue a constructive approach outside the narrow confines of the General Assembly. Whether through

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other institutions, such as the UNETPSA and UNTFSA or through their engagement in direct dialogue with the national liberation movements, the Nordic states (and the Netherlands, which adopted a similar line) took on an increasingly important role in promoting the end of minority rule in southern Africa by adopting a flexible approach to their principles of foreign affairs. In the early 1970s, the IAAM put increasing pressure on the Irish Government to do the same. How it reacted testified to its adaptation to its changing world role. Notes 1 NAI DFA 96/3/93, Desmond to Aiken, 5 May 1964. 2 Ibid., Ennis to Desmond, 25 May 1964. 3 For a general description of Irish pressure group activity in the 1960s and 1970s, see Maria Maguire, ‘Pressure Groups in Ireland’, Administration, 25: 3 (1977), pp. 349–64; and Basil Chubb, The Government and Politics of Ireland (London, 1970), pp. 97–119. For a description of pressure group activity in Irish foreign policy, see Keatinge, The Formulation of Irish Foreign Policy, pp. 267–94. 4 Keatinge, The Formulation of Irish Foreign Policy, pp. 214–15. 5 James Barber and John Barratt, South Africa’s Foreign Policy: The Search for Status and Security 1945–1988 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 153. 6 SWAPO statement quoted in Cooper, The Occupation of Namibia, p. 98. 7 Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock, ‘Rhodesians never die’: The Impact of War and Political Change on White Rhodesia, c. 1970–1980 (Oxford, 1993), p. 15. 8 Quoted in ‘Aiken Criticises Rhodesian Denial of Democracy’, Irish Times, 16 Nov. 1965. 9 Ibid. 10 NAI DFA 2000/14/45, DT press release, 12 Nov. 1965. 11 Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume I, pp. 331–2. 12 Quoted in ibid., p. 334. 13 ‘Government Impose Trade Sanctions on Rhodesia’, Irish Times, 12 Jan. 1966. 14 NAI DFA 2000/14/54, DEA memorandum for the Government, ‘Application of Economic Sanctions against Southern Rhodesia’, 22 Dec. 1965. 15 Conor Cruise O’Brien, Ireland, the United Nations and Southern Africa (Dublin, 1967), p. 8. 16 NAI DFA 2000/14/50, note by Donal O’Sullivan, 31 March 1966. 17 Soiri and Peltola, Finland and National Liberation in Southern Africa, p. 134. 18 NAI DFA 2000/14/47, extract from the memorandum for the Government on the 21st Session of the UNGA, undated [1966?].

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19 NAI DFA 2000/14/48, Government statement issued through the Government Information Bureau, 6 March 1968. 20 NAI DFA 2000/14/49, telex, DEA to PMUN, 30 Oct. 1968. 21 Dennis Kennedy, ‘Apartheid – A Test of International Consciences’, Irish Times, 21 Jan. 1970. 22 Seanad Éireann Debates, Vol. 63, Col. 399 (7 June 1967). 23 Ireland. Department of External Affairs, Ireland at the United Nations 1966 (Dublin, 1967), p. 18. 24 Ibid., pp. 18–19. 25 Quoted in ‘Aiken Maintains Stand on South-West Africa’, Irish Times, 20 May 1967. 26 NAI DFA 2000/14/266, quoted in Cremin to sec. DEA, 18 May 1967. 27 ‘Candid Aiken Unwinds on External Affairs’, Irish Times, 1 Nov. 1969. 28 NAI DFA 98/3/58, Donal O’Sullivan to sec. Dept of Finance, 5 Sept. 1967. 29 NAI DFA 2004/7/50, Brennan to Ronan, 2 March 1966. 30 Ibid., Ronan to Sec. DEA, 16 Aug. 1966. 31 Morgenstierne, Denmark and National Liberation in Southern Africa, p. 18. 32 Quoted in ‘Conor Cruise O’Brien Condemns Pusillanimous Rhodesia Policy’, Irish Times, 11 July 1966. 33 NAI DFA 2000/14/267, note, [Nolan?] to O’Sullivan, 16 Sept. 1967. Trade figures for 1965 from NAI DFA 96/3/95, ‘Note for the Minister’s Information: Ireland’s Attitude Towards the Apartheid Policies of South African Government’, undated [Oct. 1969?]; and figures for 1969 from NAI DFA 2005/4/11, ‘Trade with South Africa’, undated [March 1974?]. 34 UCDA Aiken Papers P104/7062, Aiken to Cordier, 23 July 1968. 35 Noel Dorr, UNGA Special Political Committee, 8 Nov. 1968, UNORGA, A/ SPC/SR.610. 36 NAI DFA 2001/43/77, McCann to Cremin, 26 March 1969. 37 Ibid. 38 NLI IAAM Papers Roll 3, Part 14.1, Fahey to IAAM, 5 Jan. 1968. 39 Soiri and Peltola, Finland and National Liberation in Southern Africa, p. 29. 40 Carol Coulter, ‘A View from the South’, in Michael Farrell (ed.), Twenty Years On (Dingle, 1988), p. 106. 41 Quoted in Ronald Fraser, with Daniel Bertaux, Bret Enyon, Ronald Grele, Béatrix le Wita, Daniele Linhart, Luisa Passerini, Jochen Staadt and Annemarie Troger, 1968: A Student Generation in Revolt (London, 1988), p. 205. 42 Doug McAdam and Dieter Rucht, ‘The Cross-National Diffusion of Movement Ideas’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 528 (1993), pp. 73–4. For a further analysis of civic activism, see Michael Edwards, Civil Society (Oxford, 2004); and Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (London, 1998).

156 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire Quoted in ‘Speakers Criticise Irish Government’, Irish Times, 10 April 1965. Interview with Asmal (19 April 2006). UCDA Desmond Papers P221, undated IAAM leaflet [1964?]. Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, Ireland and South Africa: The Case Against Apartheid (Dublin, 1965), p. 5. Lionel Fleming, ‘African Seeks Help in Freedom Fight’, Irish Times, 27 June 1968. Interview with Gearóid Kilgallen, Dublin, 9 Nov. 2005. Roger Fieldhouse, Anti-Apartheid: A History of the Movement in Britain – A Study in Pressure Group Politics (London, 2005), p. 57. Asmal and Hadland, Politics in My Blood, p. 49. NLI IAAM Papers Roll 1, Part 1, ‘Constitution’, undated [May 1965?]. Rob Nixon, ‘Apartheid on the Run: The South African Sports Boycott’, Transition, 58 (1992), p. 73. Ibid., pp. 75–6. Godwin and Hancock, ‘Rhodesians Never Die’, p. 38. NAI DFA 305/94 VI, hand-written note, Ronan to Ennis, 1 April 1965. NLI IAAM Papers Roll 5, Minch to Louise Asmal, undated [March/April 1965?]. Quoted in ‘Protests at International Rugby Match’, Irish Times, 12 April 1965. NLI IAAM Papers Roll 7, Part 25.1, Haughey to Desmond, 11 March 1965. NAI DFA 96/3/96, Ronan to Cremin, 31 Oct. 1966. The following analysis is based on an examination of the responses to the questionnaire and their collated totals by IAAM contained in NLI IAAM Papers Roll 8, Part 26.7.1. NLI IAAM Papers Roll 8, Part 26.7.1, Michael O’Leary’s response to IAAM questionnaire. ‘Candidates Are Against Apartheid’, Irish Times, 12 June 1969. ‘General Election’, Amandla, 4: 5 (May 1969). NAI DFA 96/3/93, Aiken to O’Connor, 6 June 1969; ‘Candidates Are Against Apartheid’, Irish Times, 12 June 1969. Kader Asmal to ed., Irish Times, 20 June 1969. Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume I, p. 348. ‘Protesters on Cricket Pitch’, Irish Press, 21 July 1969. Peter Hain, Don’t Play with Apartheid: The Background to the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign (London, 1971), p. 144. NLI IAAM Papers, Roll 5, Part 19.4.1.1, Harris to sec. IRFU, 8 Jan. 1969. Ibid., Towers to Harris, 31 March 1969. ‘Game Does Not Back Racial Laws – I.R.F.U.’, Irish Independent, 2 Dec. 1969. ‘Trade Unions’, Amandla, 4: 8 (Nov. 1969). Asmal and Hadland, Politics in My Blood, p. 49. NAI DFA 2001/43/77, Dorr to Ó Tuathail, 28 Oct. 1969.

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NLI IAAM Papers Roll 7, Part 25.1, Harris to Lynch, 30 Oct. 1969. Ibid., Harris to Lynch, 4 Nov. 1969. Ibid., Lynch to Harris, 10 Nov. 1969. NAI DFA 96/3/96, hand-written note by Brendan Gallagher, 8 Dec. 1969. ‘No Racialism in Rugby’, Amandla, 5: 1 (Jan. 1970). Interview with Rev Dr Terence McCaughey, Dublin, 30 Aug. 2005. Interview with Fr Austin Flannery, Dublin, 26 July 2005. Jim Eagles, ‘Barbed Wire and Pickets’, Irish Press, 8 Jan. 1970. Anne Harris, ‘The March to Lansdowne . . . As One Girl Saw it’, Irish Press, 12 Jan. 1970. ‘The Outdoor Life’, Irish Times, 12 Jan. 1970. ‘Scuffles as pro-’Boks group march’, Irish Press, 14 Jan. 1970. For Desmond’s side of the Limerick protests, see Barry Desmond, Finally and in Conclusion: A Political Memoir (Dublin, 2000), pp. 158–9. Interview with McCaughey (30 Aug. 2005). ‘Street Politics’, Irish Press, 12 Jan. 1970. Ronan to Cremin, 21 May 1970, NAI DFA 417/220. Ibid., Cremin to Ronan, 10 Sept. 1970. Ibid. ‘Aiken Asks UN to Act in S-W Africa’, Irish Times, 12 Dec. 1967.

7

Re-shaping the relationship Ireland, the EC and southern Africa

The Ireland that embraced the anti-apartheid message with such open arms during the 1970 Springbok tour was a very different place from that which existed ten, or even five, years before. Prompted by a realignment of the country’s economic priorities in the late 1950s, the growing affluence of large sectors – though not all – of its population brought Ireland increasingly in line with its counterparts elsewhere in the West. Where isolation and self-sufficiency had once been the watchwords of Irish society, internationalisation now became the key. With better jobs and access to disposable income came a desire for consumer goods and the embrace of Anglo-American popular culture. Ireland, like its counterparts elsewhere in the English-speaking world and across much of Europe, became part of an increasingly homogeneous ‘West’. The effects of this creeping globalisation were readily visible in the realm of international affairs, and in particular the area of human rights.1 The IAAM was connected through conversation and imitation to its counterparts in Britain, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and the United States. Events in Ireland echoed the spirit of protest that shaped much of the Western world in 1968, and were closely linked to similar efforts in Britain and campaigns against subsequent Springbok tours of Australia and New Zealand. The same was true of Africa Concern’s success in the field of humanitarian aid. That organisation’s provenance in Biafra, its aims and its tactics, identified it strongly with a rapidly growing global relief sector intent on bridging the gap between the West and the developing world. The changes in Irish society in the late 1960s had a further, if less immediately obvious, impact on the country’s political culture. In his 1971 analysis of the members of the Dáil, Brian Farrell commented that ‘Ireland, while retaining some traditional patterns and relationships in the recruitment of its political elite, is moving closer to the general norms of stable and mature political systems’.2 While the younger,

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more educated parliament did not bring about any significant change in the structures of the political system, it did have a discernable influence on the style and attitude of debate. Frank Aiken’s replacement by Patrick Hillery as Minister for External Affairs in July 1969 marked what Farrell described as a shift ‘from the so-called “revolutionary generation” of original Irish political leaders to a more professional political elite’.3 But Hillery was not chosen for his conciliatory response to growing public activism alone. Over the following three years the Minister played an important role in the Irish response to the crisis in Northern Ireland and in preparing the state for accession to the EC. Community membership from 1973 brought its own changes. It exposed the Irish Government and its population to new challenges and offered new opportunities to exert an influence as a member of one of the strongest political groupings in the world. The Fianna Fáil majority administration that guided the accession process was replaced in the spring of 1973 by a Fine Gael/Labour ‘national coalition’ whose cabinet and backbenches – including several TDs who had been elected for the first time only four years earlier – offered proof of Farrell’s argument for the transitory nature of the Irish political system. In foreign affairs the period was marked by both continuity, in the central principles adhered to by the new government, and change, in the opportunities offered by EC membership. It also had considerable consequences for the non-governmental sector. In the three years following the Springbok tour, the IAAM had a tangible impact on government policy and public discourse on southern Africa. The election of the coalition Government and Irish accession to the EC only strengthened its position, offering new avenues to pressurise policy-makers and encouraging cross-Community co-operation between similar issue groups. By the mid-1970s, the IAAM could count a number of cabinet members as active supporters, while its actions – including its protests against the British and Irish Lions’ rugby tour of South Africa in 1974 – were ever more strongly part of an international reaction against apartheid. A change is gonna come – southern Africa in the 1970s In its efforts to halt the advance of African nationalism within its own borders and the encroachment of what it termed ‘communist’ influence without, the South African Government continued to enjoy the support of the major powers in the West. Britain and the United States in particular were reluctant to upset the existing state of affairs, preferring to exaggerate the threat of communism and the apartheid regime’s role in promoting stability in the region. On the African continent, however,

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the South Africans remained pariahs, aided only by their Rhodesian and Portuguese neighbours and states like Malawi who broke with the broader line for the sake of economic benefit. It was a measure of how isolated the apartheid regime had become that Vorster’s visits to the Ivory Coast in September 1974 and to Liberia the following February were viewed a success by the watching world. Internally, after the relative inactivity of the 1960s, the years 1973 to 1976 saw renewed agitation among the indigenous African population, strike actions and widespread protest. In June 1976 the clashes reached a peak in Soweto when a massive demonstration by African schoolchildren against the use of Afrikaans as a medium for instruction escalated into serious unrest, with a death toll of around seven hundred by the end of the year. The violence drove large numbers of black South Africans over the borders into Botswana and Swaziland, where they proved eager recruits for guerrilla movements. Yet change was building across the region, where African nationalists took increasing heart from the success of their counterparts in the Portuguese territories and in Rhodesia. In 1970 the Vatican took the unprecedented step of granting an audience to the three main nationalist leaders from Portuguese Africa, and two years later the UN General Assembly voted to accord observer status to delegations from each of their movements. The Portuguese responded by stepping up their campaigns to new levels of political oppression and torture. In 1971 expelled White Fathers from Mozambique brought international media attention on the massacre of four hundred villagers at Wiriyamu. The publicity embarrassed Portugal’s NATO allies and brought the leading nationalist group, FRELIMO, moral and humanitarian support from the World Council of Churches. Elsewhere in the Portuguese territories, nationalist movements gradually increased their gains. In September 1973 the PAIGC declared Guinea-Bissau independent and the ‘state’ was admitted to the OAU two months later. Following the collapse of authoritarian rule in Portugal in the Revolution of the Carnations in April 1974, it became the first of Portugal’s African territories to gain full independence, followed by Mozambique (June 1975), Cape Verde (July 1975) and Angola (November 1975). But political freedom did not spell the end of the disturbances. In Mozambique and Angola the divisions that hindered nationalist development emerged into full-scale and bloody civil wars in both states soon after independence, their brutality accentuated by the intervention of the United States, the Soviet Union, Cuba and others. Namibia, as Frank Aiken had predicted in the mid-1960s, remained vital to the future of southern Africa. In July 1970 the Security Council

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asked the ICJ for an advisory opinion on the legal implications of South African control. Its conclusion was simple: the occupation of Namibia was unlawful, and should be withdrawn immediately. Yet the South African Government refused to be deterred. It followed its policy of racial division along the lines of the Bantustans until in September 1974 Vorster adopted a new strategy that has been described as ‘a neocolonial settlement . . . that would allow the government of South West Africa to be run by African collaborators’.4 Its activities also recognised the important role Namibia played in the wider stability of the region. South African involvement alongside opposition União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (UNITA) forces in Angola and the aid it gave to that organisation’s military campaign against the MPLA Government formed part of its policy of fostering destabilisation with the intention of securing Namibia from guerrilla attack. To its north South Africa faced another problem. As tensions escalated in Rhodesia and the effects of sanctions became increasingly visible, Vorster’s government worried about its ability to continue to prop up the minority regime. Like Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda and other African leaders, the South African premier wished to avoid a full-blown regional conflict and the potential consequences for South Africa that might result. Within Rhodesia the confidence shown by the regime in declaring the state a republic in March 1970 became increasingly eroded after 1972 when the British-led Pearce Commission, set up to investigate reactions to the proposed Rhodesian Front-written constitution, found an overwhelming majority of the African population against it. The decision changed everything. Spurred on by what they perceived as British neglect and the futility of negotiating with the Rhodesian Front regime, few African nationalists ‘genuinely believed in persisting with non-violent methods’.5 Within a short period the country had descended into a guerrilla war. It lasted almost until the end of the decade, when, in 1980, the new state of Zimbabwe was formed and majority rule put in place. Building on the Springbok tour – the IAAM, 1970–73 The support afforded to South Africa and Portugal by some Western governments was matched by increased popular backing for African political goals. Radicalised by the emergence of the European New Left, the Vietnam war protests and the events of 1968, public activism continued to increase in the Nordic states, while in the United States the anti-apartheid movement maintained its role as a leader of popular opinion. In Britain and Ireland the protests against the Springbok tour

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in 1969–70 tapped into a growing public discontent and made the antiapartheid movements look inwards at their structures and approaches. The organisers of the British AAM decided that it had ‘gone too far along the path of being a parliamentary pressure group and that it must go back to its origins and attempt again to build a grassroots movement’.6 In Ireland the experience of similar societal change and an equally strong reaction to the rugby tour offered the more youthful IAAM the opportunity to transform its fortunes and to establish itself within Irish society. The result of what it termed the raised ‘level of political consciousness’ amongst the Irish public was a growth in understanding of the effects of minority rule in southern Africa and increased awareness of the movement’s goals.7 The upsurge in public interest and, most importantly, the increased legitimacy it afforded to the movement made the IAAM’s demands more difficult for policy-makers to ignore. In the immediate aftermath of the Springbok tour the movement used its new-found position to target one of the more contentious aspects of the Irish Government’s policy on South Africa: the continued existence and extension of its trade with the apartheid state. There was much to criticise. Stimulated by remarks made by a South African official in the latter part of 1968 on the low levels of Irish exports to that country, in January 1969 the inter-departmental foreign trade committee agreed that CTT ‘should be informed that no Government policy would be contravened in encouraging selected Irish exporters to avail of the opportunities in that market’.8 In the coming months the board stepped up its investigations. Officials carried out a preliminary examination of potential sectors for Irish investment in July and August, and in October CTT invited the Commercial Counsellor from the South African Embassy in London to address a Dublin conference of Irish exporters. Yet CTT’s assertion that its role was ‘to serve the needs of exporters, to develop markets where the scope exists, and where there is no ban on such trade’ did little to impress the IAAM.9 Emboldened by increasing public interest in its Springbok campaign, the movement sought to highlight the inconsistencies in the Government’s policies. In July 1969 its newsletter Amandla described CTT’s activities as ‘increased collaboration with apartheid’, and in November condemned as ‘absurd as well as hypocritical’ the Government’s intention to increase trade ‘with a country whose politics we condemned’.10 Its protest outside the Dublin meeting organised by CTT for 21 October made clear its views. Labour’s Conor Cruise O’Brien argued that the occasion offered further evidence of a foreign policy that paid ‘lip service to principles . . . such as the “brotherhood of man regardless of race”, but on the strict understanding that

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where there is the possibility of a lucrative deal these principles will be regarded as irrelevant’.11 In previous years the IAAM’s influence might have begun and ended with declaratory statements like O’Brien’s. But in the midst of its protests against the Springbok tour, the public support the movement now enjoyed gave an added edge to its attempt to challenge official policy. In November 1969 it secured a meeting with Michael Killeen, CTT’s managing director, during which the latter agreed that his organisation would not exhibit at the segregated Rand Spring Fair. It was a minor victory; the IAAM was unsuccessful in persuading him to end the promotion of trade with South Africa. Yet the January 1970 protests transformed the movement’s profile as it continued to push for further concessions. On 4 February it wrote to CTT again, citing the ‘considerable public opposition that exists to any collaboration with apartheid’ – brought into the open by the Springbok visit – and ‘strongly urged’ the organisation ‘to abandon its promotion campaign for South Africa’.12 In a letter to George Colley, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, dated the same day, it adverted to the conflict between Ireland’s stance at the UN and the continued promotion of trade.13 The response it generated owed much to a changing culture within official circles. By 1969 the contradictions of the Irish Government’s stance were of increasing concern to DEA officials. Reflecting on the situation in November of that year Denis Holmes proposed a stark choice: that the Government either did something about trade ‘or modify our UN voting position’.14 He suggested that Ireland should either arrange ‘that in future neither CTT nor any other official body would be permitted to undertake any special trade development activities with South Africa’ or change its affirmative voting position to abstention on apartheid resolutions in the General Assembly.15 A month later, responding to a suggestion that an honorary trade commissioner for South Africa be appointed in Dublin, Holmes argued that while Irish policy at the UN did not mean the end of trade with South Africa, it did ‘require us to examine the desirability of continuing to encourage officially the large expansion of that trade which has taken place in recent years’.16 The protests against the Springbok tour had the desired effect. On 2 March 1970 George Colley informed the IAAM that while it was ‘not the Government’s policy to interfere with the activities of individual Irish firms wishing to trade with South Africa or to withhold normal facilities from such firms’, CTT would refrain from sending ‘any Trade Missions to South Africa, or organise such missions, and will not themselves directly engage in any activities aimed at promoting exports to that country’.17

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The gravity of Colley’s decision became evident when compared with Ireland’s progressive European counterparts. In its efforts to influence the Irish Government the IAAM claimed that ‘other countries, such as Sweden, do not apply sanctions yet are being careful not to increase trade with South Africa’.18 In reality it was more difficult to distinguish between the Irish Government’s policies and those of its Nordic colleagues. Throughout the 1960s Swedish officials actively engaged in the promotion of the state’s commercial interests in South Africa. Trade between the two states increased annually from the late 1950s and reached a short-term peak in 1975 with a balance of trade extremely favourable to Swedish exporters. But the parallels did not end there. The Swedes were equally wary of the pressures brought by vocal groups within civil society. One South African-based official noted in November 1970 that he was ‘authorised to conduct a certain number of export promotional activities, but it should be done in such a manner that those circles and news media in Sweden that oppose an increase of the Swedish-South African trade exchange will not be alarmed’.19 The Finnish Government took a similar line, although, like Sweden, as a proportion of overall trade the exchanges with South Africa were ‘minuscule’.20 A South African Embassy opened in Helsinki in 1967, and trade became the central source of communication between the two states. Colley’s decision put the significant gains enjoyed by the IAAM into practical effect. The movement may not have been as large or influential as its Nordic counterparts, but it was beginning to enjoy considerable success. Sport continued to be to the forefront. In South Africa the strains began to show among white sports men and women isolated by their exclusion from international competition. In the West anti-apartheid campaigners, buoyed by these signs of stress, continued to use the boycott to their advantage. In June 1971 students in Queen’s University, Belfast, forced the university rugby club to cancel a proposed tour to South Africa, and in December 1972 the IAAM persuaded the Irish Squash Rackets Association to cancel its international fixture with an all-white South African team. The movements’s success also spread to other areas. On 4 and 5 June 1971 the UN Special Committee on Apartheid visited Dublin at the movement’s invitation, where it met with Hillery and officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), Seán MacBride of Amnesty International, representatives of the ITGWU and members of the IAAM.21 The contrast between the Irish Government’s attitude to the committee’s proposed visit in 1969 (see Chapter 6) and its accommodating welcome on this occasion reflected its changed circumstances. In September 1971 the DFA provided

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IR£200 towards the costs of running an international conference on ‘The Churches and Racialism’ in Dublin, whose high calibre of speakers, including Ruth First (a South African author), Fr Michael Traber (a Swiss missionary deported from Rhodesia) and Bishop Donal Lamont, made it a highlight of the IAAM’s activities in the International Year against Racism. Keeping up appearances – Fianna Fáil and southern Africa The IAAM’s growing stature in Irish society affected the whole culture of policy-making in the DFA. At the UN the Irish delegation ‘almost contorted itself’ to find ways of voting for resolutions on apartheid that had previously been viewed as ‘extreme’.22 It co-sponsored resolutions at the Special Political Committee (along with the Nordic states, among others) calling for more educational material to be made available by the UN (1971), and condemning the use of torture against political prisoners by the South African Government (1972). The language adopted by its officials also grew increasingly condemnatory. Where once it had been highly critical of the Afro-Asian group’s misuse of the term, in an October 1971 address to the Special Political Committee Irish official Seán Ronan spoke of the ‘serious threat to international peace and security’ constituted by apartheid.23 Yet the charge of hypocrisy remained. In February 1971 Ronan noted that the Irish delegation tended ‘to vote for resolutions which contain clauses on which we abstain and on which we do not intend to act’.24 The difficulty – as always – lay in reconciling its more radical support with its continued adherence to a set of established principles. Willing to support any constructive move by the General Assembly to end apartheid, the DFA could not countenance recourse to sanctions or the expulsion of South Africa from the UN. Sanctions, they maintained, were a matter for the Security Council alone, and their efficacy remained questionable; ‘indeed their effect on the non-white population of the country may be so great as to vitiate their usefulness’.25 Expulsion carried equal risks. Irish officials argued that to isolate South Africa’s politicians and its population went against the whole spirit of constructive diplomacy and progress through assimilation; ‘exposure to the world community . . . hastens rather than retards the erosion of apartheid policies in South Africa’.26 Like its Nordic counterparts, the Irish Government’s approach continued to be built on a principled commitment to international co-operation and the pursuit of peace and stability through the rule of law. In discussions on Portuguese Africa at the UN, Irish officials,

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‘mindful of our own struggle for independence’, declared themselves strong supporters of self-determination, but also emphasised the need for a constructive approach.27 In December 1970, for example, the DEA had intended to match positive action by the Portuguese Government with a change in Irish policies, and was hindered in doing so only by an incident in West Africa; ‘were it not for [the] Secco [Security Council] mission’s report implicating Portuguese armed forces in [the] invasion of Guinea I would have been inclined to recommend abstention so as to encourage Portugal to go further on decolonisation’.28 A similar attitude marked its policies on Rhodesia. In December 1971 the Irish delegation abstained on a resolution in the Fourth Committee that called for the rejection of British settlement proposals for the territory. Irish official J. M. Craig told the assembled that his delegation was in favour of ‘no independence before majority rule’, but supported a process of ‘careful consultation with all sectors of the Rhodesian population’ to create a solution acceptable to the society as a whole.29 When the results of the Pearce Commission made clear the African population’s resounding rejection of the proposed constitution, however, the Irish delegation responded in kind. On 30 November 1972 it voted in favour of a draft General Assembly resolution on Rhodesia presented to the Fourth Committee (Britain, Portugal and the United States voted against) in the belief that the Rhodesian regime could no longer deny that ‘the majority .  .  . were willing and able to assume responsibility for the future development of their country’.30 Yet the desire to support self-determination continued to be matched by a more realistic appraisal of the situation. In the same debate, the Irish delegate Carmel Heaney stressed that ‘the administering Power [Britain] had to deal with a regime which, albeit illegal, was in de facto control of Southern Rhodesia. To disregard that reality would be of no service to the majority in Southern Rhodesia.’31 Instead she voted against a second draft resolution that accused the British Government of refusing to take measures against the regime. On the question of Namibia the Irish Government continued to be influenced by the formula put forward by Aiken in 1966. It supported the Security Council’s decision to send the question to the ICJ and voted in favour of a number of resolutions at the General Assembly, with its customary proviso that it could support only action taken by the Security Council. It withheld support for the Council and Commissioner for Namibia appointed by the General Assembly ‘since the Council is, on its own admission, incapable of carrying out its mandate’.32 It also kept in touch ‘on a fairly regular basis’ with Seán MacBride – former Irish Minister for External Affairs, co-founder of Amnesty International and

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former Secretary General of the International Commission of Jurists – who served as UN Commissioner for Namibia between 1973 and 1976.33 At each stage, a discernible difference remained between the attitudes of the Afro-Asian group and the ‘fire brigade’ states – driven largely by the latter’s emphasis on international law. Yet in spite of their shared approach, in private Irish officials were increasingly conscious of the gap in effectiveness between their policies and Nordic action. The Biafran crisis played an important role, focusing attention on the issue of humanitarian aid. While Denmark, Norway and Sweden forged ahead with extensive development assistance programmes, the Irish Government began its efforts to catch up, ‘concerned lest our extremely modest performance in certain important aspects of the aid field should subtract from the country’s general international standing and prestige’.34 Unfavourable analysis of Irish policies against ‘more or less comparable’ states – notably Denmark and Finland – led it to more than double its contributions to the UN assistance programmes in southern Africa; from $1,500 (UNTFSA) and $5,000 (UNETPSA) in 1970, to $4,000 (UNTFSA) and $8,000 (UNETPSA) three years later.35 In 1971 the Irish delegation also adopted a new date on which to announce its annual pledge: 21 March, the anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre. The focus on that day, they argued, emphasised the state’s ‘practical concern with the racial situation in Southern Africa, secures some publicity at the UN and . . . [was] pleasing to the [Irish] Anti-Apartheid Movement’.36 The contrast between Irish and Nordic policies was most apparent, however, in their attitudes to the national liberation movements that increasingly dominated the political agenda in southern Africa. Nordic solidarity groups had long courted direct links with the liberation movements, putting increasing pressure on their authorities to do the same. In May 1969 the Swedish Government made its first contribution to the PAIGC, later extended to ZANU, SWAPO, MPLA, FRELIMO and the ANC. Denmark, Norway and Finland soon followed suit. They framed their support in a manner in keeping with their broader approach to foreign affairs. The Swedish Government asserted that its assistance could ‘not be allowed to enter into conflict with the rule of international law, which lays down that no state has the right to interfere in the internal affairs of another’.37 Its Norwegian counterpart insisted that support be ‘solely humanitarian’ and was therefore concentrated, for example in the case of SWAPO, on work undertaken to assist refugees in neighbouring countries.38 When the Finnish Government introduced its first direct support in 1973 it included the assertion that it was ‘humanitarian aid which is not aimed to support armed or violent activities’.39

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In Ireland the IAAM and more radical elements in Irish society continued to make the most of their links with the liberation movements. The movement, Kader Asmal recalled, had a ‘close, intimate, virtually symbiotic’ relationship with the liberation movements based predominantly on his close links with the ANC and thus to its associates ZAPU, SWAPO, FRELIMO, PAIGC and MPLA.40 Yet the Irish Government remained acutely uncomfortable in its dealings with the same organisations. An approach by two representatives of ZAPU through the Irish Embassy in London for assistance in November 1965 was rejected. In June 1968 the DEA postponed its decision on an invitation to meet with the ANC leader Oliver Tambo until after hearing whether his remarks to an IAAM meeting would prove ‘too extreme or otherwise hostile to our policy’.41 There were other forces influencing the Irish Government’s reticence. In October 1971 DFA officials advised Hillery against receiving the PAIGC leader Amilcar Cabral on his visit to Dublin on the grounds that ‘the present situation in the Six Counties’ made it ‘inadvisable for him to receive a guerrilla leader’.42 Their concerns did not dissipate after the change of government in 1973. In July of that year, when the question of providing support to the liberation movements was raised among members of the Labour Party, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs Conor Cruise O’Brien informed his cabinet colleague Garret FitzGerald of the move, and his opposition to it. FitzGerald was largely in agreement. It was, he wrote, ‘far from easy to identify those who are genuinely representative of peoples oppressed by the apartheid system; and second, we could not condone many of the forms of protest carried out on behalf of these peoples’.43 In the Dáil the following February he was adamant that his government was ‘not prepared to support guerrilla activities’, although the decision not to offer material support did not preclude dialogue with the liberation movements.44 In September 1974 Peter Katjavivi, SWAPO representative in London, met officials of the DFA during a visit to Dublin. The National Coalition, the EC and southern Africa The difference between the Nordic approach and that of the Irish Government was not simply to do with the latter’s domestic problems with the IRA – though that was a sizeable factor. Irish politics lacked a presence like Olof Palme, the Swedish Prime Minister, whose left-leaning politics were cited by Holden Roberto, the leader of the American-backed Frente Nacional de Libertação de Angola (FNLA) in Angola, as the reason for the Swedish Government’s support for the Marxist MPLA.45 The adoption of more radical policies by the Nordic

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governments was a natural progression as the activists of the 1950s assimilated into their states’ political systems. In Sweden, for example, many of those who campaigned on behalf of southern Africa when members of a variety of student organisations and activist groups in the 1950s later joined the foreign service and worked in senior positions at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and SIDA, its development assistance division. Chief among them was Palme, former chair of the National Union of University Students’ international committee (1949–51) and president of the organisation (1953–53). In Ireland the roots of political change were less in student politics than in the arrival of a cohort of TDs equally concerned with the question of southern Africa. Barry Desmond, former honorary secretary of the IAAM, was elected to parliament for the Labour Party in 1969, along with party colleagues David Thornley, Justin Keating, and Conor Cruise O’Brien, all active supporters of the movement. Fine Gael’s spokesman on foreign affairs, Richie Ryan, its finance spokesman Garret FitzGerald, and the TD Declan Costello also offered considerable support to the movement. There were still very few votes to be won on foreign policy – one commentator noted in 1973 that it was ‘so far down the list of political priorities that annual party conferences tend not to reach it, and election candidates do their best to ignore it’ – but the appointment of the new Government had an immediate impact on the importance afforded to the southern African issue.46 The coalition cabinet contained five of the IAAM’s most prominent supporters: Richie Ryan (Minister for Finance), Michael O’Leary (Minister for Labour), Conor Cruise O’Brien (Minister for Posts and Telegraphs), Justin Keating (Minister for Industry and Commerce) and Garret FitzGerald (Minister for Foreign Affairs). There were limits, however, to the extent to which moral support could be translated into practical action. Tensions between liberal and conservative elements within Fine Gael translated on occasion – such as the march against the 1970 Springbok tour – into disagreement over the nature of the protesters’ tactics. The niceties of international diplomacy and the inner workings of the DFA also served as a brake on the ambitions of the IAAM. On 4 May 1973, for example, FitzGerald met a deputation from the movement during which the latter presented a memorandum detailing its concerns. The conversation was marked by mutual respect and commitment to the essential goal of African political freedom. Yet there were also clear boundaries in the two sides’ definitions of effective action. Rather than provide a template for radical reform, the DFA’s internal response to the proposals largely reiterated the previous administration’s policies in trade, travel and

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sport, and advised against support for IDAF in favour of international organisations like the UN and the Red Cross.47 The Department was more positive on Ireland’s new status as a member of the EC: ‘we should do what we can in the European Communities to ensure that they avoid policies which strengthen apartheid or forms of neo-colonialism’.48 By then the EC had assumed an increasingly important role in Irish foreign policy. In November 1972, two months before it officially acceded, the Irish delegation abstained on a draft resolution on South Africa before the UN Special Political Committee because the issue was ‘not sufficient to hold out against [the] rest of [the] 9 if they are in agreement’.49 The pattern continued under the national coalition. In December 1974 the Irish voted against the general resolution on apartheid at the UN for the first time on the grounds that it condemned those states with business interests operating in South Africa. Two years later it abstained on a General Assembly resolution that called for an arms embargo on South Africa, citing allegations made against a ‘friendly country’, and provoked the accusation that it bowed to ‘pressure’ from other Community members.50 Yet the Community did not enjoy the all-pervasive influence that some commentators afforded it. On the surface the emerging processes of European Political Co-operation (EPC) appeared to tie the Irish Government closely to the policies of the Community at large. In practice the nature and extent of that influence was often difficult to discern. The arguments put forward in shaping Ireland’s identity at the UN over fifteen years earlier were revisited by officials seeking to create a role for the state within the EC. In his submission to a Dublin conference of Irish Ambassadors and senior officials convened by FitzGerald in April 1973, the Irish Ambassador to Nigeria Tadhg O’Sullivan commented on the opportunities the Community offered ‘to exercise a useful intermediary role between the rich countries and the third world’.51 FitzGerald’s first major parliamentary speech as Minister less than a month later echoed this belief, asserting that the Irish Government’s attitude to decolonisation and apartheid would continue to be informed by the state’s ‘historic position as a nation which has suffered from colonialism and various forms of discrimination’.52 The essentially inter-governmental nature of the EC in practice also offered the smaller states like Ireland a greater voice in shaping Community policy. In an effort to maintain its diplomatic independence, the Irish Government aligned itself to the more progressive elements of the Community, particularly Denmark and the Netherlands  – against whose policies DFA officials consistently measured Irish actions. Studies of EC voting patterns at the UN bore witness to its success

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in maintaining an independent voice: Ireland continued to be one of the Community’s most progressive member states on decolonisation issues, and frequently diverged from EPC on the questions of South Africa and Namibia.53 The lesson of these activities was simple: just as the transfer from Cosgrave to Aiken in 1957 entailed the retention of the same core principles with the addition of a greater emphasis on taking an independent stance, so the coalition Government held to many of the core beliefs of its predecessor. The principles of international relations that drove successive Irish administrations to emphasise the distinctive role of small states in the promotion of international stability continued to be manifested in official support for a constructive approach to international relations. FitzGerald told the UN General Assembly on 24 September 1973 that his government would continue to work for an inclusive solution on southern Africa; the fears of the minority had to be taken into account ‘without our ever for a moment relaxing our abhorrence of the evil itself or ceasing to counter the attempts by reactionary elements in some countries to mitigate or explain away this most degrading of all repressive policies’.54 But this commitment to international law was matched by a strong belief in the right to self-determination. In October 1973 the Irish delegation co-sponsored a resolution at the UN Special Political Committee that condemned South Africa’s treatment of political prisoners, along with Australia, Austria, Finland, West Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden. In the aftermath of its vote against the general apartheid resolution in 1974, it made considerable efforts to be ‘as firmly positive as possible’ in voting on the other three apartheid resolutions before the Special Political Committee in order to balance the effects of its general vote.55 Three years later at a UN conference on apartheid in Nigeria, Irish officials voiced their concern, along with Denmark and the Netherlands, at Western arms supplies to South Africa. The final process of decolonisation in the Portuguese territories illustrated the complexity of the Irish relationships with the EC. In September 1973 the People’s National Assembly of Guinea-Bissau unilaterally declared its independence from Portugal, and made its application for membership of the UN. It provided the Irish Government with a test of its commitment both to decolonisation and to international law. In private the DFA felt that ‘it would serve the Portuguese right if an independent Guinea-Bissau were recognised by the UN’, but it was far from convinced that the Irish Government should recognise the new state.56 Alignment with EC policies was also viewed as important, but within that context officials emphasised the need to co-ordinate

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closely with Denmark and the Netherlands, both of which had invested significant amounts of humanitarian aid in the region, had ‘clear anticolonialist policies’ and had ‘excellent means of assessing African conditions on the spot as we have not’.57 There were also a number of more fundamental factors to consider, not least the legality of the new regime. Cremin told the UN General Assembly plenary meeting on 2 November 1973 that the ‘information available does not in our judgement establish that Guinea-Bissau has as yet acquired the characteristics of a State’.58 In this the Irish approach again closely paralleled that of its Swedish counterparts. In spite of the direct humanitarian assistance it gave to PAIGC from 1969, the Swedish Government did not feel that GuineaBissau met its criteria for state recognition: ‘that the Power to be recognised has gained a reasonable degree of external independence that is fairly generally accepted by the rest of the world’.59 Yet the Irish Government’s recognition policies could also be used to enforce a more openly political agenda. After the fall of the Caetano regime on 25 April 1974, the EC assumed an important role in the promotion of a stable and democratic future for Portugal. In a speech in November of that year, FitzGerald framed the Portuguese transition to democracy directly in terms of the EC’s involvement, particularly the strengthening of the Community’s economic relations with the state.60 Diplomatic exchange and dialogue – as well as the EC’s indirect influence – played an important role in the gradual promotion of Community values and norms, as the later accelerated membership negotiations for Portugal, Spain and Greece illustrated. It put the onus on each individual member state to contribute to the effort. Yet it also offered an opportunity to re-assert Ireland’s own diplomatic identity. In support of the Portuguese Government’s steps towards independence, in July 1974 the Irish Government agreed to recognise Guinea-Bissau ‘when Portugal has done so’.61 But it was viewed as additionally important ‘that Ireland should be among the first of the West European countries to recognise the new Republic [since] Ireland has, over the years, consistently affirmed the right to self-determination and independence’.62 The segregation game: Sport and apartheid While Irish officials acclimatised themselves to the new policy-making environment of the EC, at home the IAAM continued to influence public and official attitudes to southern Africa. In March 1973 FitzGerald overruled DFA officials to recommend that the Department of Defence refuse special leave of absence to Lieutenant Dan Shanahan to travel with the Irish hockey team on its tour of South Africa, Rhodesia and

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Malawi.63 Later the same year the DFA tackled what it later described as ‘the most difficult “Rhodesia problem” the Dept. has faced’: the inclusion of a team representing Rhodesia in the World Ploughing Championship in Wicklow that October.64 The issue was seized upon by the IAAM, who lobbied the Government to refuse entry. Rhodesia’s involvement, the movement contended, was ‘an implicit denial of the magnificent principles of fraternity and equality which [the organisers] themselves espouse’.65 The DFA agreed. FitzGerald and his officials were concerned that to allow admission to the Rhodesians would contravene Security Council resolution 253 under which member states were prohibited from engaging in cultural relations with the rebel regime. FitzGerald felt that their admission ‘would not go unnoticed abroad and would not enhance our standing, particularly at the United Nations’.66 When it proved impossible to stop the Rhodesians from accessing the state – because, the Department of Justice informed the DFA, the Rhodesian participants intended to travel on British passports – the cabinet refused to attend the event, in order to ‘manifest their unwillingness to participate in an international meeting of this kind involving as it does a Southern Rhodesian presence’.67 The Government’s continued refusal to interfere with any Irish sporting organisation disappointed the IAAM, but the reaction to the Rhodesians’ arrival testified to its success in influencing the Irish response to apartheid in a much broader sense. On 20 May 1974 the UN Special Committee on Apartheid convened in Dublin to celebrate the IAAM’s tenth anniversary, an occasion the movement viewed as ‘a measure of the importance of the contribution to international action that Ireland has made’.68 It could reflect on a decade of growth and some significant successes, not least the Springbok protests and the decision to stop trade promotion in South Africa. In June 1973 the new Labour Minister for Industry and Commerce Justin Keating – one of those who had picketed CTT’s meeting with South African trade officials in October 1969 – made it ‘official policy not to seek new investment from that quarter’ and promised that the Industrial Development Authority would do the same.69 When the committee arrived in Dublin, the IAAM was in the throes of another rugby campaign against the British and Irish Lions tour of South Africa and Rhodesia in the summer of 1974. Acting as part of Stop the Apartheid Rugby Tour, a conglomeration of anti-apartheid groups founded in Britain in the autumn of 1973, the movement enjoyed moderate success. In February 1974 three Cabinet Ministers (FitzGerald, Keating and O’Brien) were among those who signed the IAAM’s petition against the tour. On 1 April FitzGerald wrote an open letter to the

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IRFU in which he called on the union to reconsider its decision and to ‘appreciate that, in participating .  .  . they are setting the Olympic principle at nought’, warning of the IRFU’s responsibilities to Rhodesia and Namibia in terms of the UN’s attitudes to both.70 Yet the outcome of the campaign was in many ways typical of the IAAM’s standing in Irish society. Success on the field – the Lions won twenty-one of their twenty-two matches, drawing the other – overshadowed the protests. While the movement convinced a good many Irish citizens of the merits of change through isolation over change through association, not all supporters were willing to marry sport with politics. A letter from the Irish Hockey Union to the IAAM in March 1974 was indicative of this position: ‘Our disapproval of the practice of racial segregation in South Africa or elsewhere is .  .  . approached quite differently but nonetheless sincerely from the manner or methods which you would appear to urge upon us.’71 The failure of the cultural boycott, re-launched in June 1974 as the ‘No Collaboration’ campaign, evidenced the difficulty in transforming the growing awareness of the IAAM’s goals into sustained protest. The movement openly admitted that it could not hope to compete with the marketing budgets of South African industry: ‘we must continue to rely on the efforts of members to take our material to the shops and shoppers’.72 Yet this form of individual protest could be, and often was, successful. In 1974 the IAAM’s executive established a sub-committee under the direction of Tony Ffrench to deal with the question of Irish emigration to southern Africa.73 The disruption of interviews became one of the movement’s most effective forms of private action, and Ffrench – in the words of one former IAAM member – became ‘the master of the art’.74 Using a variety of pseudonyms, Ffrench disrupted numerous interviews with a vehement rejection of apartheid principles. Bishop Donal Lamont and the creation of modern Zimbabwe While Ffrench and his colleagues in the West protested on behalf of the indigenous African populations, the Pearce Commission’s resounding rejection of the Rhodesian constitution in 1972 strengthened the determination of African nationalists to go down the path of violent liberation. As they had done in Biafra, many Irish Catholic missionaries identified closely with the cause of their parishioners caught up in the escalating civil war. The Carmelite Order, concentrated in Umtali diocese on the border with Mozambique, was especially vulnerable, but after some initial difficulties developed a good working relationship with the guerrillas. Bishop Patrick Mutume remembered that some

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Irish priests were ‘so much on [the guerrillas’] side that you had to sort of warn them that . . . you could not show that visibly. It could be dangerous.’75 The Carmelite missionaries may have disliked the ‘seigneurial style’ of their bishop, Donal Lamont, but, as David Maxwell noted, they ‘appreciated that his pastorals did at least go some way towards reflecting the needs and aspirations of rural Catholics’.76 Born in Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, in 1911, Lamont had joined the Carmelite Order immediately from school, going on to spend six years in Rome (1933–39) at the height of Italian Fascism. After being ordained as a priest in 1937, he went to Southern Rhodesia in 1946, first to the missions at Inyanga, then as parish priest in Umtali and, from 1957, Bishop of the new Diocese of Umtali. Informed by his experiences in Rome, Lamont was outspoken from his first days as Bishop. His assertion that Rhodesia was, in spite of its claim to uphold Christian ideals against communist encroachment, not a free Christian society led him to be regarded as a prominent voice in favour of African independence. He frequently met with British officials – who respected his knowledge of the local situation – and in October 1974 denounced the Rhodesian Government at the Fourth International Synod of Bishops in Rome ‘for holding on to power through a policy of oppression against the majority African population’.77 As President of the Rhodesian Justice and Peace Commission between 1974 and 1976 he oversaw the publication of detailed reports on torture and intimidation by Rhodesian Security Forces. Lamont’s outspokenness made him a thorn in the side of the Rhodesian Government, which viewed him as ‘a person who was using the church to support terrorism’.78 It also made him a marked man. In an effort to discredit the bishop, rumours circulated of Lamont’s ‘alleged liaisons with African women’.79 In September 1976 Lamont was arrested and the following month was sentenced to ten years in prison with labour. Aged sixty-five, he had his sentence commuted the following March, was stripped of his Rhodesian citizenship and deported. Lamont’s actions were largely removed from his native Ireland, but he continued to be a source of information for the Irish Government. On his visits to Rome he met frequently with Irish Embassy officials in the Holy See. He kept in contact with Kevin Rush (brother-in-law to Lamont’s brother), and appeared to have enjoyed a good relationship with Aiken.80 His appearances on the ‘Late Late Show’ in October 1972, his links with Trócaire – on whose behalf he did some preaching in 1974 – the frequent phone calls he received from the IAAM during his trial and the tenor of his speeches suggest that for many he symbolised

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an Irish abhorrence for repression and racist rule. His vocal support for the rights of the African population echoed Irish public and official attitudes to colonialism and was presented in a manner akin to that in which Ireland’s own policies were viewed. When he was sentenced in 1976, the Irish Government described him as ‘an Irishman who has given his life to the service of people of all races in his community and has won respect throughout the world for his devoted efforts on their behalf’.81 Re-shaping the relationship: Ireland, the EC and the developing world The explicit and recurring reference to Ireland’s past in the construction of its present diplomatic identity was returned to, and in many ways strengthened, after the state’s accession to the EC. The core beliefs remained: a commitment to self-determination, the rejection of state repression, and – in reference to the principles assumed by the state after 1922 – the promotion of international peace through the pursuit of an independent, non-aligned (in lower case) attitude that aimed to judge issues on their own merits. Ireland’s position within the EC reflected the role it had cultivated internationally in the previous eighteen years of UN membership. In recognition of the country’s small state status, Irish officials were conscious of the limits prescribed by the EPC and Community structures, and the political influences of its fellow member states. But – as the Irish delegation had done at the UN – they also attempted to promote a distinctly Irish identity within the Community framework. The state adopted a constructive role in shaping EC policy on southern Africa. It continued to identify itself strongly with the ‘fire brigade’ group of moderate states – in this case the more progressive members of the Community, Denmark and the Netherlands. The approach accepted the limits of Irish influence, but attempted to maximise its potential by pursuing policies within the Community that were broadly in keeping with its goals. Hillery admitted as much in the year prior to accession: ‘the role of [the Irish] Government is not to try to impose a grand “foreign policy design”. It is rather to steer and develop our many existing contacts in accordance with some general ideas of what we stand for and what we want to achieve.’82 It was a little disingenuous of British officials to comment that in EC membership the Irish Government had ‘found a second string for a bow which for too long has had a single Anglo/Irish string’.83 The Irish contribution to the UN had been more important than they

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suggested. By the early 1970s, however, whatever influence Ireland and the other ‘fire brigade’ states had enjoyed in New York had waned considerably. EC membership gave the Irish and Danish governments a renewed opportunity to voice their opinions on world affairs as shapers of policy and – their officials liked to imagine – voices of reason in Community debates. The Irish Government assumed a role on issues in which its influence would otherwise have been marginal, such as the attempts to stimulate democratisation in Portugal through Community assistance. But that process also demonstrated continuity with past Irish Government policies and downplayed the extent to which EC membership altered Irish attitudes. The continued high correlation between Irish Government policies and those of its Nordic counterparts on issues from sanctions and the expulsion of South Africa to trade and the recognition of Guinea-Bissau, situated Irish policy within both an EC and a grouping of progressive Western states. The comparison with the Nordic states is additionally important in examining the changes within Irish society and domestic influences on foreign policy. The similarities in debate, discussion and the individual societies’ reactions to international events situated the Irish foreign policy-making process in an entirely different context from what it had been twenty years before. The tone and direction of debate had changed considerably. The central point of reference in discussing South Africa was no longer the Boer war but the agenda set by the IAAM during the Springbok tour with its emphasis on the struggle of the African population against segregation. The change in tone affected the process of policy-making and visibly changed its outcomes. The Irish delegation at the UN voted in favour of increasingly radical resolutions as it attempted to match public pressure with positive action. The decision to end trade promotion with South Africa was significant, particularly when compared with the approach of the Swedish and Finnish governments. Along with the large increases in Irish contributions to UNTFSA and UNETPSA, it was made in recognition of the growing scrutiny of Irish policy and the necessity to match rhetorical with practical support. The contributions to the UN funds carried an additional importance. Just as membership of the EC defined Ireland’s traditional relationship with the developing world in a new context, the increasing commitment to development assistance altered the very nature of that relationship. By 1975, when Ireland assumed its first presidency of the EC and oversaw the final negotiations of what became the Lomé Agreement with the developing world, the extent of its impact became more readily apparent.

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1 For a brief history of the re-emergence of human rights as a topic for international debate, see Michael Cotey Morgan, ‘The Seventies and the Rebirth of Human Rights’, in Niall Ferguson, Charles S. Maier, Erez Manela and Daniel J. Sargent (eds), The Shock of the Global: The 1970s in Perspective (London, 2010), pp. 237–50. For a history of human rights in the postwar period, see Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann (ed.), Human Rights in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, 2011); and Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (London, 2010). 2 Brian Farrell, ‘Dáil Deputies: “The 1969 generation”’, The Economic and Social Review, 2: 3 (April 1971), p. 324. 3 Ibid. 4 Cooper, The Occupation of Namibia, p. 102. 5 Martin Meredith, The Past Is Another Country: Rhodesia 1890–1979 (London, 1979), p. 103. 6 Christabel Gurney, editor of Anti-Apartheid News (1969–79), quoted in Fieldhouse, Anti-Apartheid, p. 477. 7 IAAM, Annual Report 1970–71 (Dublin, 1971), p. 9. 8 NAI DFA 96/3/95, ‘Foreign Trade Committee: Minute No. 2727: Trade with South Africa’, undated [9 Jan. 1969?]. 9 ‘TDs Join in S. African Picket’, Irish Times, 22 Oct. 1969. 10 ‘Irish Sell-Out in South Africa’, Amandla, 4: 5 (July 1969); ‘Córas Tráchtála Collaborates with South Africa’, Amandla, 4: 8 (Nov. 1969). 11 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 241, Col. 1927 (28 Oct. 1969). 12 NLI IAAM Papers, Roll 7, Part 25.1.2, Harris to Barnes, 4 Feb. 1970. 13 Ibid., Harris to Colley, 4 Feb. 1970. 14 NAI DFA 96/3/95, hand-written note, Holmes to sec. DEA, 4 Nov. 1969. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., Holmes to sec. DEA, 4 Dec. 1969. 17 NLI IAAM Papers, Roll 7, Part 25.1.2, Colley to Harris, 2 March 1970. 18 ‘Irish Sell-Out in South Africa’, Amandla, 4: 5 (July 1969). 19 Quoted in Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume II, p. 214. 20 Soiri and Peltola, Finland and National Liberation in Southern Africa, p. 146. 21 Note that the department changed its name from External Affairs to Foreign Affairs in March 1971. 22 Interview with Dorr (12 April 2005). 23 Ireland. Department of Foreign Affairs, Ireland at the United Nations 1971 (Dublin, 1972), p. 81. 24 NAI DFA 2005/145/30, Ronan to sec. DEA, 18 Feb. 1971. 25 NAI DFA 2004/7/48, Keating to sec. DFA, 30 Oct. 1972. 26 NAI DFA 2002/19/3, note by Ó Tuathail, ‘Apartheid item – Special Political Committee: Explanation of vote after voting’, 24 Nov. 1970.

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27 NAI DFA 2002/19/12, explanation of vote on UNGA Fourth Committee Resolution on Portuguese Territories, 20 Nov. 1970. 28 Ibid., hand-written note, McCann to Hillery, 8 Dec. 1970, appended to Ronan to McCann, 7 Dec. 1970. 29 J.M. Craig, UNGA Fourth Committee, 16 Dec. 1971, UNORGA, A/C.4/ SR.1972. 30 Carmel Heaney, UNGA Fourth Committee, 30 Nov. 1972, UNORGA, A/C.4/ SR.2009. 31 Ibid. 32 NAI DFA 2005/145/1234, extract from memorandum for the information of the Government on the 26th Session of UNGA, 17 Sept. 1971. 33 NAI DFA 2006/131/75, Kennedy to sec. DFA, 5 Feb. 1976; Elizabeth Keane, Seán MacBride: A Life (Dublin, 2007), pp. 212–23. 34 NAI DFA 98/3/58, Donal O’Sullivan to sec. Dept of Finance, 7 Aug. 1969. 35 Ibid., DEA memorandum for the Government, ‘Proposed Contributions to International Aid Agencies’, 5 Oct. 1970. 36 Ibid., De Paor to Keating, 14 March 1973. 37 Standing Committee on Appropriations of the Swedish Parliament, quoted in Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume I, p. 17. 38 Eva Helene Østbye, ‘The Namibian Liberation Struggle: Direct Norwegian Support to SWAPO’, in Eriksen (ed.), Norway and National Liberation in Southern Africa, p. 91. 39 Soiri and Peltola, Finland and National Liberation in Southern Africa, p. 103. 40 Interview with Asmal (19 April 2006). 41 NAI DFA 96/3/93, Holmes to Ennis, 26 June 1968. 42 NAI DFA 2002/19/12, unsigned DEA note, 26 Oct. 1971. 43 NAI DFA 2005/145/1365, FitzGerald to O’Brien, 17 July 1973. 44 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 270, Col. 1113 (20 Feb. 1974). 45 Sellström, Sweden and National Liberation in Southern Africa: Volume I, p. 411. 46 Dennis Kennedy, ‘Foreign Policy Is Far Down the List’, Irish Times, 20 Feb. 1973. 47 NAI DFA 2005/145/30, Power to Keating, 20 June 1973. 48 Ibid. 49 NAI DFA 2004/7/48, hand-written note, McCann to Keating, 1 Nov. 1972. 50 Keatinge, A Place Among the Nations, p. 175. 51 NAI DFA 2005/145/2348, ‘Conference of Heads of Mission, 16th and 17th April 1973: Views of the Ambassador in Lagos [Tadhg O’Sullivan] on the Future Development of Irish Foreign Policy’, 31 March 1973. 52 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 265, Col. 750 (9 May 1973). 53 Patrick Keatinge, ‘Ireland: Neutrality inside EPC’, in Christopher Hill (ed.), National Foreign Policies and European Political Cooperation (London, 1983), p. 144; and Rosemary Foot, ‘The European Community’s

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76

Ireland, Africa and the end of empire Voting Behaviour at the United Nations General Assembly’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 17: 4 (June 1979), p. 355. For a discussion of EC voting patterns at the UN in the 1970s, see Hurwitz, ‘The EEC and Decolonisation’; Foot, ‘The European Community’s Voting Behaviour at the United Nations General Assembly’; and Beate Lindemann, ‘Europe and the Third World: The Nine at the United Nations’, The World Today, 32: 7 (1976), pp. 260–9. Garret FitzGerald, UNGA Plenary Meeting, 24 Sept. 1973, UNORGA, A/ PV.2125. NAI DFA 2005/145/32, DFA note, ‘UN Resolutions on Apartheid Voted in the Special Political Committee on 28 November 1974’, dated 2 Dec. 1974. NAI DFA 2005/145/201, O’Riordan to Cremin, 19 Oct. 1973. For a history of Irish recognition policy, see Paula L. Wylie, Ireland and the Cold War: Diplomacy and Recognition 1949–63 (Dublin, 2006). NAI DFA 2005/145/201, O’Riordan to Cremin, 19 Oct. 1973. Con Cremin, UNGA Plenary Meeting, 2 Nov. 1973, UNORGA, A/PV.2163. NAI DFA 2005/145/201, note by Keating re meeting with Swedish Ambassador to Ireland, 23 Oct. 1973. Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 275, Col. 921 (5 Nov. 1974). NAI DT 2005/7/500, DFA memorandum for the Government, ‘Recognition of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau’, 31 July 1974. Ibid. See NAI DFA 2005/145/31. NAI DFA 2005/145/154, hand-written note, Craig to ‘Ken’, undated. ‘World Ploughing Championships’, Amandla, 8: 6 (Oct. 1973). NAI DFA 2005/145/154, Keating to sec. Dept. of Justice, 25 July 1973. NAI DFA 2005/145/154, GIB press release, 17 Sept. 1973. ‘Ten Years of Solidarity with the Peoples of Southern Africa’, Amandla, 9: 4 (May 1974). NLI IAAM Papers, Roll 7, Part 25.1.2, Keating to Flannery, 22 June 1973. Quoted in ‘Implications of S.A. Rugby Tour Explained by FitzGerald’, Irish Times, 2 April 1974. NLI IAAM Papers Roll 5, Part 19.4.1.2, Atkinson to Meek, 8 March 1974. IAAM, Annual Report 1973–74 (Dublin, 1974), p. 4. The following observations are based on two interviews conducted with Tony Ffrench, Dublin, 1 Dec. 2005, and 2 Feb. 2006, and on private documents in his possession. Interview with Kilgallen (9 Nov. 2005). Quoted in Janice McLaughlin, ‘Avila Mission: A Turning Point in Church Relations with the State and with the Liberation Forces’, in Ngwabi Bhebe and Terence Ranger (eds), Society in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War (Oxford, 1996), p. 94. David J. Maxwell, ‘Christianity and the War in Eastern Zimbabwe: The Case of Elim Mission’, in Bhebe and Ranger (eds), Society in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War, p. 73.

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77 John Cooney, ‘Irish-Born Bishop Denounces Rhodesian Regime at Synod’, Irish Times, 3 Oct. 1974. 78 Former Rhodesian Special Branch officer, quoted in McLaughlin, ‘Avila Mission’, p. 91. 79 TNA FCO 87/208, McConville to Byatt, 11 July 1973. 80 Thanks to Mr Desmond Lamont for this information. 81 NAI DFA 2006/131/123, DFA press release, ‘Statement by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr Garret FitzGerald, on the Passing of Sentence on Dr Donal Lamont in Rhodesia on 1 October 1976’. 82 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 260, Col. 385 (18 April 1972). 83 TNA FCO 87/181, Donnelly to White, 7 Nov. 1973.

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‘If we’re Christians at all’ Irish foreign aid

The radical hue that the events of 1968 brought to the anti-apartheid campaign was matched by considerable change in the field of foreign aid. Biafra was at its heart. From the images of starving refugees that appeared on television screens in June of that year to the collapse of the rebel regime eighteen months later, the crisis fundamentally altered the West’s relationship with the developing world. It catapulted NGOs to prominence in the field of disaster relief. It prompted international agencies, including the World Bank, to re-consider their attitudes to poverty and economic development. Among the middling powers – particularly the Netherlands and the Nordic states – it sparked immediate increases in official development assistance (ODA). But the most important changes came from below. Across the West the activities of NGOs, missionaries and church bodies, and the involvement of large sections of society in fund-raising and public campaigning generated greater awareness – however un-nuanced at times – of the difficulties facing the developing world. Ireland was no different. In December 1970 S. K. Dey, the Deputy Secretary General of the International Voluntary Service organisation, told a Dublin audience of the West’s ‘moral, intellectual, and spiritual obligation to help our neighbours in need’.1 His call to action fell on open ears. In the same month Africa Concern’s chief executive John O’Loughlin Kennedy travelled to East Pakistan to assess the aftermath of a cyclone that claimed half a million lives and caused enormous damage to property. It marked the organisation’s return to the theatre of emergency relief, and led to both a name change (to Concern) and a long-standing relationship with independent Bangladesh. But Concern was not alone. Gorta, the ICJP and Trócaire (created in 1972) all helped to focus public attention on the country’s responsibilities towards the developing world. Volunteerism took a central role. In the 1960s Viatores Christi, with its Catholic ethos and missionaryinfluenced structures, provided a conduit for young Irish men and

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women to work in the developing world. The emergence of a growing NGO sector in the early 1970s inspired the search for a more structured approach. In September 1971 a group led by George Dawson, professor in genetics at Trinity College Dublin, put forward a set of detailed proposals to the DFA for a state-funded scheme to send trained Irish volunteers to the developing world.2 The proposals went largely ignored, but by 1973 ever-greater numbers of Irish men and women followed that path, through a variety of organisations, from Concern and Gorta to Christian Aid and the CMS. Up until then, popular support for the voluntary sector had translated into limited government action. The level of official aid remained pitifully low at just 0.036 per cent of GNP in 1972.3 All that was about to change. After the World Bank’s influential 1969 publication Partners in Development (known as the Pearson Report after the chairman of its investigative committee, the former Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson) identified Ireland among the twenty-one industrialised countries in the world, it became difficult to argue that the country’s economy excused it from contributing to development assistance, or that missionary activity was a sufficient substitute for official aid.4 Growth in Irish NGO activity brought greater involvement among the Irish public, stimulated greater awareness of the developing world and put pressure on the Irish Government to match public support with official action. Changes from above were also important. Accession to the EC in January 1973 brought increased scrutiny on Ireland as the only member state without a structured aid programme. But it was the election of a new government in the same year that proved most significant. In his first major parliamentary speech as Minister for Foreign Affairs, Garret FitzGerald accepted the need for ‘a real and substantial improvement in the level of Irish Government aid to developing countries’.5 It marked the first step towards a major reform of the Government’s attitudes and the introduction of a structured programme of foreign aid. Yet a number of questions remained. How and why did the Irish aid sector emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s? What role did events outside Ireland’s borders – from the example set by its ‘fire brigade’ counterparts to the influence of the EC – play in shaping its attitudes to aid? And what were the implications for the country’s diplomatic identity and its relationship with the developing world? The international development debate From its emergence in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, foreign aid quickly became an integral part of international

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relations. Its origins lay in the May 1943 UN Conference on Food and Agriculture at Hot Springs, Virginia; in the creation of the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in the same year; in the restructuring of the global economic system at Bretton Woods in 1944; and in the success of the Marshall Plan’s long-term capital transfers to restructure the European economy. But it was the inclusion of the ‘Point Four’ programme – the provision of economic and technical aid to the developing world – in United States President Harry Truman’s inauguration speech in January 1949 that marked the beginning of the foreign aid regime in its modern form. Within a few short years the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain began to engage in the kind of activity that could be defined as ODA, providing aid directly to developing world states for the purposes of accelerating the latter’s economic development. By the mid-1950s, the question had become even more pressing. Encouraged by the United States, the West saw it as crucially important to persuade the newly independent states of Asia and Africa, as Schmidt and Pharo put it, ‘that the economic system of the Western world was indeed superior to the communist system’.6 Or as D. K. Fieldhouse argued more cynically, Western aid aimed ‘to buy the continued friendship and political and economic collaboration of the prospective successor regimes’.7 Yet a parallel narrative of foreign aid existed alongside this race for political, cultural and economic influence. Among the ‘fire brigade’ states aid became part of a broader commitment to international law, the primacy of international organisation and the struggle to reduce the inequalities that threatened global security. In the 1950s Denmark, Norway and Sweden were among the most vocal proponents – against American opposition – of the Special UN Fund for Economic Development (established in 1953) and its successor, the UN Special Fund (1959). A strong multilateral aid sector emerged, populated by a number of UN organs, including UNICEF, UNESCO, the Economic and Social Council, the FAO, the WFP and the UN Development Programme. From 1964 the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) offered a voice for the developing world and non-aligned states to shape the aid agenda. These organisations joined a number of alternative international agencies formed between 1958 and 1962 that tied aid to conditions shaped by the Western powers: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank’s International Development Agency and International Finance Corporation, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and the EC’s Development Fund.

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The religious influence in these developments was not indiscernible. In addition to the moral imperative they ascribed to citizens in the industrialised world to assist their less well off neighbours, the Christian churches set definite goals in the pursuit of those responsibilities. In 1958 a World Council of Churches meeting at Nyborg in Denmark first put forward the formulation that developed states should donate 1.0 per cent of GNP to ODA. That figure was adopted by the first UN Development Decade in 1961, and later revised downwards to 0.7 per cent for the Second Development Decade to match the recommendations of the Pearson Report. By then the Catholic Church had provided an added impetus to the global debate on development. Pope Paul VI’s 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio and the widespread involvement of Catholic missionaries in projects on the ground woke large sections of Western society to their obligations in the field. By the end of the 1960s the effects of this international debate grew increasingly visible. The Pearson Report made a significant contribution, broadly establishing the norms of foreign aid as they are viewed today: a moral imperative, but one which plays an important role in the preservation of international security through the elimination of poverty. But its publication also marked the end of the first era of foreign aid. As the results of the international community’s initial efforts became visible, a process of revision and adaptation began. Pearson had called for a massive injection of resources to meet the challenge of under-development and endorsed the target of 0.7 per cent of GNP for ODA, with the explicit recommendation that the figure should be reached by 1975. In practice, although the target remained out of reach of most donors, ODA figures grew rapidly, with a parallel growth in private financial flows from the West to the developing world. In 1970 the Netherlands contributed 0.61 per cent of GNP to ODA, followed by Denmark (0.38 per cent), Sweden (0.38 per cent) and Norway (0.32 per cent).8 By the end of the decade, the Netherlands had surpassed the 1.0 per cent mark, with Denmark, Sweden and Norway close behind, all above the UN target of 0.7 per cent. The discussion on target figures and motivations for foreign aid was matched by a parallel debate on the manner in which those contributions were utilised. It mirrored political changes in the developing world. In the 1950s development approaches emphasised the importance of comprehensive economic planning. In the 1960s, after the large majority of states had become independent, they looked to specific theories of economic growth. As debate became more nuanced and the developing world found its collective voice, two approaches took centre stage in the 1970s: poverty alleviation, and the search for a complete restructuring of the global economy.

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Ireland, Africa and the end of empire Freedom from hunger: Irish foreign aid in the 1960s

Prior to 1968 the Irish public and government officials were largely divorced from these debates. In the NGO sector the activities of the FFHC under the Irish Red Cross and Gorta (see Chapter 5) were not enough to stimulate widespread public interest in development issues. Efforts to suggest that the Irish people ‘should increase our public contribution to international aid’ met with an apathetic response.9 The Irish public and its officials preferred to argue that the state’s relative economic under-development and the work done by its missionaries exempted it from considering any significant monetary contribution. Biafra changed all that. To stories of conversion and adventure in far-flung parishes, missionary magazines added a new emphasis on ‘the condition of millions of people in the under-developed part of our world’.10 The discussion turned inwards, to what the Irish could and should contribute to those less well off. At the August 1968 Social Studies Conference in Antrim, for example, Robert Cashman, VicePresident of the Superior Council of the St Vincent de Paul charity, was highly critical of the public contribution to development assistance. In times of disaster like Biafra, he told the audience, ‘people responded generously, but in normal times .  .  . Asians and South Americans suffer from disease, hunger and malnutrition without the Irish people as a whole being involved’.11 He was not alone in his attitudes. The ICJP, formed by the Catholic hierarchy in October 1969, provided an organised voice for the church’s new aspirations. The following year it published The Third World War, a short booklet written by its secretary Jerome Connolly, in which he outlined the myriad problems facing the developing world. In keeping with the times, Connolly did not hold back in criticising the Irish response. The public did not realise ‘how serious their obligations were’, he warned, and mistakenly felt that ‘whatever this country does will make little or no difference internationally, because it is so small and insignificant’.12 Similar criticisms were levelled at the Irish Government. The programme established in 1960 to make up for Ireland’s economic deficiencies by providing technical expertise to the developing world (see Chapter 1) had by the end of the decade failed to live up to its promise. In its first three years it provided for a number of basic schemes introduced by the Departments of Health and Education to allow medical staff and teachers to work abroad, and for the ad hoc training of individual African officials in Ireland. But there was little attempt to create a comprehensive structure for its implementation. The programme relied instead on individual relationships to stimulate activity. In June

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1963 James Skinner, an Irish barrister and adviser to Kenneth Kaunda, the Minister for Local Government and Social Welfare of Northern Rhodesia and soon-to-be President of independent Zambia, visited Paul Keating at the Irish Embassy in London to discuss the possibility of providing work placement in Ireland for a number of ‘future Civil Servants and technicians who will be available and trained when they come into power as they expect to do’.13 The relationship became the most fruitful element of the Government’s commitment to technical assistance. In 1964 and 1965 a total of fifty Northern Rhodesian/ Zambian officials were trained under a scheme run by the Institute of Public Administration (IPA) at the request of the Irish Government. Smaller numbers followed – including a number of Zambian Army cadets trained at the Curragh – and many Irish men and women went in the opposite direction to work in the institutions of the fledgling state. Yet the success of the Zambian contacts could not disguise the shortcomings in the Government’s overall approach to foreign aid. Demands placed on developing world governments to contribute the cost of living for their officials for the duration of their stay in Ireland greatly reduced the attractiveness of the technical assistance scheme. DFA officials showed little enthusiasm for promoting their efforts in the field of aid. The Overseas Trainee Fund created in February 1964 ‘to assist in the training in Ireland of nationals of the young African and Asian States in administration, management and technical skills’ received minimal support.14 By 1967 the scheme had virtually come to a halt. That year’s IPA annual report noted that ‘if technical assistance in the field of administrative training is to be provided in this country for developing countries in Africa and elsewhere, it will involve carrying out some preliminary work in the countries in question and by offering financial assistance towards the cost of travel, tuition and subsistence’.15 The will, it implied, did not exist to do so, and the Government appeared uninterested in rectifying the situation. Biafra focused attention on these shortcomings. An internal analysis of the Government’s aid policy ordered by Patrick Hillery shortly after his appointment as Minister in July 1969 described it as ‘rather haphazard and not related to any systematic plan’.16 The comparisons between the Irish Government’s performance and that of its ‘fire brigade’ counterparts also became increasingly difficult to ignore. At the beginning of the 1960s Irish ODA stood at 0.046 per cent, Danish ODA at 0.09 per cent and Norwegian ODA at 0.11 per cent. By 1970 the gap had widened considerably, with Ireland’s contribution at 0.03 per cent, Denmark at 0.38 per cent and Norway at 0.32 per cent.17

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A new internationalism: Aid and Ireland in the early 1970s It was the non-governmental sector, however, that continued to lead the argument for change. After its expulsion by the Nigerian Government at the end of the Biafran war, Africa Concern pledged to act as a relief channel ‘for as long as the people of Ireland continue to be concerned with the welfare of their less fortunate brothers’.18 In 1971 it focused its efforts on Pakistan, where civil war in the East had forced millions of refugees into worsening conditions in camps across India. In February 1972 the organisation moved its operations into newly independent Bangladesh, marking its first foray into the field of long-term assistance. As the decade progressed, Concern continued to expand its activities – to Ethiopia, Yemen, Tanzania, Uganda and Thailand – and its growth had a significant knock-on effect on the aid sector in Ireland. Gorta, badly affected by Concern’s success during the Biafran crisis, struggled to define a role for itself in its aftermath. While it continued spending on a familiar scale and with a wide geographical base, its activities were hindered by internal difficulties that in 1974 and 1975 brought its Irish structure to a virtual standstill and undermined public confidence in the organisation. In 1972 Gorta gained another significant competitor in the form of Trócaire, the Catholic bishops’ development assistance fund. Originally formed by the hierarchy in October 1969 as a means ‘to channel funds to under-developed countries’, Trócaire remained idle until the IR£60,000 collected by the church for Pakistani refugees and the public reaction to Concern’s work in Bangladesh prompted the bishops to resurrect it in 1972.19 Under the eyes of its director Brian McKeown, the ‘new’ organisation set out to offer a channel through which Irish Catholics could ‘express their commitment on an ongoing basis to the needs of the Third World’.20 Its objectives were twofold: to distribute financial aid to various relief projects across the world, and to educate the Irish public about the issues of poverty and under-development. Trócaire was immediately successful. The organisation’s first major fund-raising effort, the Lenten campaign launched in March 1973, raised IR£460,000, which it spent in areas as diverse as Asia, Africa, South America and the Caribbean.21 Activity on this scale had an additional, and equally important effect: the promotion of foreign aid as a subject of widespread public interest. Launching the 1975 Lenten campaign, Trócaire’s Chairman Bishop Eamon Casey commented that a greater public understanding of development would put ‘more pressure on the Government . . . to increase its aid to the Third World countries’.22 The organisation was

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more than aware of its potential to stimulate policy change. That year the Lenten campaign raised IR£650,000, leading the organisation’s director Brian McKeown to lament the shortcomings of government action: ‘Unfortunately, the response of the government, in terms of what it is giving in aid this year, does not reflect the commitment of the people . . . In fact the Government now lags far behind the public in its commitment towards the Third World.’23 But the drivers of change were not limited to the field of fund-raising. Concern, Gorta and Trócaire formed part of a cohort of Western NGOs at the forefront of an emerging culture of international humanitarianism that linked foreign aid to renewed debates on human rights. The parallel concepts of ‘interdependence’ and ‘internationalism’ that organisations like the French NGO Médecins sans Frontières emphasised marked an equally significant shift in thinking at state level. Although the ideal of a ‘world community’ remained out of reach, aid, human rights and recognition of the need for reform in the West’s economic relationship with the developing world created new norms and patterns of behaviour that altered the shape of international relations in the 1970s.24 Significantly for Ireland, these debates had strong resonance in Europe – particularly within the EC, where they stimulated renewed scrutiny of the direction and scope of Community aid. In 1972 the Commission published its Memorandum on a Community Policy for Development Co-operation, the Council of Ministers held its first debate on the subject and, significantly, the Paris conference of the heads of state and government in October acknowledged the EC’s determination ‘to increase its efforts in aid and technical assistance to the least favoured people’.25 Pressures from the Community, from the example set by its peers in northern Europe and from within Irish society had a visible impact on Irish Government attitudes to foreign aid. As early as 1970 Irish officials noted that theirs was the only of the three applicant states to the Community not to be a member of the DAC, ‘a fact which marks us apart’.26 Over the following three years DFA officials emphasised the need for Ireland to live up to its obligations at the world organisation, particularly in the context of the UN Second Development Decade. The absolute values of Ireland’s contributions to the UN agencies – the primary channel for Irish ODA – also increased, by over 90 per cent, from $237,000 in 1969–70 to $451,800 in 1972–73.27 For those members of the Irish public whose expectations in the field of aid had been raised by Biafra and the growth of the NGO sector, however, the Government’s activities still came nowhere near those expected of a country with such a strong rhetorical commitment to

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the developing world. Irish ODA actually fell in this three-year period, from 0.04 per cent of GNP in 1969–70 to 0.036 per cent in 1972–73.28 While these figures could be partly explained by the vagaries of economic growth, they could do little to hide serious shortcomings in the Government’s attitude to foreign aid. The inter-departmental committee on development assistance, set up as a result of the re-think of policy instigated by Hillery, had little impact. The Dawson group’s high-level proposals sent to the Government in September 1971 for an officially sponsored volunteer programme went largely ignored.29 And, stung by Africa Concern’s activities during the Nigerian civil war, the DFA continued to eschew any formal collaboration with Irish NGOs. Comparisons with the members of Ireland’s peer group at the UN threw the Government’s shortcomings into sharp relief. Not only did Irish ODA remain far behind Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, it continued to trail states Irish officials recognised as directly comparable, including Austria and Finland. But the differences were not only visible in the budgets allocated to foreign aid. The more flexible approach adopted by these states to the crisis in Biafra, to the UNETPSA and UNTFSA and to providing direct humanitarian support for liberation movements in southern Africa was echoed in their approach to NGOs. In November 1967 the Canadian Government initiated a programme which provided official funding through NGOs on a project-by-project basis. The reasoning behind it contrasted starkly with the Irish Government’s conservative approach. Maurice Strong, the Director General of Canada’s External Aid Office, spoke of his desire for the Canadian Government ‘to harness the substantial resources which exist in the private sector’, and was given the scope and funding to do so.30 A similar programme was in operation in the Netherlands, where from 1965 the Government provided public finance for private development agencies, amounting to $8 million in 1970.31 The birth of the official Irish aid programme Two events in 1973 were pivotal in altering the direction of Ireland’s official aid policy. The first was the country’s accession to the EC.32 At a practical level membership necessitated an immediate and unavoidable Irish contribution to the Community aid budget (although not the European Development Fund (EDF), to which Ireland did not subscribe until 1975). But it was the EC’s new and energetic embrace of development aid that had a more lasting impact. At a meeting of the Community working party on development co-operation in February 1973, Irish official Jim Flavin argued that his country should be excused

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its under-performance ‘as a country which is a substantial net importer of capital and which lacks the traditional and historical ties which give rise to bilateral assistance’.33 A year later, however, the growing consensus on the importance of aid created norms of behaviour to which the Irish Government was anxious to conform. Preparing for a cabinet debate on a proposed new development assistance programme in April 1974, the DFA noted the ‘adverse effects which a lack of responsiveness in the aid field could have on the attitude of other Member countries to Ireland’.34 Yet the EC could only go so far in shaping the Irish response. As Carol Lancaster’s study of five major donors highlighted, external influences were ‘most effective where they resonated with internal constituencies for development aid’.35 In Ireland Community membership provided the catalyst, but the election of the Fine Gael–Labour coalition, and particularly the appointment of the pro-aid FitzGerald as Minister for Foreign Affairs, proved vital in shaping the Irish approach to foreign aid. In his first speech to the Dáil as Minister in May 1973, FitzGerald emphasised the need ‘to contribute to the Third World in a manner and to an extent that will meet our obligations, satisfy the desire of [the] Irish people to play a constructive role in this sphere, and add to our moral authority in seeking to influence constructively the policies of other developed countries towards the Third World’.36 The following month, prompted by an approach from George Dawson and T. K. Whitaker on their proposals for a voluntary agency that had lain idle under the previous administration, FitzGerald persuaded the Government to create an ‘Interim Agency for Personal Service in Developing Countries’. In March 1974 the organisation was established on a permanent basis as the Agency for Personal Service Overseas (APSO), funded by a grant-in-aid from the Government (IR£150,000 in its first year), with a professional chief executive (Bill Jackson) and a governing council elected by its members.37 Providing up to 75 per cent of the costs of sustaining volunteers, APSO was a particularly Irish response. The organisation’s ethos, FitzGerald told those assembled for its launch in April 1974, reflected the continued interest among Irish people ‘in personal service in the cause of the less fortunate of our fellow beings’.38 It built on strong foundations developed through Irish missionary involvement in education and welfare provision, in the link they created in Ireland with the developing world, but also in the increasing involvement of lay Irish graduates in development work through organisations like Viatores Christi and later Concern. But APSO was just one element of the coalition Government’s programme for official aid. By FitzGerald’s own admission, the

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proposal had come to it almost fully formed and required very little in the way of adaptation before it could be implemented.39 The more difficult process took place in the course of the following twelve months as officials from the DFA and the Department of Finance exchanged views on how best to structure Ireland’s obligations – including the level of financial contributions involved – to the developing world. It began with a series of government promises to expand the official aid budget. In his speech to the Dáil on 9 May 1973 FitzGerald outlined his government’s intention to ‘increase substantially .  .  . the sum provided for official development aid and thereafter to increase the annual level of this assistance in absolute terms and as a percentage of our GNP in a planned manner over a period of years’.40 A week later his colleague, the Minister for Finance Richie Ryan, reiterated this promise to ‘develop a comprehensive programme of official aid’, while recognising that working out the detail of the programme ‘will take some time’.41 The commitment was cemented at an OECD meeting in Paris on 8 June, when FitzGerald underlined the Government’s intention to double the volume of ODA in the coming financial year.42 Official promises and general statements of support were more easily made than implemented however. The economic crisis precipitated by OPEC’s decision to raise energy prices made Department of Finance officials all the more unwilling to commit the Government to a longterm spending strategy in the field of development aid. It took almost a year for the Government to work out, and agree on, the details for an official aid programme. Even then, the final cabinet decision to approve the outline programme was a close one. At a government meeting on 26 April 1974, an unusually small quorum of ministers accepted the programme by four votes to three, the balanced tilted by one minister who told his colleagues: ‘If we’re Christians at all, we must agree to this’.43 The programme provided direction to Irish commitments in the field, if less in the way of detail. It was predicated on the need to increase actual spending on foreign aid, to develop ‘a comprehensive and coherent’ programme for aid and to establish ‘adequate implementation machinery for the regular review of the aid programme’.44 It planned for an annual growth in ODA of 0.05 per cent, with the aim of meeting Irish obligations to the EC, increases in its contributions to the UN voluntary agencies and the development of a balanced programme of bilateral aid. The money was to be distributed across four sectors. Cash grants and capital subscriptions consisted of mandatory payments through the EC, the World Bank and the International Development Association, voluntary contributions to the UN agencies, the International Labour Organisation and other similar bodies, and a future set of bilateral aid

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projects. Food aid, through the Food Aid Convention and the EC’s food programme, was seen as ‘a sector of aid in which Ireland has a special interest and competence’. Technical assistance was to be provided through APSO and the Overseas Trainee Fund, which allowed individuals from the developing world to obtain professional training in Ireland. A disaster relief fund offered the Government scope to ‘have resources available to respond rapidly when disaster strikes’. Outside influences were openly in evidence in shaping the Irish programme. In its efforts to persuade the Government of the necessity for foreign aid, the DFA highlighted the ‘unfavourable contrast’ between Ireland’s performance and that of Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Belgium and the Netherlands.45 Expectations from within the EC that member states would live up to a set of international norms for aid-giving proved even more influential. It was no coincidence, for example, that FitzGerald chose a meeting of the European Council of Ministers in Luxembourg at the end of April 1974 as the venue to announce the completed scheme. It broadcast to the Commission and its fellow member states that the Irish Government intended to fulfil its responsibilities in the field of development aid, meeting both its own moral obligations and those befitting a member state. Although Ireland’s relative economic under-development temporarily exempted it – along with Italy and Luxembourg – from the EC’s commitment to reach the 0.7 per cent target made at the same meeting, FitzGerald made sure to stress his government’s plan to increase ODA. Its goal of reaching 0.35 per cent of GNP by the end of the decade, he told the Council, entailed a more rapid expansion ‘than almost any other Member State’.46 Yet the Community was not the only, or even the primary, reference point for the Government’s approach to foreign aid. The Irish experience could best be explained by comparison with a state outside the EC but within Ireland’s wider peer group: Finland. Both countries shared a similar outlook on the role of small states, the UN and international law, and in the field of aid were significantly influenced by the example of their regional counterparts. Where the Community played an important role in gently pushing Irish policy-makers in the direction of a structured aid programme, Finland’s first development co-operation project – in Tanganyika in 1962 – was a joint Nordic undertaking. The following year Finland’s state committee for international development aid outlined the guiding principles for the Finnish aid programme. They included, like Ireland, an emphasis on the role of the UN, but the common interests of the Nordic states, and co-operation between those countries remained to the forefront. Finland, the committee argued,

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should not stand aside from this ‘form of activity in international co-operation which is becoming more and more important’.47 The similarities did not stop there. Both countries exhibited a reliance on multilateral channels for aid, and in their infancy – as Kiljunen noted in the Finnish case – lacked ‘comprehensive guide-lines . . . consequently the policy pursued was rather in response to day-to-day, political requirements’.48 In both cases, too, policy and a detailed structure for foreign aid were developed only as the volume of aid increased and experience grew stronger. Aid and Irish diplomatic identity in the 1970s In practical terms FitzGerald’s announcement to the European Council in April 1974 was only the beginning. The real work came afterwards: in the selection of the priority countries for Irish bilateral aid, in putting together the structures to implement the programme, and in persuading the Government to match the DFA’s verbal commitments with increased spending at a time of strict financial stringency. In 1974 a development co-operation division was created in the DFA. In 1975 the semi-state agencies came together under the Development Cooperation Organisation (DEVCO) umbrella, to co-ordinate their activities in the field. The same year, John Kelly, the Government’s Chief Whip, was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the DFA with special responsibility for development aid. At each step, the role played by the developing world, and Africa in particular, in shaping Ireland’s diplomatic identity was reinforced. By the mid-1970s India, Lesotho, Sudan, Tanzania and Zambia had been identified as ‘priority’ states for Irish bilateral aid. Although the choices were at times haphazard – the selection of Lesotho owed much to a chance meeting between FitzGerald and two Lesotho Government representatives on a plane returning from a meeting between the EC and African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states in Jamaica in July 1974 – the criteria involved in their selection drew a strong line to Irish priorities at the UN twenty years before. They included the states’ relative needs, the ‘political regime’, ‘existing links with Ireland, including the presence of missionaries and voluntary bodies’, and ‘the prospects for linkage with trade and other activities’.49 Administrative structures  – familiar from a common experience of British rule – and the use of English as the working language of government were important. So too was the presence of Irish missionaries in some of the territories. Wider political considerations were also taken into account – three of the African states (Lesotho, Tanzania and Zambia) were on the ‘front

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line’ of the struggle against minority rule in southern Africa. FitzGerald recounted that Lesotho had been chosen ‘because it was surrounded by South Africa and it needed particular help for that reason’.50 Yet with India dropped as a priority country by the late 1970s, when officials claimed that Irish assistance could have little effect in such a large state, one obvious question remained: why the concentration on Africa? At a time when Irish NGOs were diversifying their geographical bases (Concern in Bangladesh in 1972; Trócaire from its inception through projects across Latin America, Asia and Africa; and Gorta in the same regions), there was no compelling reason for the Irish Government to limit most of its efforts to the Africa continent. Nor was the decision easily explainable in a comparative context. Irish bilateral aid to India could effectively be discounted owing to the small size of the contributions, but for other states India and Pakistan were considered amongst the most politically profitable areas for foreign aid simply because of the visibility they afforded to donors. The Irish concentration on Africa also bore little relation to the policies of other ‘fire brigade’ states: Canada’s early bilateral aid was concentrated largely in Asia, Norway’s initial bilateral agreements were with India and Pakistan, and Sweden first gave bilateral aid to Ethiopia and Pakistan. Why, then, did the Irish Government choose Africa? The decision might be explained by reference to broader international patterns in the 1970s. The OECD noted that flows of aid to Africa increased substantially in that decade, ‘reflecting both the higher priority accorded to sub-Saharan Africa by official development agencies and a willingness of export credit agencies, banks and multilateral development lending institutions to increase their exposure in Sub-Saharan Africa’.51 Disasters like the drought in the Sahel and improved African investment in areas like agriculture, industry and infrastructure made donors more willing to provide assistance to the continent. Wider European patterns were also important. The EC concentrated its aid entirely on its Associated States in Africa prior to the signing of the Lomé Convention in 1975, generating a further emphasis on the continent in European debates on development assistance. Nor was the decision without precedent in Irish policy. The technical assistance programme established in 1960 concentrated solely on Africa, and set a trend for the following decade. That decision was based on both political considerations – the prominence of the newly independent African states and the promotion of international stability through development – and the influence of African-based Irish Catholic bishops who pressed the Irish Government to assist the emerging states. But neither could fully explain the emphasis on Africa in Irish foreign

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aid. Areas of Asia, like the Philippines for example, were equally underdeveloped, posed a similar potential threat to international stability, had an Irish missionary presence and fulfilled similar criteria to the priority states, such as using English as a working language of government. One must look instead to the less easily quantifiable but equally influential popular image of Africa. The image of the continent created by missionaries in the minds of the Irish public (see Chapter 1) dominated the country’s perceptions of the developing world. The ‘penny for a black baby’ campaigns and other missionary activities, including their involvement in Biafra, crudely equated Africa with poverty and underdevelopment to a degree not associated with Asia or Latin America. Neither was the kind of extensive missionary work undertaken in sub-Saharan Africa entirely similar to that which took place in Asia, for example, where the presence of large Muslim communities created an altogether different attitude among the Irish public, including to development assistance. Missionary activity helped to foster the kind of response seen during Concern’s work to alleviate the East Pakistan/ Bangladesh famine in 1971–72, but it was more frequently visible in relation to Africa, beginning with the Biafran crisis and reinforced by the continued media spotlight on disasters such as the famines in Ethiopia and the Sahel region in the early 1970s. Once the precedents had been set with the location of the first Irish FFHC project in Tanzania, the response to Biafra, and the considerable concentration of Irish NGO projects in Africa, it became difficult to divest the public of the popular emphasis on the continent in relation to development assistance. There was admittedly a random element to the selection of the individual priority states – as the Lesotho case highlighted – but for Irish officials it made sense to build on public sympathies with Africa and concentrate the state’s limited resources in an area in which it felt it would see the greatest return. The concentration on Africa also fitted well with the Government’s attempt to shape Irish identity on the world stage. Foreign aid drew together two core elements of Irish foreign policy: what Ben Tonra termed the ‘global citizen’ conscious of its responsibilities towards the UN and the developing world, and the ‘European republic’ eager to live up to its role as a modern European state.52 At its heart lay a renewed commitment to a number of long-established principles: the pursuit of justice; the creation of stable, independent states; and an emphasis on the concepts of interdependence and collective security. But it also carried responsibilities befitting a member of the world’s largest regional economic grouping, the EC. Where once these principles had been translated into Irish support

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for the decolonisation process, by the mid-1970s the world’s attention focused on the issues of aid and development. OPEC’s controlled rise in the price of oil in 1973–74 caused massive disruption to the economies of the developing world and made the 1970s the decade in which ‘malaise’ became ‘a transnational problem’ in the West.53 These developments had a significant impact on attitudes to global economic reform. In Ireland Trócaire borrowed heavily from contemporary Christian teaching – notably the 1971 document issued by the international Synod of Catholic Bishops, Justice in the World – to emphasise the pursuit of justice and human rights (including economic rights). But its actions were also influenced by UNCTAD and the developing world Group of 77’s call for a New International Economic Order. The Irish Government was not insulated from these discussions. While the economic crisis slowed the projected growth of the aid programme, the principle of finding effective solutions to the developing world’s problems remained. At its heart lay a strong belief in the concept of a global economy and the necessity – as Garret FitzGerald told a special session of the UN General Assembly in April 1974 – for ‘a realisation of our global interdependence . . . [and] . . . the absolutely imperative need for international solidarity’.54 The approach bore the familiar hallmarks of Irish foreign policy in the 1950s and 1960s: an anti-colonial stance, a belief in the security through international cooperation in the UN and, later, a self-defined role as a ‘bridge’ between Europe and the developing world. FitzGerald told the UN that ‘Ireland speaks . . . not merely as one of the twenty-five most developed countries in the world, and as a Member of the industrialised European Economic Community, but also as a country which has had a recent and still vivid experience of the consequences of under-development and exploitation’.55 The UN should be united, he argued, to tackle the ‘unjust’ and ‘inherently unstable’ state of the world economy.56 These debates played an important role in shaping Ireland’s standing within the Community. In June 1974 FitzGerald clashed with his German counterpart at the EC when the latter prevented agreement on the Community’s contribution to the proposed UN emergency fund for the developing world. Irish support for the fund, and for a coherent European response to the crisis, framed its role alongside the more progressive member states, particularly Denmark and the Netherlands. It helped, of course, that Irish decision-makers were in effect spending someone else’s money. But the commitment to economic reform appeared no less genuine. In September 1974 FitzGerald told the UN General Assembly of the need for an improvement in the prices for raw materials, the assurance of long-term aid for development, and the

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transfer of technologies necessary to bridge the economic gap between industrialised and developing worlds. He framed the Irish approach in terms of its commitments in the field of aid – in which Ireland had ‘not in the past played as full a part as it should’ – but also as one of the ‘newer States’ for whom ‘the acceptance of constraints on our individual freedom of action in the interest of stability, and even the survival of the world, must be somewhat irksome coming within decades or even only years after we have achieved our long-sought independence’.57 The institutional setting at the UN may have contributed to the freedom of action enjoyed by FitzGerald and his officials, but their broadly positive stance was also visible in discussions at Community level for what became the first Lomé Convention in 1975. Prompted by the expansion of its member states, and particularly Britain’s close trading association with its former colonies, negotiations to restructure the Community’s relationship with the developing world began in the summer of 1973 and continued for the following one-and-a-half years. By the end of 1974 it had become increasingly clear that the agreement would be finalised under the first Irish presidency of the Community in the first six months of 1975. It was a role for which the DFA – by FitzGerald’s later admission – found itself under-prepared.58 Yet its concerns were balanced by a genuine commitment to the spirit of the negotiations. It helped that the extension of the EDF, the introduction of the Stabex (stabilisation of export earnings) mechanism and other financial aspects of the negotiations proved largely uncontroversial for Irish policy-makers, allowing them to continue to adopt a positive stance. But FitzGerald, one British official noted, remained ‘indefatigable in prosecuting the interests as he saw them both of the Community and of Ireland’.59 The pursuit of Ireland’s dual identity as ‘global citizen’ and ‘European republic’ continued to drive its approach. In the final negotiations for Lomé, FitzGerald deliberately positioned the state as a ‘bridge’ between Europe and the developing world and one of the few members of the EC that could truly understand the needs of the ACP states. His Francophile tendencies and negotiating skills enabled him to build up an important rapport with the ACP delegates and hold the respect of his European colleagues. At home Lomé was portrayed as part of a long Irish tradition of involvement in the developing world. With no little pride, the Irish Independent described it as ‘a point of great satisfaction to this country that a pact so obviously in accord with the outlook of most people here should be signed by an Irishman on behalf of the EEC. In a way the Lomé Convention is a civil version of what Irish missionaries have for years been doing in the religious field.’60 But others were equally impressed by the Irish commitment to the needs of

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the Community. British officials argued that although the negotiations ‘owed comparatively little to the Irish . . . solutions would have been harder to find without the benefit of an intelligent, hardworking and well-intentioned chairmanship’.61 Small states, foreign aid and the Cold War With a growing Irish NGO sector, an infant official aid programme in place and visible attempts to link Irish support for the developing world to its standing at the UN and in the EC, by the mid-1970s foreign aid had become an important element of Ireland’s role on the world stage. It was presented as the people’s ‘direct concern’ – a reflection of the country’s Christian missionary heritage that drew strongly on cultural memories of British rule.62 Yet the Irish were not unique in framing their approach to foreign aid in terms of their history and political orientation. Dutch policy-makers argued that their government had ‘a special role to play in the world’ through its foreign aid.63 The Nordic states described their responsibilities in a similar fashion: Helge Pharo remarked that ‘because of their history and political culture, [they] were particularly well suited to spearhead an altruistic effort to aid the under-developed world, and that accordingly they carried an obligation to do so’.64 Canadian aid was also sometimes presented as a ‘vocation’ and the result of the country’s position as ‘a prosperous middle power with no colonial past’.65 The similarities suggested that Ireland’s political principles and attitude to foreign affairs – both, admittedly, shaped by its history – mattered at least as much as, and possibly more than, its status as a former colony. At Lomé the Irish Government drew on a perceived colonial memory to present itself as a ‘bridge’ between the West and the developing world. But it also lived up to its responsibilities as a member of the world’s largest economic grouping, and showed the country to be a responsible, European republic. In the same vein, attitudes to aid became a badge of the country’s modernity and statehood. As aid became an accepted element of international relations, Ireland, like Finland, developed a comprehensive aid programme at least in part to feel that it was a member of the same peer group as those states that it used to define its identity – at the EC, at the UN and further afield. While they may have been slow to expand – Irish ODA stood at 0.104 per cent in 1976, almost three times its 1972 level but still the lowest in the EC – the very fact that both states were willing participants in the race to reach the UN’s 0.7 per cent target served to identify them as modern, independent states.66

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The comparison between Ireland and Finland was also important in highlighting the development of aid policies in countries on the peripheries of the Western world, and the influence of regional and global norms in shaping their attitudes. Although there was visible public support in both countries for the concept of aid there is much to be said for David Lumsdaine’s assertion that they began their aid programmes at least ‘partly to feel that they were members of the peer group of nations they used in defining their own identity’.67 Viewed in these terms, development aid became an expression of Irish foreign policy in a manner that combined the responsibilities and pressures of EC membership with the pursuit of an independent Irish stance similar to that adopted at the UN from the late 1950s; an amalgam of the ‘global citizen’ and ‘European republic’ elements of its foreign policy. In so doing it was strikingly similar to Kiljunen’s assessment of the early priorities of Finnish policy-makers: foreign aid was ‘an instrument to strengthen the credibility of Finnish UN policy, to express its willingness to pursue a more open, less isolationist, foreign policy and to activate international cooperation, especially among the Nordic countries’.68 By the mid-1970s, foreign aid had become central to the Irish Government’s attitude to the developing world. Prior to 1968, the relationship was primarily based on political considerations, particularly Ireland’s support for the right to self-determination and its support for the decolonisation process at the UN. Biafra brought a new set of issues, a new level of debate and, with the Pearson Report’s definition of Ireland’s industrialised status, a new set of responsibilities. Accession to the EC further revised the state’s relationship with the developing world. FitzGerald’s role in bridging the gap between the EC and the ACP states during the Lomé negotiations was done as a representative of the Community rather than as an intermediary between the two worlds. The same sense of Christian responsibility, shared history, and anti-colonialism informed the Irish Government’s policies, but to them was added the opportunity to shape Community policy and to define a role for Ireland as anti-colonial from within its structures, attaching itself to the policies of the more progressive states, Denmark and the Netherlands. Notes 1 ‘Ways to help developing countries’, Irish Times, 22 Dec. 1970. 2 ‘Government Plan for Foreign Aid Co-ordination: Central Organisation Urged by Group’, Irish Times, 11 Sept. 1971.

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3 Mary Sutton, Irish Government Aid to the Third World – Review and Assessment (Dublin, 1977), p. 52. 4 World Bank. Commission on International Development, Partners in Development: Report of the Commission on International Development (London, 1969). 5 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 265, Col. 766 (9 May 1973). 6 Heide-Irene Schmidt and Helge Pharo, ‘Introduction’, Contemporary European History, 12: 4 (2003), p. 388. 7 D. K. Fieldhouse, The West and the Third World: Trade, Colonialism, Dependence and Development (London, 1999), p. 231. 8 World Bank, World Development Report 1982 (Oxford, 1982), p. 140. 9 ‘Moral Obligations of Rich Countries’, Irish Times, 28 April 1962. 10 Farrell Sheridan, ‘That Cover’, Missionary Annals, 51: 12 (Dec. 1968), p. 3. 11 ‘Fight Against World Hunger: Ireland’s Part Evaluated’, Irish Times, 6 Aug. 1968. 12 Connolly, The Third World War, p. 44. 13 NAI DFA 2002/19/261, Keating to Ronan, 26 June 1963. 14 Frank Aiken, Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 207, Col. 1725 (27 Feb. 1964). 15 ‘Fewer Attend African Training Course’, Irish Independent, 11 Dec. 1967. 16 NAI DT 2000/6/482, draft DEA memorandum, ‘Ireland’s Development Aid Programme’, undated [July 1969?]. 17 The figures in this paragraph are taken from Sutton, Irish Government Aid to the Third World, p. 76; and World Bank, World Development Report 1978 (Oxford, 1978), pp. 98–9. 18 Quoted in ‘African [sic.] Concern to Continue Giving Aid’, Irish Times, 16 March 1970. 19 ‘Bishops’ Appeal for the Itinerants’, Irish Press, 9 Oct. 1969. For an introduction to the history of Trócaire, see Brian Maye, The Search for Justice – Trócaire: A History (Dublin, 2010). 20 John Cooney, ‘Irish Bishops Set Up Aid Body’, Irish Times, 5 March 1973. 21 John Cooney, ‘Education on Third World Promised’, Irish Times, 19 Dec. 1973. 22 ‘Trócaire Aims to Raise Over £250,000 in Lenten Campaign’, Irish Times, 11 Feb. 1975. 23 Quoted in ‘Trócaire News’, One World, Autumn 1975. 24 See Glenda Sluga, ‘The Transformation of International Institutions: Global Shock as Cultural Shock’, in Ferguson, Maier, Manela and Sargent (eds), The Shock of the Global, pp. 223–36; and Thorsten Olesen and Helge Pharo (eds), Aid Norms and Aid Realities: Foreign Aid and Its Dynamics in a Historical and Comparative Context (Oslo, 2012). 25 Quoted in Joseph A. McMahon, The Development Co-operation Policy of the EC (London, 1998), p. 5. 26 NAI DFA 2005/4/571, ‘Level of Our Aid to Developing Countries’, Sept. 1970. 27 NAI DFA 2004/7/2573, ‘Ireland’s pledged contributions to UN voluntary agencies’, undated [1975?].

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28 Figures from Sutton, Irish Government Aid to the Third World, p. 76. 29 For details of the proposal, and the official reaction to it, see Kevin O’Sullivan, ‘Biafra to Lomé: The Evolution of Irish Government Policy on Official Development Assistance, 1969–75’, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 18 (2007), pp. 97–9. 30 Morrison, Aid and Ebb Tide, p. 68. 31 Arens, ‘Multilateral Institution-Building and National Interest’, p. 460. 32 For a detailed investigation of the EC’s influence on Irish foreign aid policy, see Kevin O’Sullivan, ‘EC Membership, Development Aid and Irish Foreign policy’, in Olesen and Pharo (eds), Aid Norms and Aid Realities. 33 NAI DFA 2005/145/773, note by Flavin, ‘Report on 4th Meeting of the EEC Working Party on Development Cooperation on 8 and 9 February 1973’, 15 Feb. 1973. 34 NAI DFA 2007/111/1116, note for the Minister for Foreign Affairs for the cabinet meeting of 26 April 1974, ‘Points that Might be Made in Support of the Proposals in the Development Aid Memorandum’. 35 Lancaster, Foreign Aid, p. 214. 36 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 265, Col. 742 (9 May 1973). 37 Figure for APSO’s grant-in-aid taken from NAI DFA 2004/7/2573, DFA memorandum for the Government, ‘Aid to Developing Countries’, 1 November 1973. 38 Quoted in Dennis Kennedy, ‘Nearer to Fulfilling Irish Obligation to Third World’, Irish Times, 18 April 1974. 39 Interview with Dr Garret FitzGerald, Dublin, 11 Jan. 2010. 40 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 265, Col. 767 (9 May 1973). 41 Dáil Éireann Debates, Vol. 265, Cols 1257–8 (16 May 1973). 42 ‘Ireland Will Double Aid to Third World’, Irish Times, 9 June 1973. 43 Quoted in Garret FitzGerald, All in a Life: An Autobiography (London, 1991), p. 190. 44 NAI DFA 2004/7/2573, DFA memorandum for the Government, ‘Aid to Developing Countries’, 1 Nov. 1973. Although it took a further five months of negotiations between the DFA and the Department of Finance before the plan was officially announced, the essence of the aid programme that followed was contained in this memorandum. 45 Ibid. 46 NAI DFA 2005/145/1745, DFA press release, ‘Minister for Foreign Affairs Announces Government Decision to Increase Development Aid’, 30 April 1974. 47 Quoted in Kiljunen, ‘Finnish Development Cooperation’, p. 151. 48 Ibid., p. 152. 49 NAI DFA 2007/111/1116, unsigned and undated [Jan 1974?] note for the minister, ‘Bilateral Development Assistance Programme’. 50 Interview with Dr Garret FitzGerald, Dublin, 6 July 2005. 51 OECD, Development Co-operation: Efforts and Policies of the Members of the Development Assistance Committee 1986 Report (Paris, 1987), p. 173.

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52 Tonra, Global Citizen and European Republic. 53 Charles S. Maier, ‘“Malaise”: The Crisis of Capitalism in the 1970s’, in Ferguson, Maier, Manela and Sargent (eds), The Shock of the Global, p. 42. 54 NAI DFA 2008/79/2836, DFA press release (text of FitzGerald’s speech to the UN General Assembly on 19 April 1974), 19 April 1974. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Quoted in ‘A New Balance Needed in World Affairs – FitzGerald’, Irish Times, 26 Sept. 1974. 58 Interview with FitzGerald (6 July 2005). 59 TNA FCO 87/418, ‘Memorandum on the Irish Presidency of the European Communities’, unsigned [Arthur Galsworthy?], undated [July 1975?]. 60 ‘Handclasp’, Irish Independent, 1 March 1975. 61 TNA FCO 87/418, ‘Memorandum on the Irish Presidency of the European Communities’, undated [July 1975?]. 62 The Minister for Finance Richie Ryan, quoted in ‘Ryan Aims to Increase Aid to Third World Each Year’, Irish Times, 27 Apr. 1974. 63 Arens, ‘Multilateral Institution-Building and National Interest’, p. 459. 64 Pharo, ‘Altruism, Security and the Impact of Oil’, p. 532. 65 Alain Noël, Jean-Philippe Thérien and Sébastien Dallaire, ‘Divided Over Internationalism: The Canadian Public and Development Assistance’, Canadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques, 30: 1 (2004), p. 31. 66 Figures for Irish ODA are taken from Sutton, Irish Government Aid to the Third World, p. 76. 67 David H. Lumsdaine, Moral Vision in International Politics (Princeton, 1993), pp. 25–6. 68 Kiljunen, ‘Finnish Development Cooperation’, p. 152.

Conclusion

In January 1980 the Independent Commission on International Development, chaired by the former West German chancellor Willy Brandt, published the findings of its two-and-a-half years of research. The revealingly titled North–South: A Programme for Survival was the product of a decade of oil shocks, economic stagnation and social and political agitation. In response, the industrialised North sought increasingly radical solutions. The world’s economic fortunes, the Commission reported, depended on the development of a ‘global community’ and the need to shape the future ‘in peace and welfare, in solidarity and dignity’.1 Its argument was simple but compelling: ‘The South cannot grow adequately without the North. The North cannot prosper or improve its situation unless there is greater progress in the South.’2 But the report’s focus went far beyond the world of trade and economics. The international system had ‘become much more complicated, with more independent nations, more institutions and more centres of influence[;] it has also become much more interdependent’.3 For those versed in the realpolitik of the Cold War these concepts of interconnectedness, solidarity and international justice may have appeared naively idealistic. Yet the very tenor of the debate, coupled with the widespread positive response that it generated, testified to the purchase of Brandt’s ideas among the international community. From at least the end of the Second World War a group of small and middling powers – the ‘fire brigade’ states of this study – had been committed to the pursuit of dialogue, disarmament and the constructive resolution of conflict as essential for a peaceful global society. In the 1950s they supported the developing world’s right to freedom from colonial rule, but also the principle of successful decolonisation and the creation of stable, independent states. The 1960s brought a commitment to peacekeeping and the rejection of apartheid as both morally indefensible and a potentially malevolent influence on national and regional security. In the 1970s the ‘fire brigade’ states added foreign aid and a more

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equitable distribution of wealth and resources to their list, in response to the unfolding economic crisis in the developing world and fears of its impact on the industrialised North. Ireland’s transition from international isolation to integration into the world’s largest regional political and economic grouping was closely aligned to this reading of international politics. Between 1955, when the state joined the UN, and 1975, when it undertook its first presidency of the EC, successive Irish governments oversaw a process of adaptation (to the growing power of the Afro-Asian group, and to a changing domestic environment), assimilation (of the state into the EC, but also of NGOs into the policy-making system) and the renewal of the country’s diplomatic identity. The lessons from that process had implications far beyond a small state on the periphery of Europe. Ireland’s search for constructive solutions to international conflict offered an important counterpoint to the traditional realist Cold War narrative. Another of Brandt’s central tenets – unity to avert catastrophe – held the key. In place of a pragmatic battle of East versus West, the Irish experience emphasised the socialising effect of international relations and the link between national (individual) and international (collective) interests in the conduct of foreign policy. Assessing Ireland’s role What one British official described in the late 1950s as the Irish compulsion ‘to advance from their happy state of “foreign policylessness” to a position where they would have something positive to contribute to the United Nations debates’ began a period of rapid internationalisation for the state.4 For almost half a decade following its arrival at the UN, Ireland occupied the corridors and meeting rooms of the world organisation with an air of conviction and assertive independence. In the 1960s and early 1970s that confidence was shaken in the face of growing Afro-Asian influence at the UN and beyond. Yet accession to the EC in 1973 and the change of government in the same year brought renewed energy to officials and policy-makers alike. Ireland was transformed from a polity on the periphery of Europe to a constituent of the most important regional grouping in the world. Its political and economic standing were enhanced accordingly. A little over two-and-a-half years into its EC membership, in July 1975, the British Ambassador to Ireland Arthur Galsworthy declared himself impressed by the manner in which the country had handled its first Presidency of the Community. It was, he wrote, ‘a matter of justifiable pride and some moment to this small country, involving its emergence, perhaps for the

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first time, on the European stage . . . They set their minds to do this job properly and succeeded, laying the ghosts of Irish fecklessness and inefficiency in the process.’5 This book began by asking how Ireland arrived at this position. J.  B. Donnelly of the British Embassy in Dublin was wrong to assert in November 1973 that Irish foreign policy prior to EC membership (and apart from what he called ‘transitory involvement’ in peacekeeping) had been ‘marked by withdrawal and passivity’.6 Neither was it accurate to claim, as Conor Cruise O’Brien had done four years earlier, that the Irish Government had shifted considerably closer to the policies of the Western powers and voted ‘safely in the United States column’ at the UN.7 The situation was, as always, considerably more complicated. The principles that shaped Irish attitudes to foreign affairs in 1975 were in essence the same as those articulated eighteen if not twenty or more years before. Governed by their recognition of the limits to the influence of small states, Irish officials emphasised the importance of pursuing an independent role. They balanced their country’s support for the principle of self-determination with a considered attitude towards the colonial powers and a belief in fully preparing subject peoples for the eventuality of self-rule. As the 1960s progressed, the experience of the Congo crisis and Biafra’s attempted secession reiterated the Irish Government’s long-held conviction that the key to international stability – and by inference its own security – lay in the rejection of outside interference and the promotion of co-operation through the medium of international law. As a member of the EC the Irish Government pursued a similar set of interests, aware of its limitations but also of its potential to influence Community policy in its favour. Positioning itself alongside states like Denmark and the Netherlands, who were viewed as the most progressive on developing world issues, the Irish approach reiterated the country’s diplomatic independence through the pursuit of a particular set of values. When Garret FitzGerald wrote later that in the Lomé negotiations he made the most of ‘the parallel colonial experiences of Ireland and the African countries’, he revisited an attitude long visible in the state’s approach to international affairs.8 Ireland’s history was held to make it naturally sympathetic to the states of the developing world. It was, Frank Aiken asserted in 1960, ‘the only Western European country which has had experience . . . of a long historic epoch of foreign rule and of resistance to that rule’, and its development and consolidation of a democratic state were held as a model for the developing world to follow.9 There were obvious difficulties with this construction, not least in

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reconciling Irish anti-colonialism with the country’s natural sympathies towards the West. One British official remarked in June 1962 that Irish delegates to the UN Fourth Committee ‘have had especial delight in claiming the role of the oldest victim of British imperialism while giving us a helping hand over some difficult resolution[s]’.10 However reluctant they might have been to admit it, that twin identity – what Ben Tonra later termed Ireland as ‘global citizen’ and ‘European republic’ – defined the state’s approach to international affairs.11 In spite of a few isolated references to Ireland’s past by African officials, and the latter’s attempts to win favour by referring to the Irish struggle for independence, in essence there was little to distinguish Ireland’s approach from its ‘fire brigade’ contemporaries. The Nordic states in particular were accorded the kind of ‘special’ position also coveted by Irish policy-makers, and shared many of the same political values. Yet it would be wrong to dismiss outright the role played by history, particularly in informing attitudes within Ireland. Kwame Nkrumah’s visit to Dublin in 1960 and those of other African leaders were framed in direct reference to Ireland’s own struggle for independence. The legacy of Irish folk memories of the Famine played an important role in shaping the response to the Biafran crisis. Ireland’s missionary heritage also featured prominently and brought Africa to its pre-eminent role in the country’s relationship with the developing world. Indirectly it fostered a sense of responsibility and the belief in a special connection between the Irish people and their less-well-off counterparts – which NGOs like Gorta, Concern and Trócaire capitalised on with great success. When combined with moral revulsion at the excesses of apartheid born of Ireland’s own colonial experience, the same Christian concerns also translated into strong popular support for the activities of the IAAM. In a more direct sense, too – in the case of Biafra and the churches’ involvement in the delivery of disaster relief – missionaries helped to bring issues of development and justice to the attention of the Irish people, and to make them matters of widespread public concern. The question, however, remains: if the principles that informed Ireland’s international role in the late 1950s remained largely intact two decades later, how does one account for the changes to its diplomatic influence? Noel Dorr maintains that ‘critics of that later period do not allow sufficiently for the fact that the [UN] General Assembly was changing rapidly at about this time’, a factor that diminished the necessity for the Afro-Asian group to rely on moderate states like Ireland for support.12 There is a lot to be said for this assertion. In the late 1950s the relatively straightforward nature of the decolonisation process allowed the Irish Government to pursue its principles actively in a manner

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that accorded it respect on the international stage with the minimum of impact on the Western powers. As the Afro-Asian group grew in confidence and the UN’s agenda became more complicated, the role of moderate states like Ireland diminished. It became more difficult to reconcile straightforward and open support for the principles of selfdetermination and international justice with a pragmatic recognition of Ireland’s own status and desire to protect the institutions of the UN. In spite of its tendency to vote for increasingly radical resolutions at the General Assembly – particularly on the question of apartheid – the Irish delegation’s influence was considerably curtailed, to the extent that by 1970 its officials had all but abandoned hope of resuming a leading role on anything but issues of peripheral importance. Yet it is not enough, as Con Cremin did in 1970, to ascribe Ireland’s diminished status simply to the fact that ‘the voting majority which the Afro-Asians can command .  .  . enables them to secure approval for a particular text .  .  . to such an extent that they are indifferent to more moderate counsels’.13 The changing make-up of the UN and the broader international system did have a significant effect, but the Irish Government did too little to pursue policies that would allow it to surmount those obstacles. The contrast with its European counterparts is instructive. Although they shared many of the principles held by the Irish Government, the Nordic states shifted their emphasis to areas in which they could match rhetorical support for the developing world with practical action. In the absence of any political progress in southern Africa, for example, they re-directed their efforts to the field of humanitarian assistance, providing support to those most in need through the UN funds (UNETPSA and UNTFSA) and directly through the liberation movements. The Irish Government, by contrast, had to be pushed into contributing to the UN and rejected outright the suggestion that it should provide direct assistance. The same was true of its reaction to the humanitarian crisis in Biafra (however justifiable its approach to the politics of the conflict). While the Irish Government continued to direct official humanitarian assistance through the ICRC, even after that organisation ran into considerable difficulty, its Nordic counterparts contributed directly to the unofficial airlifts from São Tomé (via Nordchurchaid) and took an altogether more pro-active approach to alleviating the situation. These examples point to an inherent conservatism that at times hindered the Irish approach. Even during the ‘golden age’ of the late 1950s and early 1960s, Dorr argued, ‘it would be an exaggeration to believe that . . . Ireland always judged issues entirely on their merits and took absolutely no account of its own national interest or of relations with

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important countries such as the USA’.14 Like its progressive Swedish counterpart, the Irish Government understood the necessity of cultivating its relationship with the Western powers, while the pursuit of international stability through the UN was a central concern of both states. Yet an examination of their respective attitudes towards Africa shows that Sweden simply adapted better in the changing environment of the 1960s. Not until the rise in public debate during the Biafran crisis and the Springbok tour – and arguably not until the change of government in 1973 – did Irish foreign policy-makers begin to fully re-assess their position. The influence of the few and the many In a country of Ireland’s small size and limited resources, the officials who operated behind the scenes in Dublin, New York and later Brussels carried considerable influence. At the UN Freddie Boland played a significant role not only in deciding policy but also in winning Ireland the respect of other delegations. Described by O’Brien as ‘a man who could make his own the words of the aged Duke of Newcastle’s rebuke to the young Gladstone: “I confess, young man, I have a great notion of the horrors of enthusiasm”’, Boland’s was the most pragmatic voice in the Irish UN delegation.15 He was held in high regard in New York for his diplomatic skills – as his tenure as President of the General Assembly in 1960 illustrated – and respected among his colleagues for his experience and seniority. But he was not alone in shaping the Irish approach. Group dynamics between officials at DEA headquarters at Iveagh House and in New York proved equally significant in the policymaking process. During the late 1950s the more pro-Western leanings of Boland, Eamon Kennedy, Seán Ronan and Cremin were balanced by the anti-colonialism of O’Brien. In the 1960s and 1970s they were joined by a number of equally capable younger officials. Eamon Ó Tuathail and Paul Keating were central in shaping Ireland’s approach to the Biafran crisis. Hugh McCann was a steadying voice as Secretary of the Department. And Tadhg O’Sullivan’s frequently frank appraisals from New York and later Lagos offered an invaluable source of commentary. Yet the influence these individuals wielded behind the scenes could not compete with the successive Ministers for External/Foreign Affairs they served under in determining the character of Irish foreign policy. Liam Cosgrave was in office for too little of this period to have any significant impact, yet his ‘three principles’ speech in 1956 set the tone for Irish policy at the UN, and he contributed to the creation of a foreign policy based heavily on the state’s ‘own national history’.16

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His successor Aiken was considerably more influential. In the late 1950s and early 1960s Aiken’s strident support for the principle of selfdetermination, allied to his strong belief in the importance of the UN in the pursuit of international stability, determined the independent character of the state’s approach to foreign policy. Aiken’s fortunes and those of Irish diplomacy were closely intertwined. In the 1960s the Minister’s (and the Irish Government’s) hopes for a prominent role for the ‘fire brigade’ states and for the UN itself were sorely dented. The growing radicalism of the Afro-Asian group (however much he may have sympathised with their essential goals) became difficult to reconcile with Aiken’s fealty to the UN Charter. The Minister’s slow response to circumstances at home and abroad, not least the growing importance of the EC, was also echoed in his department’s difficulty in coming to terms with the changing environment. Aiken found the changes in Irish society equally problematic. Preferring to view foreign policy as above politics and public debate, his reaction to media intrusion on the Biafran issue and his reluctance to accommodate groups like the IAAM, Concern and Gorta, epitomised the end of the old regime in Irish politics and the shift towards a new generation of decision-makers. Aiken’s successor Patrick Hillery numbered among that emerging cohort. His ease with the media and emphasis on Europe ushered in a new phase in the evolution of Irish foreign policy. He won praise for his attempts to contribute to the resolution of the humanitarian crisis in Biafra, not least for the manner in which they translated public desires into practical action. And although much of his effort was directed towards the EC and Northern Ireland, his willingness to embrace the question of foreign aid and to oversee increases in that sector was important in bringing Irish foreign policy in line with broader international developments. The appointment of FitzGerald as Minister in 1973 accelerated that change. Prompted by the demands of EC membership, FitzGerald contributed to the expansion and reinvigoration of foreign policy and left an important legacy in the field of foreign aid. His background in social activism – and that of his cabinet colleagues Richie Ryan, Conor Cruise O’Brien, Justin Keating and Michael O’Leary – on issues like apartheid (with the IAAM) and Biafra (with the Irish Movement for Peace in Nigeria–Biafra), and his vocal criticisms of the Irish Government’s policies, marked him out immediately from his predecessors. His more inclusive approach – meeting with the IAAM and embracing partnership with NGOs through APSO – brought the processes talked about but rarely acted upon under Hillery to their natural conclusion. These

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changes had a visible impact for those watching from outside Ireland. British officials commented on the ‘undoubted influence Dr FitzGerald has had on galvanising the Ministry of Foreign Affairs . . . his personal agency, enthusiasms and intellectual attributes have been responsible for the Irish progress in this area’.17 FitzGerald’s consultations with the IAAM and Irish NGOs hinted at another significant change in Irish foreign policy: the shift in public attitudes from the insularity of the mid-1950s to the increased levels of activity visible two decades later. International trends were again important. The emergence of a new, global media exerted a considerable pull on Irish audiences, particularly the impact of television in highlighting the extent of the humanitarian crisis in Biafra. Nor was Ireland isolated from broader patterns of social change. The growth of popular protest in the Western world, the civil rights campaign in the United States and student and workers’ protests across Europe in 1968 had a visible influence on the strength and direction of the IAAM’s campaign against the Springbok tour in 1970. Change also came from within the institutions that dominated Irish society. The decision by the Catholic Church to embrace issues of development and social justice in the latter part of the 1960s, for example, had a significant impact on the Irish public’s attitudes to the developing world. The direct consequences of this increased public interaction with foreign policy issues were difficult to gauge. There were instances, such as CTT’s decision to abandon trade promotion in South Africa in 1970, when public pressure caused a direct shift in policy. But they were rare and often of only marginal importance. Change manifested itself in a more subtle fashion by elevating the importance of international events in the Irish social conscience. Issues of social justice in southern Africa, equitable economic development and the cause of self-determination became important considerations for Irish public representatives and government officials. The extent of their influence was relative, of course, particularly when contrasted with the higher levels of ‘active citizenship’ in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Yet it was no less important as a result. What it lacked in direct results, Irish public activism made up for in helping to create what Skelly described as ‘broad parameters that Iveagh House officials respected’, and which were reflected in government policies as a result.18 Small states, foreign policy and the Cold War The comparison between Ireland and the other ‘fire brigade’ states raised another important thread in the discussion about small state

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adaptation to the Cold War: the common approach adopted by their respective governments. Politically – however neutral and/or nonaligned they wished to appear – Ireland, Finland, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Sweden were easily identifiable as belonging to the Western sphere. Yet as a group they shared a common approach to international relations, in which national interests easily equated to international interests. Support for the decolonisation process at the UN in the late 1950s and early 1960s, for example, was based on the principle of self-determination and proven readiness for self-rule. But the emphasis on minimising grievances between colonisers and colonised, and on the creation of successful and stable independent states was not born of moral judgement alone – though that did play an important part. In pursuing these policies, the ‘fire brigade’ states aimed to reduce the spread of Cold War tensions, with their attendant consequences for international security. Their responses to the problems that followed African independence – their involvement in UN peacekeeping operations in Africa, the Middle East and further afield, and the expansion of their foreign aid policies – were justified along similar lines, as a practical application of small state commitments to the maintenance of international stability. There were, of course, several factors that limited their ability to pursue these policies – not least the growing influence of a more radical Afro-Asian bloc in shaping the UN agenda, and the continued refusal by the United States and the Soviet Union to engage constructively with that organisation in the 1960s. The East–West conflict had the effect of setting parameters within which international politics were conducted. Yet recognition of the limits to their influence simply led the ‘fire brigade’ states to seek out new ways to shape the remaining space to suit their interests best. This process of adaptation and consolidation is vital in understanding the parameters that defined the ‘fire brigade’ states’ activities in the Cold War. Through their support for the UN, peacekeeping, a successful decolonisation process and foreign aid, these small and middling powers pursued their interests in areas in which – they felt – their efforts could make an impact. In so doing they projected an image of independent, and independently minded, states. But there was another, equally important, lesson to be drawn from their support for this form of international regime: the socialising effect of inter-state relations and the power of norms in shaping state behaviour. The ‘fire brigade’ states liked to argue that their attitudes to international politics were shaped by, and reflected, national values and traditions that were then translated into foreign policy. Others argued that the East–West conflict – not least the pursuit of national security

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through collective action that it precipitated – was the important factor in shaping their approach. Yet neither factor is enough to explain their actions on the world stage. As Martha Finnemore put it, states are ‘socialised to want certain things by the international society in which they and the people in them live’.19 The decolonisation process, the rise of the American civil rights movement, the growth of anti-apartheid groups in the West and important international agreements like the 1975 Helsinki Accords re-focused attention on the human rights agenda, making issues such as aid and humanitarianism important elements in the language of international relations.20 International organisations played an important role in precipitating this change, for example through the UN agencies or the World Bank’s focus on poverty reduction during Robert McNamara’s thirteen-year period as President from 1968. Nor should the influence of the growing NGO sector be forgotten. Accelerated by the rise in global media – particularly television – their activities bypassed the state to create a link between peoples across a variety of different countries and continents, and forced governments to live up to newly defined standards of conduct. These ideas of an international society are nothing new, of course, for international relations theorists – or at least those of a constructivist persuasion. Yet their arguments are worth exploring further when writing the diplomatic history of the Cold War. As ideas of ‘interdependence’, ‘transnationalism’ and ‘international regimes’ took hold, they prompted the rise of global ideas and shared global values.21 In this environment, the lines grew increasingly blurred between policies and identities based on pragmatic goals and those that acted as an expression of national values and identity. This argument can also be turned inwards to explain the behaviour of individual states. For small countries like Ireland, the integration of these concepts into the everyday language of international relations offered the opportunity to assert their diplomatic independence, to construct a particular identity, and to distinguish themselves as modern, industrialised states. It is not an easy task to untangle the changes in Irish foreign policy that occurred between 1955 and 1975. But to do so by explaining them solely in terms the apparent idealism of the Irish Government’s approach to the UN, or a pragmatic shift to the West born of the EC application process, imposes too basic a model on a complex set of influences from both inside and outside the state. It also over-simplifies the nature of Ireland’s contributions to international affairs in this period. The decolonisation process of the 1950s may have been a high-water mark in Ireland’s standing at the UN, but its continued commitment to support the world organisation alongside

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its moderate counterparts was important in maintaining its role in international affairs. The UN gave Ireland an identity on the world stage that it had largely lost after its impressive contribution to the League of Nations ended. The EC offered the opportunity to extend that voice in new and equally important ways. In between, the moves to establish diplomatic links with Africa by opening an Irish Embassy in Nigeria in 1960 and later in establishing development offices in the priority states were important steps in widening the scope of Irish foreign policy. Though Ireland’s role at the UN may have diminished and its attitudes have been overly cautious at times, Irish governments found new and not insignificant ways in which to express diplomatic independence, to pursue national interests, and to develop the principles important to its citizens in international affairs. Notes 1 International Commission on International Development Issues, North– South: A Programme for Survival (London, 1980), p. 7. 2 Ibid., p. 33. 3 Ibid. 4 TNA DO 35/10772, Anderson to Preston, 23 April 1959. 5 TNA FCO 87/418, Galsworthy to Callaghan, 10 July 1975. 6 TNA FCO 87/181, Donnelly to White, 7 Nov. 1973. 7 Conor Cruise O’Brien, ‘Ireland in International Affairs’, in Owen Dudley Edwards (ed.), Conor Cruise O’Brien Introduces Ireland (London, 1969), p. 132. 8 FitzGerald, All in a Life, p. 151. 9 Frank Aiken, UNGA Plenary Meeting, 6 Oct. 1960, UNORGA, A/PV.890. 10 TNA DO 181/9, ‘Confidential. Irish Republic at the United Nations: Brief for Visit of P.U.S. [Private Under-secretary] to Dublin, June, 1962’. 11 Tonra, Global Citizen and European Republic. 12 Dorr, ‘Ireland at the United Nations’ (2002), p. 116. 13 NAI DFA 417/220, Cremin to Ronan, 10 Sept. 1970. 14 Dorr, Ireland at the United Nations, p. 185. 15 O’Brien, To Katanga and Back, p. 35. 16 Quoted in ‘Ireland in the United Nations’, Éire–Ireland: the Weekly Bulletin of the Department of External Affairs, 342 (29 Oct. 1956). 17 TNA FCO 87/181, Donnelly to White, 7 Nov. 1973. 18 Skelly, Irish Diplomacy at the United Nations, p. 285. 19 Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (London, 1996), p. 2. 20 See Morgan, ‘The Seventies and the Rebirth of Human Rights’. 21 Sluga, ‘The Transformation of International Institutions’, p. 223.

References

Primary sources Archival sources National Archives of Ireland Department of Foreign Affairs Department of Justice Department of the Taoiseach National Archives of the United Kingdom Dominions Office Foreign Office Foreign and Commonwealth Office Prime Minister’s Office National Library of Ireland Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement papers (copies on microfilm) Terence McCaughey papers University College Dublin Archives Frank Aiken papers Barry Desmond papers Holy Ghost Provincialite Archives, Dublin Biafra papers Trinity College Dublin Manuscripts Department Frederick H. Boland papers Private papers Tony Ffrench papers Bishop Donal Lamont papers Kader Asmal papers

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Parliamentary publications Dáil Éireann Debates Seanad Éireann Debates Official publications International Commission on International Development Issues, North–South: A Programme for Survival (London, 1980). Ireland. Department of External Affairs, Ireland at the United Nations (1957–71). Ireland. Department of External Affairs, Éire-Ireland: The Bulletin of the Department of External Affairs (1955–73). Ireland. Department of Foreign Affairs, Development Co-operation: Ireland’s Bilateral Aid Programme (Dublin, n.d. [1980?]). Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Development Co-operation: Efforts and Policies of the Members of the Development Assistance Committee 1986 Report (Paris, 1987). United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly (1955–75). World Bank, World Development Report (1978–82). World Bank. Commission on International Development, Partners in Development: Report of the Commission on International Development (London, 1969). Newspapers and periodicals Africa: St. Patrick’s Kiltegan The African Missionary Amandla: The Bulletin of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement Catholic Missions Comhar An Cosantóir Economist Evening Herald Gorta News Hibernia Irish Independent Irish Press Irish Times Missionary Annals Mission Outlook One World: A Bulletin on World Development Pagan Missions

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Interviews Tom Arnold, Dublin, 2 April 2007 and 15 April 2010 Kader Asmal, Cape Town, 19 April 2006 and 2 July 2006 (interviews conducted by Thomas Alberts using a set of questions supplied by the author) Joan Burton, Dublin, 3 November 2005 Tony Byrne, Dublin, 21 February 2007 Pat Carroll, Dublin, 27 October 2005 Christopher Connolly, Killarney, 23 January 2004 Seán Coughlan, Dublin, 27 February 2004 and 5 March 2004 Noel Dorr, Dublin, 24 February 2005, 12 April 2005 and 23 November 2009 Tony Ffrench, Dublin, 1 December 2005 and 2 February 2006 Aengus Finucane, Dublin, 27 February 2007 Garret FitzGerald, Dublin, 6 July 2005 and 11 January 2010 Austin Flannery, Dublin, 26 July 2005 Michael Flynn, Galway, 11 April 2005 Bill Jackson, Oxford, 11 October 2010 John O’Loughlin Kennedy, Dublin, 16 January 2006 and 23 November 2009 Kay Kennedy, Dublin, 23 November 2009 Gearóid Kilgallen, Dublin, 9 November 2005 Terence McCaughey, Dublin, 30 August 2005 T. B. H. McMurry, Dublin, 6 March 2007 Rafique Mottiar, Dublin, 15 February 2007 Ronan Murphy, Dublin, 28 July 2006 Helen O’Neill, Dublin, 27 July 2010 Eamon Ó Tuathail, 24 January 2006 and 8 December 2009 Thomas Russell, Galway, 28 January 2004 Joseph Small, Dublin, 26 May 2006 Raymond Smith and Audrey Smith, Delgany, 5 March 2007 Alan Titley, Dublin, 28 April 2005 and 24 May 2005 Note: in addition to these interviewees, former personnel from Córas Tráchtála, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Irish Defence Forces were interviewed but asked to remain anonymous. Memoirs and recollections Andrews, C. S. Man of No Property: An Autobiography (Volume Two) (Dublin, 1982). Asmal, Kader, and Adrian Hadland, Politics in My Blood: A Memoir (Johannesburg, 2011). Coulter, Carol, ‘A View from the South’, in Michael Farrell (ed.), Twenty Years On (Dingle, 1988), pp. 105–21. Desmond, Barry, Finally and in Conclusion: A Political Memoir (Dublin, 2000). Dorr, Noel, Ireland at the United Nations: Memories of the Early Years (Dublin, 2010).

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Dunn, Joseph, No Tigers in Africa! Recollections and Reflections on 25 Years of Radharc (Dublin, 1986). FitzGerald, Garret, All in a Life: An Autobiography (London, 1991). Hain, Peter, Don’t Play with Apartheid: The Background to the Stop the Seventy Tour Campaign (London, 1971). Heppling, Sixten, ‘The Very First Years: Memories of an Insider’, in Pierre Frühling (ed.), Swedish Development Aid in Perspective: Policies, Problems and Results Since 1952 (Stockholm, 1986), pp. 13–26. Lamont, Donal, Speech from the Dock (Leigh-on-Sea, 1977). Lynch, Irene Christina (ed.), Beyond Faith and Adventure: Irish Missionaries in Nigeria Tell Their Extraordinary Story (n.p., 2006). McKeown, Seán, ‘The Congo (ONUC): The Military Perspective’, The Irish Sword: The Journal of the Military History Society of Ireland, 20: 79 (1996), pp. 43–7. O’Brien, Conor Cruise, To Katanga and Back: A UN Case History (New York, 1966). —— Memoir: My Life and Themes (London, 1999). O’Donoghue, David (ed.), The Irish Army in the Congo 1960–64: The Far Battalions (Dublin, 2006). Thant, U, View from the UN (London, 1978). Pamphlets and reports Africa Concern, First Annual Report of the Joint Biafra Famine Appeal for the Year Ending 30th June 1969 (n.p., n.d. [1969?]). Connolly, Jerome, The Third World War (Dublin, 1970). Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement, Ireland and South Africa: The Case Against Apartheid (Dublin, 1965). —— Ireland and the South African Rugby Tour (n.p., n.d. [1965?]). —— Annual Report (1967–76). Joint Biafra Famine Appeal, 90 Days: A Report on the First 90 Days’ Activities of the Joint Biafra Famine Appeal (n.p., 1968). O’Brien, Conor Cruise, Ireland, the United Nations and Southern Africa (Dublin, 1967).

Secondary sources Books and articles Abi-Saab, Georges, The United Nations Operation in the Congo 1960–1964 (Oxford, 1978). Arens, Esther Helena, ‘Multilateral Institution-Building and National Interest: Dutch Development Policy in the 1960s’, Contemporary European History, 12: 4 (2003), pp. 457–72. Baker Fox, Annette, ‘The Small States of Western Europe in the United Nations’, International Organization, 19: 3 (1965), pp. 774–86.

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Barber, James, and John Barratt, South Africa’s Foreign Policy: The Search for Status and Security 1945–1988 (Cambridge, 1990). Bateman, Fiona, ‘Ireland’s Spiritual Empire: Territory and Landscape in Irish Catholic Missionary Discourse’, in Hilary M. Carey (ed.), Empires of Religion (London, 2008), pp. 267–87. Beinart, William, Twentieth-Century South Africa (Oxford, 1994). Bhreatnach, Aoife, ‘Frank Aiken: European Federation and United Nations Internationalism’, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 13 (2002), pp. 237–49. —— ‘A Friend of the Colonial Powers? Frank Aiken, Ireland’s United Nations Alignment and Decolonisation’, in Michael Kennedy and Deirdre McMahon (eds), Obligations and Responsibilities: Ireland and the United Nations, 1955–2005 (Dublin, 2005), pp. 182–200. Bull, Hedley, ‘Society and Anarchy in International Relations’, in James Der Derian (ed.), International Theory: Critical Investigations (London, 1995), pp. 75–94. Burke, Edward, ‘Ireland’s Contribution to the United Nations Mission in the Congo (ONUC): Keeping the Peace in Katanga’, in Michael Kennedy and Deirdre McMahon (eds), Obligations and Responsibilities: Ireland and the United Nations, 1955–2005 (Dublin, 2005), pp. 117–53. Chabbott, Colette, ‘Development INGOs’, in John Boli and George M. Thomas (eds), Constructing World Culture: International Nongovernmental Organisations Since 1875 (Stanford, 1999), pp. 222–48. Challis, Robin, Sowing the Seeds: The History of Gorta (n.p., 1986). Chamberlain, Muriel, Decolonisation: The Fall of the European Empires (Oxford, 2nd edn, 1999). Chubb, Basil, The Government and Politics of Ireland (London, 1970). Cooper, Allan D. The Occupation of Namibia: Afrikanerdom’s Attack on the British Empire (Lanham, 1991). Cronje, Suzanne, The World and Nigeria: The Diplomatic History of the Biafran War 1967–1970 (London, 1972). Danielson, Anders, and Lennart Wohlgemuth, ‘Swedish Development Co-operation in Perspective’, in Paul Hoebink and Olav Stokke (eds), Perspectives  on European Development Co-operation: Policy and Performance of Individual Donor Countries and the EU (London, 2005), pp. 518–45. De St Jorre, John, The Nigerian Civil War (London, 1972). De Waal, Alex, Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa (Oxford, 1997). Dengbol-Martinussen, John, and Poul Engberg-Pedersen, Aid: Understanding  International Development Cooperation, trans. Marie Bille (London, 2005). Dorr, Noel, ‘Ireland at the United Nations’, in Ben Tonra and Eilís Ward (eds), Ireland in International Affairs: Interests, Institutions and Identities (Dublin, 2002), pp. 104–28.

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Index

Africa Concern see Concern African National Congress (ANC) 61, 62–3, 133–4, 144, 167 boycott campaign 67–8, 75–6 IAAM, links with 77, 143, 168 Afro-Asian group 26–7, 35, 63 fire brigade states, relationship with 6–7, 12, 17, 43, 54, 62, 69–75, 78–9, 83, 134–7, 138–9, 207–8 Ireland and 20, 25–6, 42–3, 51, 54–6, 67–8, 78–9, 135–9, 153, 205, 207–8 see also UN Agency for Personal Service Overseas (APSO) 191–2, 193, 210 Aiken, Frank 16, 20, 28, 79, 206 Africa, visits to 24, 38–9, 48–9, 97 Afro-Asian group, attitude to 30, 68, 72–3, 137, 139, 153 Biafran humanitarian crisis and 113, 118, 120–1, 122 Congo and 38–9, 41–3, 44–9, 51–3 IAAM and 132, 148 Nigerian civil war and 89, 91, 92–8, 102, 122 O’Brien and 51, 141 public debate and 76, 89, 92–6, 119, 128, 132, 152–3, 210 southern Africa and 65, 67–8, 71–3, 135–9, 175 UN, attitude to 18–19, 20, 25, 35, 40–1, 50, 54–6, 210 Asmal, Kader 77–8, 143, 145, 146 Belgium 25–6, 36–8, 45, 46, 193 Biafran humanitarian crisis 86 Irish government policy 117–25, 127–8, 208

legacy of 125–8, 132–3, 167, 182, 186–90, 196, 200, 209 missionaries and 108, 109, 113–16, 122, 123–4, 125, 126 NGOs and 109–10, 113–19, 121–7 see also Nigerian civil war; specific organisations Boland, Frederick (Freddie) 19, 20, 22, 47, 49, 66, 67, 71–2, 92, 209 Afro-Asian group and 26, 39, 54, 55–6, 69, 71, 73 Congo and 45–6, 47–8, 52–3 Britain 14, 184, 198 attitudes to Ireland 4, 19–20, 48– 9, 51, 75, 78, 176, 198, 205–6, 207, 211 Irish government and 45, 72–3, 98–9, 135–6 Nigerian civil war and 86, 98–9, 107 southern Africa and 64, 70–3, 133–7, 159, 161, 166 British Anti-Apartheid Movement 63, 76, 143, 144–5, 149, 161–2 IAAM, relationship with 77, 158 Browne, Noel 72, 75, 76, 151 Byrne, Tony 109, 123–4 Cameroons 22–3 Canada 2, 16, 21, 22, 56, 72, 212 Biafran humanitarian crisis and 117, 118–19, 120, 123, 125 Congo and 43, 51 foreign aid 127, 184, 190, 195, 199 Caritas Internationalis 109, 123, 124 Catholic Church see missionaries China 12, 86, 107 Christian Aid 8, 110, 183

Index Church Missionary Society (CMS) 8, 87, 110–11, 115, 183 Colley, George 77, 163–4 Concern 5, 8, 108, 207 Biafran humanitarian crisis 113–17, 119, 120, 121–5, 158 expansion post-Biafra 125–6, 182–3, 188–9, 195, 196 Irish government and 120–5, 190 Congo 12, 20, 61, 84, 107 fire brigade states and 3, 36, 39, 41–3, 53–4 future of UN and 38, 53–4 Irish government policy 35–6, 38–56, 79, 206 ONUC 35–44, 47–56 Córas Tráchtála (CTT) 23–4, 162–3, 211 Cosgrave, Liam 16–20, 55, 65, 171, 209 Cremin, Cornelius (Con) 19, 30–1, 70–1, 98, 153, 172, 208, 209 Dawson, George 183, 190, 191–2 decolonisation fire brigade states and 6–7, 12, 22, 24, 83, 204, 212 Irish government policy 17–19, 20–6, 29–31, 35–6, 53, 71, 78–9, 170, 207–8 UN and 4, 14, 24–7 Denmark 2, 21, 22, 72, 99, 171–2, 177, 212 foreign aid 29, 120, 167, 184–5, 187 southern Africa and 73, 75–6, 140, 142, 171 Desmond, Barry 77, 119, 132, 145, 152, 169 de Valera, Eamon 19, 146, 150 Development Co-operation Organisation (DEVCO) 194 Ethiopia 39, 98, 111, 125, 188, 195, 196 European Community (EC) 2 foreign aid 107, 183, 184, 189, 195 Irish aid policy, influence on 190–1, 192–3, 195, 196, 197–200 Irish application to 16–17, 50, 55–6, 121, 210, 213–14 Irish membership of 170–2, 176–7, 197–200, 205–6, 213–14

227 Finland 2, 56, 72, 212 foreign aid 15, 27–8, 111, 120, 167, 193–4, 199–200 southern Africa 15, 76, 136, 142, 153, 164, 167, 171 fire brigade states approach to international relations 1–2, 3, 5–7, 17–18, 73–4, 97–8, 99, 204–5, 211–14 Cold War and 2–3, 17, 39, 52, 54, 99, 204–5, 211–14 foreign aid, attitude to 6–7, 27–9, 35, 107, 182, 184–5, 187, 195, 204–5 UN, attitudes to 5–6, 17–18, 35–6, 53–4, 78–9, 99, 138–9 see also Afro-Asian group; decolonisation FitzGerald, Garret 119, 170–1, 200 foreign aid and 183, 191–5, 197–9 IAAM and 148, 151, 169, 210–11 southern Africa and 168, 171–4 foreign aid Christian churches and 8, 110–11, 126–7, 160, 183, 185, 186, 188, 197, 211 Cold War and 27–8, 107, 183–4 Irish aid programme 5, 27–9, 117–25, 127–8, 140, 167, 183, 186–7, 189–200 missionaries and 8, 27–8, 108, 113–16, 122–6, 185, 186, 194, 195–6, 198, 199, 207 NGOs and 3, 8, 109–10, 113–19, 121–7, 182–3, 188–90, 207 see also fire brigade states; specific organisations and states France 14, 21, 45, 74, 86, 107, 118 Freedom from Hunger Campaign (FFHC) 111–12, 186, 196 Ghana 1, 14, 24, 26, 38, 39, 48, 67 Gorta 5, 189, 207, 210 Biafran humanitarian crisis and 117, 124, 125, 126, 188 FFHC and 111–12, 117, 186 fortunes post-Biafra 182, 188, 195 Gowon, Yakubu 85, 107 Grogan, Vincent 113–14, 125 Hammarskjöld, Dag 35, 37–8, 39–40, 45–6, 46–7, 49

228 Hillery, Patrick 137, 153, 164, 168, 176 Aiken, comparison with 96, 119, 159 Biafran humanitarian crisis and 118, 120–1, 122, 128, 210 foreign aid and 187, 190, 210 Nigerian civil war and 92, 98, 101–3 Holy Ghost Fathers 86 Biafran humanitarian crisis and 108, 109, 113, 123–4, 125 Nigerian civil war and 88, 89–91, 93, 94–6, 100–3, 121–2 pro-Biafran bias, accusations of 89–90, 94–5, 100, 113, 123 identity, Irish colonial memory and 1–2, 13, 16, 21, 24–5, 29–30, 40–1, 44, 77–8, 144, 172, 206–7 decolonisation and 1, 14–17, 20–1, 24–5, 29–30, 170–1 Europe and 16–17, 29–30, 170–2, 176–7, 196, 197–200 foreign aid and 29, 196–200 missionaries and 15–16, 41–2 race and 41, 42, 54, 64–6 UN and 12–13, 18, 40–1, 213–14 India 27, 67, 111, 188, 194–5 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 108–10, 111 Irish support for 118–20, 127, 208 International Court of Justice (ICJ) 134, 137–8, 160–1, 166 International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) 139–41, 143, 169–70 Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement (IAAM) 5, 62, 75–8, 140, 143 British AAM and 77, 158 Christian churches and 8, 144, 165 international activism and 142–3, 146–7, 152, 158, 211 Irish government and 79, 132–3, 141, 146, 150, 152–4, 159, 162–5, 169, 172–4, 210–11 liberation groups and 77, 143, 168 sports boycott 146–52, 161–2, 164, 172–4 supporters of 144–5, 148, 150–2, 169, 175–6 Irish Commission for Justice and Peace (ICJP) 127, 182, 186 Irish Red Cross 111–12, 114, 116, 118, 186

Index Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) 149, 151–2, 173–4 Joint Church Aid (JCA) 109–10, 118, 122, 123–4, 127 Kasavubu, Joseph 37–8, 39, 49 representing Congo at the UN 44–5, 50 Keating, Paul 19, 209 Biafran humanitarian crisis and 118, 120, 122–4, 125 Nigerian civil war and 92, 95, 98, 99–100, 101–2, 103 Keating, Justin 169, 173, 210 Kennedy, Eamon 19, 21–3, 25–6, 36, 66, 67, 209 Kennedy, John O’Loughlin 113–14, 116, 122, 125, 182 Kennedy, Raymond 93–4, 113, 121–2 Kenya 36, 112 Lamont, Donal 71, 165, 175–6 League of Nations 6, 13, 17, 35, 74, 214 Lemass, Seán 16, 17, 24, 111, 135 Congo and 44–5, 47–50, 51–3 pro-Western attitude 19, 45, 48, 50, 55, 56, 72–3 Lesotho 194–6 Lomé Convention 5, 198–9, 200, 206 Lumumba, Patrice 37–8, 39, 44–5 attitude to white UN troops 42 Lynch, Jack 23, 150 Lynch, Patrick 75, 151 MacBride, Seán 164, 166–7 McCann, Hugh 93, 209 McKeown, Seán 40, 46–7, 49, 51 Macmillan, Harold 14, 48 Medical Missionaries of Mary (MMM) 86, 88 missionaries Irish identity and 15–16, 41–2 southern Africa and 64–5, 69, 76, 164–5, 174–6 Western view of Africa and 7–8, 15–16, 27, 76, 110–11, 207 see also Biafran humanitarian crisis; foreign aid; Nigerian civil war; specific orders Namibia see South West Africa Netherlands 171–2

Index foreign aid and 27, 29, 117, 120–1, 127, 182, 185, 190, 199 southern Africa and 72, 133–4, 153–4, 158, 171 NGOs 5, 205 anti-apartheid campaign 62, 63, 75–8, 132–4, 142–52, 158–9, 161–5, 167–9, 172–4, 211 Biafran humanitarian crisis and 109–11, 113–19, 121–7 foreign aid and 3, 8, 109–11, 113–19, 121–7, 182–3, 188–90 see also specific organisations Nigeria 14, 139 Irish Embassy in 23–4, 214 see also Nigerian civil war; Biafran humanitarian crisis Nigerian civil war 12 Irish government policy 84, 86–103, 206 missionaries and 8, 84, 86–96, 99–103, 121 recognition of Biafra 84, 86, 97, 98–9, 102–3 see also Biafran humanitarian crisis Nkrumah, Kwame 1–2, 14, 207 Nordic states (collective) 16, 79, 207 anti-apartheid activism in 62, 63, 75–6, 133–4, 142, 148, 161, 168–9 Biafran humanitarian crisis and 117, 118, 123, 127, 208 foreign aid and 127, 140–1, 167, 182, 184–5, 193–4, 199, 208 Nigerian civil war and 98, 99 southern Africa and 67, 73–5, 137, 139–41, 153–4, 164–5, 168–9, 177, 208 see also specific states Norway 2, 212 foreign aid 27, 29, 120, 140, 167, 184–5, 187, 195 southern Africa and 65, 68, 72, 76, 140, 142, 167, 171 O’Brien, Conor Cruise 19, 65, 68, 119, 162–3, 168, 209, 210 Aiken and 51, 141 Congo 46–50, 51, 66 IAAM and 141, 151, 162–3, 169, 173 southern Africa 65, 68, 141, 151, 162–3, 168, 169, 173

229 Ojukwu, Odumegwu 85–6, 102–3, 113 O’Leary, Michael 148, 169, 210 Organisation of African Unity (OAU) 83, 86, 97–8, 99, 103, 107, 160 O’Sullivan, Tadhg 26, 30, 69, 70, 71, 73, 170, 209 Ó Tuathail, Eamon 87–8, 96–7, 120, 122–5, 209 Oxfam, in Ireland 112 Pearson Report 127, 183, 185, 200 Portugal 86, 161 African territories 4, 7, 12, 14, 36, 61, 64, 134, 142, 159–61, 167–8, 171–2 Irish government policy and 74, 133, 165–6, 171–2 Radio Telefís Éireann (RTÉ) 93–4, 115–16, 119, 123, 126 Rhodesia 4, 7, 14, 36, 61, 64, 159–61 Irish government policy 70–3, 133, 135–7, 141, 166, 173–4, 175 Irish links with 65, 71, 174–6 sports boycott and 145–6, 147, 148–9, 173–4 Ronan, Seán 70, 99, 122, 140, 147, 153, 165, 209 Ruanda-Urundi 25–6 Rush, Kevin 87–8, 91, 99–100, 175 Ryan, Richie 169, 192, 210 St Patrick’s, Kiltegan Fathers 86, 88–91 sanctions 133–4, 148, 161 Irish attitude to 74–5, 135–6, 165, 173, 177 Society of African Missions (SMA) 86, 89, 94, 102 Somaliland 22 South Africa 4, 14, 36, 63, 86, 133–4, 159–60 anti-apartheid activism and 62, 63, 75–8, 132–4, 142–52, 158–9, 161–5, 167–9, 172–4, 211 fire brigade states and 62, 67–8, 73–4 Irish government policy 65–9, 73–5, 79, 137, 140–1, 162–5, 167, 170–1, 173, 177, 211 Irish links with 8, 64–5, 78 sports boycott of 145–52, 173–4 see also British AAM; IAAM; and specific states

230 South West Africa 14, 61, 134, 160–1 Irish government policy 66–7, 69–70, 73, 137–9, 141, 153, 166–7 Soviet Union 12, 38, 39, 45, 48, 86, 107, 160, 212 Sudan 194 SWAPO 64, 134, 167–8 Sweden 2, 18, 22, 26, 56, 97, 209, 212 Congo and 36, 39, 41–3, 45, 51, 55 foreign aid 111, 120, 139–40, 167, 184–5, 195 southern Africa and 72, 74–5, 76, 135–6, 138, 139–40, 142, 148–9, 164, 167, 168–9, 172 Tambo, Oliver 144, 168 Tanzania 111, 112, 188, 194–6 Thant, U 38, 97 Togoland 21–2 Trócaire 5, 117, 175, 195, 197, 207 Irish aid sector and 182, 188–9 origins of 127, 188 UNICEF 118, 120, 121, 123, 125 United Nations (UN)

Index Afro-Asian group and 4, 6, 12, 24–7, 70–5, 135, 137–9, 153 foreign aid regime and 26–7, 107, 183–5, 189 Irish attitudes to 5–6, 12–13, 17–21, 39–40, 41–2, 44–6, 48–52, 54–6, 66, 99, 135–6, 153, 196–7, 213–14 southern Africa, aid to 140–1, 167, 177, 190, 208 see also Congo; decolonisation; fire brigade states United States 161, 206, 212 Africa and 12, 38, 133, 159, 160 foreign aid and 107, 118, 120, 184 Irish government and 45, 52, 53, 55, 98–9, 141, 206 Viatores Christi 110–11, 113–14, 182–3 Whelan, Joseph 101, 114, 115–16, 125 World Bank 107, 127, 182, 183, 213 World Council of Churches 109, 111, 160, 185 Zambia 186–7, 194–5