DETAILED PLANS for a British rescue mission to Ireland in the event of a German invasion in 1940 were agreed between the military chiefs of the countries, according to the latest volume of Documents on Irish Foreign Policy 1939-1941, launched last night by Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin.
However, documents also show that the head of the Department of External Affairs, Joe Walshe, believed that the Germans would win the war and he advised taoiseach Eamon de Valera to act on that premise.
Plans for military co-operation were agreed at a meeting in London in May 1940 involving Mr Walshe and Col Liam Archer, head of Irish Army intelligence, and their British counterparts.
British requests to station forces in Ireland in advance of a possible invasion were ruled out, with Mr Walshe insisting that as soon as it "became apparent to the Irish people that an act of aggression had taken place against Ireland, the whole attitude of the Irish people would change and they would gladly welcome support from British troops".
"Until the Irish people fully realised that the attack had come, however, the Irish Government could not call for British support."
Back at home, after the fall of France a month later, Mr Walshe penned a memo to de Valera which began: "Britain's defeat has been placed beyond all doubt."
On July 11th he was even stronger: "England is already conquered. That is an elementary fact for everyone who has not allowed himself to be overcome by Britain's belief in her permanent invincibility." He went on to criticise "some priests who have no world-Church outlook and, overcome by hatred for the passing phenomenon of Nazism, say we are bound to join the fight against Germany".
Irish diplomats received a surge in requests for help after the fall of France, including from James Joyce and Samuel Beckett.
Joyce was well-known internationally at the time, but Beckett, who stayed in France for the duration of the war and was involved with the French resistance, was less known.
Joyce sought assistance from Irish diplomats for his daughter Lucia, who was a patient in a clinic in occupied France, to enable her to travel to Switzerland. A January 1940 file from the Irish Embassy in Paris said that Lucia suffered from a mental disease known as hyperthuria "which apparently sometimes reduces her to a serious and dangerous condition". The embassy said it would be prepared to issue a one-year passport to Lucia, but Joyce did not pursue the idea. Joyce died in Switzerland a year later.
Beckett was able to stay in contact with his family in Dublin through the Irish mission to Vichy France. In August 1940, a friend of Beckett's asked for arrangements to be made for Beckett's brother Frank to lodge £100 with the Department of External Affairs to be paid to the writer.
Mr Martin said the volume shed a fascinating light on a critical period in the nation's history. "As the world went to war in 1939, our young State entered a period of great peril and uncertainty. At a time when small nations faced threats to their very existence, our political leaders and the institutions of State sought to chart a safe course for our people through Europe's darkest days," he said.
