a small European nation and, in turn, started to embrace a truly broad range of international concerns.12 What value, therefore, lies in a strictly chronological and historical study of the evolution of Ireland’s international profile?
Historians have a natural tendency to be preoccupied with the notion of roots and branches, even if they are not necessarily believers in the idea of canonical texts whose influence is felt throughout all ages.13 In the United States, for instance, this has been reflected by a deep preoccupation with the vision of the state’s founding fathers and the degree to which it either remains relevant or was ever truly coherent in the first place.14 Few have doubted A.J.P. Taylor’s belief that Britain’s quintessential role in international relations was rooted in the geopolitics underpinning the Congress of Vienna (1815).15 Nevertheless, practitioners of international history in Britain have often deemed it more important to look as far back as early-modern reformations or even to medieval statecraft.16 There are, of course, other examples. Not all contemporary theorists on international relations who speculate on the economic rise of Asia are blind to the fact that the history of Japan or India, let alone China, did not begin with the bombing of Hiroshima or the creation of Pakistan.17 Likewise, human rights theorists with a legal background understand that such ideas did not begin with the United Nations. Rather, theories of natural law and natural rights can be traced back to classical antiquity, while some have even suggested that the birth of a quintessentially modern notion of human rights, with a particular emphasis on racial equality, began with Catholic missionaries in early-modern South America.18 Norman Davies’ students of history in the College of Europe’s headquarters in Bruges and Warsaw have been keen to argue that the existence of centuries of writings on the idea of a European civilisation indicates that the Anglo-American, or ‘cold war’, consensus regarding an inherent geopolitical and ideological balance of power within Europe was largely artificial.19 Clearly, as Zara Steiner has pointed out, there are many different vantage points and approaches that can be adopted in the writing of international history.20
This study does not attempt to present Ireland’s story as having been pivotal in international relations. However, it does attempt to counterbalance the frequently insular narratives of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland by placing them in the context of a broader narrative on international history. Irish studies of international affairs and the early years of the Irish state receive much attention. However, the pages of International Organization and various European or UN policy documents are treated as no less important. Although it is a work of political history rather than a theoretical or macro-economic study, this book hopes to answer the call of the late Garret FitzGerald for the international economic context behind Irish political history to be fully integrated into the narrative of both the Irish state and its international relations.21 To the best of the author’s knowledge, ideological shortcuts have been avoided while attempting this.
After the establishment of Ireland’s International Financial Services Centre in 1987, debates on Ireland’s relationship with Europe became more vibrant and occasionally took a polemical turn.22 The post-1945 European integration project was closely related to developments in the world of international finance. Ireland’s initial reaction to this trend was fear of being drawn into foreign wars. This book suggests, however, that the European project was certainly of note from its inception for its evidently genuine commitment to embracing equally the concerns of both small and large nations in order to facilitate peace.23 For this very reason, Ireland’s international profile as a small nation has become tied into the greater European question of whether or not economics and questions of education can become the future determinant of the international order more so than military stratagem.24 In the light of this trend, some have asked whether or not there is room for the Irish state or, indeed, Europe to remould international debates through the exercise a degree of ‘smart power’ in international relations.25 If no conclusive answer can be offered to that question, this idea nevertheless mirrors very traditional Irish debates on questions such as pacifism, anti-belligerence and military neutrality.26 It also reflects broader trends in works of international relations theory, such as the relationship between economic change and human rights.27 This study surveys a wide selection of national and international literature on such themes to clarify when or where these debates have met and, in particular, how the Irish experience fits within the broader story of historical developments in international relations. In short, does Ireland have a significant international story to tell in the light of its own historical experience? It is hoped that readers of this book may find some original answers to that question or else discover grounds for drawing their own original conclusions.
Endnotes
1 Zara Steiner, ‘On writing international history’, International affairs, vol. 73 no. 3: globalisation and international relations (Jul. 1997), 531.
2 Paul Kennedy, The rise and fall of the great powers: economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York and London, 1988).
3 William Crotty, D.E. Schmitt (eds), Ireland on the world stage (New York, 2002); Ben Tonra, Global citizen and European republic: Irish foreign policy in transition (Manchester, 2006); B. Tonra, M. Kennedy, J. Doyle, N. Dorr (eds), Irish foreign policy (Dublin, 2012).
4 Joseph Nye, ‘The information revolution and soft power’, Current history, vol. 113 (2014), 19–22.
5 Owen McGee (ed.), Eugene Davis’ souvenirs of Irish footprints over Europe (1889, 2nd ed., Dublin, 2006), 179–80.
6 Charles Flanagan, ‘Identity and values in Irish foreign policy’, Irish studies in international affairs (2016), 1–5.
7 Department of foreign affairs, Challenges and opportunities abroad: white paper on foreign policy (Dublin, 1996).
8 E.M. Browne, ‘Ireland in the EEC’, The world today, vol. 31 no. 10 (Oct. 1975), 424–32.
9 Michael Kennedy, ‘Irish foreign policy 1919–1973’, in Thomas Bartlett (ed.), Cambridge history of Ireland, vol. 4 (Cambridge, 2017), 604–5, ft. 4 (quote).
10 Ciaran Brady (ed.), Interpreting Irish history (Dublin, 1994), 151–3.
