Irish History synopsis: The emergency 1940-1945

Irish History Synospsis: The Emergency 1939-1945


In 1939 a series of diruptive bombings started by the IRA against England continued throught the summer, with intent to inspire great Britain to withdraw from the north.
Attempts at German contacts were kept up.
Birmingham, Manchester and London were bombed along with Kings Cross and Victory Station being heavy targets.

Over 127 bombs were exploded since January 6, 1939.

The IRA sent an ultimatime to Lord Halifax,British Foreign Secretary by the IRA Chief of Staff Sean Russell demanding Great Britain withdraw her troops, her civil officials and representatives from all Irleand.
This ultimatum was followed with a boming campaign with Wales and Scotland being excluded.
In order to secure funds for the operation Russell had gone to the US to seek money from the Clan Na Gael when he made world headlines when Roosevelt locked him up in Detroit Michigan for the duration of the visit of King George and Queen Elizabeth.
He was released after they left and after protest by 76 Congressman on his behalf.

When his visa expired in 1940 he was forced to leave the US or be deported.
Not wishing to return to Ireland and be interned at the Curragh arrangments were made through Admiral Canaris to smuggle him to Genoa and than to Germany where he arrived in Berlin on May 3 1940.

While he was out of Ireland, Stephen Hayes was acting Chief of Staff.

On August 24 1939 10 days before WW2 began a bomb placed at Coventry Gardens killed 5 and wounded 70.
This explosion outraged the public as it had been placed ,not with a designated target, but a group of innocnet shoppers.
Two men were charged Barnes and McCormick who hung in February 1940.
The IRA claimed both were innocent and not invlovd in the operation.
One hundred men of Irish decent were sumarily deported from England and sent home.


In June of 1939 the Offenses Against the State Bill was passed by the Dial and put into ooperation. The Curragh internment camp was opened.

On December 23 1939 the Magazine Fort of Phoenix Park ,Dublin housing the arms and amunition of the government of Eire Army was raided by the IRA.
1800 rounds of amuntion was taken.
Most of this was recovered with intense searches by the goverment and IRA personnel were arrested and intered en mass.

The day after Germany attacked Poland on 1 September 1939 the Eire Dial declared nutrality for the duration.
De Valera declared the Irish nation should look to its own interests no matter what individuals felt for the combatant nations.
Neutrality was hightly accepted among the Irish populous.

Churchhill and England did not approve.

Poland,with its antiquated calvery forces,was totally unable to resist the German panzer corps and air war and was subdued within 2 weeks with a September 16 eastern strike by Stalin's Russia the nation was again obliterated from the map.
The Polish government fled to England where it remained a government in exile for the duration of the war as did the governmnet of Norway.

Besides Ireland ,Spain, Portugal,Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Turkey and Paraguay declared Nutrality.
Belgium and Holland attemted nutrality but were overrun by German forces along with France in 1940.

After Dunkirk 50,000 Irishmen volunteered for the British Army.

The North State also declared itself neutral at Stormont in January 1940 and created the Emergency Powers Act with a prison ship in Lock Neagh[ the Maidstone]
100 supporters but not members of the IRA were locked up.

The IR however continued to apply the theory that Englands difficulty was Ireland's opportunity and sporatic outbreaks were carried out every year from 1940-1946.
Shooting , executions, hunger strikes, prison breaks took place.
26 IRA men were killed in this period.
The police were always considered the enemy.

The IRA retained a radio transmitter during the early war years and regularly transmitted its message at tea time.

The worste the IRA organizartion could have expected from either the south government or the north was internemnt for the wars duration, however they continued their operations where possible, having no orders from their headquarters otherwise except to avoid contact with German agents.

In August 1940 German Foreign Mininster Ribbentrop gave his approval to send the 2 Irishmen, Russell of the IRA and Ryan of the former IRA, back to Ireland on the U boat Wilhelmshaven under Admiral Doenitz special mission.
Just 100 miles off the Galway coast Russell died in Frank Ryans arms of a perforated ulcer.The boat returned to Germany with Ryan.
This death placed the IRA command in the hands of Stephen Hayes already acting commander of the force.

pg 2

The Irish countryside began to empty for urban life and jobs in England in the war production plants.
Isolation had begun to be felt along wih shortages.
The government enacted stringent measures rationing petrol, sugar, bread, butter and other daily necessities.
Exports ceased of luxury goods from overseas ports.

Rural life in general was regected as farmers's sons moved on to war work or joined the British Army.
English became the language most sought after as it was needed for jobs or for the military service.
The Gaelteach shrunk once again.
Reading was done in English publications.
O Faolain's Bell periodical was begin in 1940 critical of the governemnts isolationism and encouraging the opening of Irleand to the world.Giving the Irish peasant an incite into the future and the present advancements beyond the clachan family farm.

O Faolain whose works had been banned by the Censorship Bord maintained, with supporters and friends, a criticism of the Irish censorship in editorials and articles.

The Bord however, remained stident in its exclusion of anywork which met with its disaproval.
By 1947 over 1200 books had been banned by its purifacation policy.

The Bord also banned hundreds of films thereby deprivng Ireland of much of the great era of film work being created by actors and directors alike.

The country was held stagnat and decayed.

Catholic social teaching prevailed and the informal talks held between Archbishop Mc Quaid and his former pupil De Valera was upheld by the state.
This strand of vocational organization completely ignored and regected any other creative social organization and overwhelmed this.

Stagnation was the watchworld of this era throughout Ireland.

Wages were frozen and strikes were common against this.
Fianna Fail became opposed to labor through this worker militancy.
De Valera toyed with the idea of labor camps for the unemployed but when 200 were chosen for the Office of Public Works camp at Clonast only 57 showed up and in the first weeks 30 left ;eventually only 9 remained.
De Valera than met with O Brien of the ITUC [Irish Trade Union Congress] in Octobver 1940 to plan a new Construction Camp to recruit 2,500 unemployed classifying them as soldiers.
Labor objected to the plan when it was found that persons were refused unemployment benefits if they refused to'volunteer' for the CC.
Protests wer planned but banned by FF under the Offences Against the State Act and 5 union organizers were arrested.

The trade unions also became militant against wage restrictions.
January 1940 brought out the FF forces on the side of Dublin Corporation vs the Irish Municipal Employees Trade union [IMETU}
Sean McEntree Mininster of Industry and Comerce said that this act would be seen as a revolution if continued.
A local Bishop interfered defusing the confrontational situation and the workers returned to their jobs without an increase in pay.

FF stood firm and in hostility to unions considering them a form of a soviet rule.

But a harsh bill was averted against the unions when the ITGWU conference in June 1940 denounced the pending bill causing the bill to be withdrawn and FF to exchange its hostile tune towards unions.

A collaboration Trade Union Bill was finally arrived at in May 1941.
The Bill required unions to acquire a licence and post a bond with the high court.
The bill established a tribunal, appointed by the Mininster, to have a sole right to organize put on a majority union under the Trade Dispute Act of 1906

These provisions eliminated the dispised ,by both union and party ,British Unions from Irish organization and required disputes be settled and the problem of small trade unions strking overriding this with the licence and bond posted by the major unions of tade for that trade.
The trade union dispute withthe government continued through the duration of the War.

pg 3 emergency


The goods supply continued to dwindle for the general population.
An attempt was made in 1940 by the government to increase tillge to supply needed food.
Bread was rationed as was tea ,fuel and sugar.
Electrical supplys were allowed only certain hours of the day.
There were no coal supplies or petrol.
No private car could be operated and by 1942 the Irish were again transporting themselves by horse and cart.
There were shortages of tobacco.
There were little exports and the economy continued to decline.
Prices for imports were twice as much as that gotten for exports.
There was little industry and employment.
The peasants were urged to grow potatos.
Black markets developed and smuggling between north and south became common along the border.

Because of the drop in exports meat was plentiful in Dublin but brought prices higher than the average frozen wage earner could pay.
The continuing endevor of FF to get along with discontented labor gave an aura of solidarity of the 26 counties as separate from the north which persued its own war plans.

Rationing had begun in the north in 1939.
A civil defence Handbook was published in Belfast in 1940.

An Emergency Powers Act was passed by Stormont establishing a prison ship in Lock Neagh and a policy of interment was persued.

By 1941 30,000 US army troops had arrived in North Ireland, members of Operation Magnet with the command of Major General Chaney consisting of the 1st Armored Division, the 32 34 and 37 th Infantry.
This first wave of V Corps commanded by General Edmond Daly had been trained at Camp Beauregard in Louisiana embarking from the port of NY on the Queen Mary,the Aquitania and the Christobal[ those proverbial 3 ships of north Irish history].

The operational mission of combat under Rainbow 5 was changed to that of logistical support in 1942 being renamed Magnet.

The north had created a Home Guard in 1941 along with a national registry Id card.
A canteen was set up in 1942 and air raid shelters were built and instruction given in building such.

The US Army set up bases in Derry for rebuilding and repair of distroyers and submarines; at Lock Erne for Catalina Flying Boats and at Warrentport for the constuction of landing craft.

The IRA resented the presence of this invasion but could do nothing about it.
Any suspicion of IRA activity caused immediate internment of the members at the Curragh by the FF government or the Stormont government.

A scrap collection program was begun called Wings for Victory.
The arrival of US soldiers in the norht helped alleviate the general island tension that the British army would again occupy the island and place it once more under direct Westminster rule.

With the states assuming command of the ports no need for a British takeover was needed.

The US soldier came well equiped with chocolates and biskets for kids and congregated at such places as Cunninghams Pub in Warrensport where landing craft were being built for the future invasion of continental Europe.

Confiscation of private goods was practiced in the north but compensation was given after.

Smuggling continued with items such as white flour and tobacco and tea being transported under the noses of border customs posts between the two factors of Ireland.

The Merchant Marine created in 1942 when Brith shipping to Irleand was discontinued played a significant role in protecting the Irish water ways and attempted to transport goods to and from the continent. However, 13 of their ships were sent to the bottom of the sea by German U boats.

Many were awarded the Victoria Cross and a memorial to this heroic service was erected on Liffy Quay after the war.

By wars end 70,000 Irishmen were serving in the British Army and the 26 counties had surged from a mere 25,000 men to 1/4 million[250,000,000] serving the defence of Eire.

By 1943 the population was reduced to a ration of 1/2 oz of tea, 1/2 pound of sugar and 6 oz of butter.
The production of wheat had increased from 200,000 acres in 1937 to 662,000 acres in 1945.
A total crop acreage for 86,700 acres in 1939 to 1,680,000 acreas in 45.

The crop quality was poor as no fertilizer was available.
Some of the lands put under the plow were not good being returned to pasture, its natural state, after the war.

In May of 42 Belfast was bombed with the shipyard Harland and Wolfe a target.

Some bombs hit Dublin by mistake but the Irish thought it kindly of the Germans to consider Ireland as a united country.

Dublin sent fire brigades into the north to help extinguish the blazes caused by the bombing and thousands made homeless by the scourge were taken in progratis around the countryside.
Olds long established religions and ethnic annamosites between prodistant and catholic were put aside.

Many units like the Royal Irish Rifles boarded the D Day landing craft singing a soldiers Song ,the national anthem of Eire and the republicans.
Many British army commanders were of Irish descent.
Montgomery, Dill, Alexander, Brooke,O Connor ,The admirals Cunningham and others.
About 1/2 of Churchhills staff were Irish.

The emmigration from the farms for British jobs continued as did the tension between the unions and the governement.

pg 4

The IRA fell into dispute in 1941 with the kidnapping of Chief of Staff Stephen Hayes by dissident north group of the organization.
Hayes being accused of betrayal of the organizations plans to the Free State goverment [theIRA and the nationalist in the north continued calling to the south by this designation].

Under beating, starvation and torture Hayes confessed to having passed IRA plans to the southern government.

Hayes was held and interagated by his captors in 6 different houses.
He finally escaped at Terenue in south Dublin and staggared into a Rathmines police station in chains and asked for protection from his men.
From that time the IRA moral was broken and its men collected steadily into internment with no leader.
This policy of containment and internment lasted for the duration depriving the IRA of any means of ending partition by physical force .

It also produced a national benefit in the end as Britain would surely have reoccupied the island if such an attach on the border had materialized distroying the hard won gains of the pro treaty forces and the bitter conflicts of the Civil War.

The county fell into 6 years of silence according to O Faolain in his Bell.

In 1943 a general election was held with a formation of a new Farmers party organized by big farmers in the west.
Labor was also gaining power in the country with the general disatisfaction of the Fianna Fail cap on wages and its farm policy.

Fine gael had reduced populatiry for its rightists philosphys.
FF seats were reduced to 67 and FG only 32.

However Labor split over old differences between ITGWU secreatry O Brien and the old Connolly/Larkin socialists.

When in 1943 Larkin stood for election and won O Brien withdrew the ITGWU, the biggest most powerful union in Ireland, from the Labor Party in January 1944.
This disrupted the deputies ,4 resigning and becming National Labor leaving only 8 labor deputies in the Dial.

De Valera called a snap election[ dev was fond of elections]

FF gained 9 more seats fromthe Labor split making the seats of FF now 76.

In the north the systematic buildup of Magnet in preparation for the 1944 D Day Overlord continued with great stores and landing craft, ammunition, distroyers submarines and other war material piling about on the docks.

Dublin meanwhile took on an air of international pre war gayity and a touch of Bohemianism in a gray state world.

Peter Kavanagh brother of the poet Pat senced a certain 'international athmosphere'.

In smaller towns library use was up and amateur dramatic efforsts were well preformed and well attended.
All Little Theater and cinama set the mood of the country tastes.

The Church oftimes commended these preformance seeing in them a counter to the vulgaraties of Hollywood fare.
These dramitazations continued to suffice for the citizens and towns ,the ambitions of the poor country peasant taking hold of these ideas in their intent to imporove their status and life.

During the period of isolation in Eire the nations cities continued the cultural absorbtion with itself through talk, drink, sport and local activities stressing its Irishnesss over consern for the outside world. Nationality prevailed.

In the north the provisional inhabitants of the 6 counties enlisted comaradery between separatist and formerly separate catholic nationalists and prodistant settlers.

The north counties became more in commune within themselves separate except by occational smuggling contacts from the southern contingency.

To those who had emmigrated from both colonies a new form was established where the workers returned from Great Britain or the cities flush with money and embued with a new style of trinkets and dress.
No longer the pay packet being sent home but now the brandishing of the sucessful son or daughter demanding good treatment and encouraging others to take the ferry to wealth and riches.

With the sucessful landing at great cost of life on Normandy Beach and the subsequent conquest of France , the allies entering Paris on August 25 1944, and the demise of the German army in the snows of Russia and Stalins forces taking Poland in the east a beaten German army surrendered on 7th May 1945.

Hitler himself committing suicide with his paramour Eva Braun and having his officers burn both bodies in the garden, the Europeans war ended leaving a legacy of displacement ,distruction ,cruelity and holocast behind.

In July of 1945 the 6 years of silence ended for Eire.

the Jewish children at Millisle Farm in Down could go home.



judi Donnelly
copyright September 26 2007


sourses: Ireland Since the Rising, Tom Pat Coogan,1966 , Frederick Praeger
Fianna Fail and Irish Labor,Kieran Allan, 1997, Pluto Press
Ireland a Social and Cultural History, Terrance Brown,2004, Harper Perennial

Internet: Us Army Northern Ireland 1941-1945 Historical Research Branch, US Army Center of Military History, demonstration project, 1996

Ulster Historical Society Northern Ireland online studies project