neutrality

The legal status of a country that decides not to choose sides in a war. Certain states, notably Switzerland and Austria, have opted for permanent neutrality. Neutrality always has a legal connotation. In peacetime, neutrality towards the big power alliances is called non-alignment (see non-aligned movement).

neutrality

Cornerstone of Irish foreign policy in the Irish Free State/Eire/Republic of Ireland, adopted following the outbreak of World War II. From the 1960s Irish neutrality was usefully combined with a prominent ‘non-aligned’ role in Cold War diplomacy and United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations. Moves in the 1990s towards creating a European military force, with NATO backing, saw the debate on neutrality once again become a central issue.

Neutrality became possible when control of the ‘treaty ports’ in southern Ireland, which Britain had retained after the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1921), was handed to Éamon de Valera's Fianna Fáil government in 1938. Following the outbreak of World War II, and despite Irish membership of the Commonwealth, de Valera declared Ireland neutral, an action that provoked much hostility from critics in Britain and the USA.

Neutrality was adopted for reasons of pragmatism rather than morality. Entry into World War II would have destabilized Ireland, and de Valera actually authorized secret cooperation with the Allies on defence issues. Despite this, and Ireland's failed attempts to join NATO in 1949, neutrality came to be seen as a moral principle.