Clair Wills

As an event, the Second World War was impossible to escape. Though many countries sought to distance themselves from the fighting, nearly all were affected to one degree or another by the global conflagration. One of those was Eire, the nation that had only recently wrested itself from the British empire but now found itself facing the conflict by its proximity to Great Britain. Though the politics and the policies of Ireland during the war have been the subject of numerous books, Clair show more Wills has written something different, a “cultural history” which examines the impact of the “Emergency” (the name the Irish government gave to the situation) upon Irish life.

Wills begins by setting the scene with a portrait of Ireland in the 1930s. With it, she underscores just how rural and primitive much of Ireland was, and the growing contrast between the “traditional” Ireland of poor farms and the “modern” Ireland of towns and cities. It was in this context that Ireland was grappling with modernity on its own terms, with much of the resistance dictated by the influence of the Catholic church and attitudes of its adherents. Ireland was also only just beginning to emerge from the shadow of British rule, developing its own identity as a nation and dealing with such legacies as the remnants of the Irish Republican Army.

All of this underscores just how unprepared Ireland was to deal with the emerging war on the European continent. Wills reminds readers that Ireland’s stance was no different from that of other small European countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and Denmark, none of whom had the resources (let alone the desire) to be drawn into a large-scale conflict. Yet unlike these other countries, Ireland enjoyed the luxury of geography afforded them as an island nation and the indirect protection of British arms. Such protection could not shield them completely from the war, however. Bodies of sailors from sunken ships washed up along the southern coast, the result of fighting in the Atlantic which curtailed Ireland’s trade with the outside world and forced the rationing of numerous commodities. Propaganda filled the airwaves, as both sides sought to nudge Ireland to their side, counteracting the government’s strenuous effort for “balance” that belied any moral judgment of the conflict.

Throughout this account, Wills uses the lives and stories of writers to shine a light on how individuals reacted to the conflict. What emerges is a country in the conflict but not of it, a haven for many people (including soldiers who would head south from wartime Northern Ireland for relaxation without the fear of the nightly blitz) and a land encased in a cocoon of denial to others. She also looks at the motivations of the thousands of Irishmen and Irishwomen who crossed over to join the conflict, and the concerns of the thousands who were caught up in it against their will. While somewhat repetitive in the later chapters, Wills describes all of this with great insight into the effects of the Emergency upon both the Irish people and their efforts to define themselves as a new nation in the world, making it a book well worth reading. show less

Much as the Alamo does for Texas, the neo-classical General Post Office in Dublin serves today as a symbol of a people’s struggle for independence. On Easter Monday, 1916, the building was among those seized by a band of armed men, who then proclaimed the creation of an Irish republic in front of its stone columns and turned it into a headquarters for the subsequent battle against government forces. Though gutted in the fighting, the GPO was rebuilt, and in the years that followed the show more building became the backdrop for commemorations of the struggle for Irish independence. The GPO and its role in memorializing the Rising is the subject of Clair Wills’ short study, which explains how the building came to assume such a central role in the Irish national consciousness.

Wills begins by recounting the role of the GPO in the Easter Rising. She explains the importance of the building to the people of the time, noting that the pervasive presence of the Post Office throughout Ireland and the imposing grandeur of the building itself contributed to its attractiveness as a target for the rebels. She goes on to recount the key events of the Rising that took place inside; though she fits them within the context of events as they developed, she keeps her focus here squarely on the GPO and the surrounding streets, ignoring the details of events at such places as Boland’s Mill and Jacob’s Biscuit Factory. With the end of the Rising Wills moves on to describe its immediate aftermath, noting that the event was quickly relegated to the background for most people giving the ongoing drama of the First World War. Yet artists and writers were already beginning the process of memorializing the Rising, and their paintings and poems contributed to the establishment of the role of the building as the stage for the central drama of the event.

Recognizing its growing symbolism, the authorities went to considerable lengths to prevent the building from being used as a stage for demonstrations against British rule during the War of Independence. But with independence the GPO became the scene of struggle once more – only this time it became part of the larger political struggle over the meaning of independence. By the 1930s, the GPO began to play a new role as well, as it served as a symbol to remind the post-independence generation of the sacrifices made. This usage reached a peak with the fiftieth anniversary celebrations in 1966, after which the parades and rhetoric were downplayed so as to avoid efforts by Sinn Fein to associate the Rising with the ongoing Troubles in Northern Ireland. Wills concludes by describing the ongoing importance of the GPO to Irish identity today, one evident by the plans to remodel the site in preparation for the centennial of the Rising in 2016.

Wills’s book provides a thoughtful examination of the GPO and its role as a symbol of Irish history. Her abilities as a literary scholar are on fine display, as she analyzes the works that are part of this process with insight and clarity. Her success in this regard makes her book a valuable study not just of the GPO or of the memorialization of the Rising, but of the construction of historical symbols and the role that they play in the development of national identity, one that can be read for pleasure as well as enlightenment. show less

Reviewed by Gary Pearce

That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland During the Second World War, by Clair Wills, pp. 512. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. $35.

The case of Irish neutrality during the Second World War is oddly defamiliarizing to those from countries whose histories regard that war as a crucial moment in the defense of democracy against fascism. For Britain and the Allies, the Irish position was at best, an irresponsible isolationism and at worst, tantamount to show more betrayal. Ireland not only refused access to vital ports needed during the Battle of the Atlantic and allowed the presence of legations from the Axis powers, suspected of sending back information to wartime enemies, but also outraged the Allies by the infamous visit by Eamon de Valéra, to the German envoy to offer his condolences on the death of Hitler.

In That Neutral Island: A Cultural History of Ireland During the Second World War, Clair Wills negotiates deftly the ambiguity and cross-purposes that characterize the usual interpretations of the Irish position during the war. At one level, the reasons for Irish neutrality were practical and realistic. Ireland had signed a treaty with Britain in 1921, and was an emergent nation protective of its independence: the terms of the treaty had left Ireland partitioned, with deep divisions over its relationship with Britain; and the Frees State was well aware of its weak defenses, having gained control of its ports only in 1938. Wills's reading is distinctive and runs against the grain of prevailing interpretations of the de Valéra period as a time of isolationism and withdrawal. De Valéra felt a duty to the needs and vulnerability of an emergent nation, but he also sought a "positive neutrality" connected with independence and sovereignty.

Wills's book makes room for an historical experience that does not quite fit the received narratives of this period. She conveys a strong sense of the Irish being both in and out of the war; whereas contemporary accounts contrasted the experience of Britain and Ireland,Wills reveals that the wartime experience of the Irish was, in important ways, similar to its neighbor's. This was evident in the general alarm and confusion about what the war meant, along with the passing of the Emergency Powers Act (1939). Neutrality had widespread support in Ireland as a prudent and sensible course, but the stance was essentially one of "friendly neutrality," with many Irish citizens joining the British armed forces or working in the war industries. And despite the stories that circulated in Britain of Dublin's bright lights and extravagant living, the reality was that shortages and rationing hit Ireland hard. The experience of the wartime migrant workers was emblematic of the larger Irish experience during this period—a movement that moved both backward and forward, experiencing the two distinct worlds of war and peace, relative wealth and poverty. [End Page 151]

Far from being aloof and detached, the Irish government and people felt intense pressure during this period, living amid continual rumors of a looming British invasion from the North to secure Ireland in case of an invasion from Germany. German agents were also present in Ireland, engaging in various plots with the IRA. The Irish government sought an armed neutrality, initiating a major recruitment drive and pitching its call to arms in defense of neutrality—" Ireland versus the foreigner"—rather than against a particular enemy. Ireland's neutral position was further stressed when the bodies of combatants were recovered from Ireland's coastal waters after the Battle of the Atlantic. De Valéra continued refusing British access to Irish ports because he was defensive of national sovereignty and cautious about German reaction. After the United States entered the war, a hostile Allied press began to publish lurid stories of Nazi espionage and Irish collaboration. A columnist from Australia claimed to have seen six hundred Nazis sporting swatstika armbands marching in Dublin's streets. The Irish government continued to enforce positive neutrality; in one incident, a group of Anglo-Irish ladies were taken in for questioning for knitting socks and scarves for the Allies. Where propaganda elsewhere mobilized collective feeling, news reports from Radio Éireann sought to remove emotion and to reduce strong feeling. Newsreels became so abstract it was often difficult to determine which side was being discussed. Communiqués from both sides were often printed side-by-side in the newspaper.

A particularly gratifying aspect of That Neutral Island isWills' s use of Irish writing—including letters, editorials, and diaries, as well as literature—to convey Ireland's "edgy experience" of being both in and out of the war. Wills conveys the emotional world of the Irish experience reflected in literary works as well as the public positions of key writers. The image of Ireland from liberal cosmopolitan writers like Elizabeth Bowen and Sean O'Faolain was one of stasis and immobilization. But Wills notes that Dublin's status as a cultural capital was, ironically, actually enhanced by the war. Refugees and returning émigrés, and even the presence of those controversial foreign legations, added to Dublin's international atmosphere. The fact of being cut off from Britain and the United States also seemed to act, at least on occasion, as a stimulus to local productions in art, theatre, and writing. Experiments in cultural self-sufficiency flourished—Wills cites Sean O'Faolain's own journal, The Bell—at precisely the time when Irish culture seemed most isolated.

Part of the problem in understanding Irish neutrality, argues Wills, is the way that the Irish represented the policy not as stemming from the basic powerlessness of a small country, but rather as a matter of principled self-determination. The Allies resented this seeming obduracy, and made comparisons between Ireland's traditional and Catholic corporatism and Southern European [End Page 152] authoritarianism. Wills impresses here, as elsewhere, by her nuanced examination of such recondite matters as Catholic corporatism, or the workings of the small, marginal Irish fascist presence. One point Wills makes clear is the large extent to which de Valéra was successful at using neutrality to build consensus around the liberal-democratic state. His visit to the German envoy reflected his stubborn belief in the legitimacy of Irish neutrality; the misstep came under further criticism as the full horror of the Holocaust emerged. The Irish government had, in fact, been ungenerous in its response to Jewish refugees, but this failure to comprehend the scale of persecution was something it shared with the Allies. Censorship and neutrality undoubtedly contributed to this failure, though Wills observes that an independent stance should not have precluded a more adequate response.

That Neutral Island is a fascinating, comprehensive, and convincing read, and sheds real understanding on a period in Irish history that many, in Britain and elsewhere, have found a little incomprehensible. Of course, Ireland's position was much complicated by the history it shared with its powerful neighbor. It is useful to remind ourselves that neutrality was often the obvious choice for smaller European countries. As Wills explains, the struggle to be neutral was not a peaceful one, but fully part of the experience of war.

New Hibernia Review Volume 12, Number 3, Autumn 2008 show less

2.5 Stars

A very well written and narrated family story of Ireland’s heartbreaking past of mother and baby homes.
The author is on a journey to discover her family’s secrets that and what had happened to relatives who for years had been whispered about but still remained a mystery to the author.

Clair Wills has done remarkable research on her family history. She delves into Ireland’s past of mother and baby homes and it’s effect on the families from all angles. However for me the show more story was repetitive and I became a little bored as the same information seemed be rehashed throughout the book. I think if I was a relative of the author’s family then this would have been fascinating reading.

Its a well written family history book and the audio narration was excellent but not a book for my favorites shelf. show less