The Third World War: The Untold Story

An unconnected circumstance pushed coincidentally in the same direction. When the European Community at last agreed on a fisheries policy it became necessary for this to be enforced throughout the maritime economic zone surrounding Community countries and extending to 200 miles from their coasts. The prospective admission into the Community of Spain and Portugal with their activity and expertise in distant deep-sea fishing reinforced the requirement. A glance at the map is enough to show that a very large area of this common maritime zone in the Atlantic is defined by reference to the coast of Ireland and can most easily be supervised by vessels and aircraft operating from its territory. It was equally clear that Irish military resources were inadequate to meet this requirement, and, with some nationalistic misgiving, it became necessary to accept that the ships and aircraft of other Community countries should help to police the operational area, and should in some cases be stationed on Irish territory. All this helped to break down the historical Irish reservation about becoming involved in a common effort for defence. The extension of political co-operation in the European Community from foreign policy to security policy, begun under the British presidency in 1981, had accustomed Irish representatives to taking part in discussion of matters relating closely to the Atlantic Alliance, and enabled them to learn what the others knew about the Soviet military build-up, and the increasingly dangerous situation arising from Soviet opportunism round the world and from the deepening concern of Soviet leaders facing rebellious subjects in Eastern Europe.

All these strands seemed to lead almost insensibly towards the goal so long desired by Western strategic planners: Ireland’s recognition that it is of, and not only in, the West, and that some practical consequences could now be drawn from this recognition. To begin with there was no need even for formal alliance. It was enough to agree that the forces of friendly countries participating in the policing of the maritime zone should be authorized to take such steps as were necessary to protect themselves and their shore installations against any possible threat. Then, as the international situation deteriorated and the risk of hostilities grew more acute, the fishery protection ships could be replaced by anti-submarine naval vessels and maritime reconnaissance aircraft augmented by such further air support as was necessary.

For an account, from a rather different angle and from an Irish pen, of how events moved in the last few years before the war we are privileged to reprint here an article entitled ‘The Irish Dimension’ from the all too short-lived literary and historical periodical The Wexford Pirate (its first and last edition, in fact) published in June 1986.

It has been said that in Ireland what is self-evident has quite often in the past been stubbornly denied if politics, prejudice or the faith found it inconvenient. Irish insistence on neutrality furnished a case in point. Its futility had long been clear. It was only the problem of the north which, under all three of these counts, had prevented general acknowledgement in the Republic of something so obvious to the world outside.

After the establishment of the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Council in 1981, and a series of firm but friendly interventions by the US Administration, the regular semi-private meetings between the Irish Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister became more important, even if they also sometimes became less bland.

One such meeting in 1983 was billed in the press as having touched on two subjects almost always avoided, the so-called ‘British army of occupation’, and ‘the possibilities of eventual confederation’.

The two leaders did not find themselves all that far apart. The Times-Guardian reported on the first subject:

The Taoiseach said that British soldiers in Ulster, though carrying out a well-nigh impossible job with great courage and such tact as they could muster, were regarded as an army of occupation even by moderate Catholics who ought to know better. That is to say, youngsters threw stones at British soldiers in the belief that they were thereby ‘demonstrating for Ireland’, whatever was meant by that, and unfortunately even middle-class Catholic fathers did not disabuse them.

The troops’ presence was preventing a Catholic massacre. Their task would be easier, however, if they were not operating under the flag of Britain, a country against which old Catholic animosities continued to smoulder and were all too easily fanned into flame.