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World War II was the last "good" war, or so many people believe. Looking back now, through the lenses of Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, that war was the last time "the free world" could go forward unambiguously to confront an evil foe. Can there really be a doubt that a German-led Axis victory would have been a severe, if not fatal, blow to liberal democracy? While the Anglo-American-led Allies were not perfect democrats (ask Mr. Gandhi about that), their effort to stop international fascism was the right thing to do.
How could a Western European nation remain "neutral" when so much was at stake? One can accept little Belgium opting out, in view of geography and of its terrible experience in World War I. But Ireland? How could Ireland stand by, not taking sides, saying this wasn't its fight, when so much was on the line? For people in Britain and America, whose histories are intertwined with Ireland, these are a confounding set of questions. Clair Wills intends to probe these questions and analyze North Atlantic society while focusing this outstanding book on Ireland.
Wills is a professor of literature at one of the colleges of the University of London. Her previous work on literary theory and on the social meaning of Northern Irish poetry suggests the range and depth of her scholarship, and her preparation for this book. She also has a personal stake in this exploration: her mother grew up during the war on a farm in rural Ireland; her father grew up at the same time in the London area. That sensibility serves the author well. At several critical moments in the story, the reader benefits from Wills' intuitive grasp of thought and feeling on both sides of the Irish Sea.
A note on method is necessary. We need to ask how it is that a literary scholar writes a history of Ireland's neutrality in wartime. Wills' scholarship ranges broadly, from Irish and British parliamentary debates to dispatches from diplomats to reports from intelligence services. But her main sources for explicating this extraordinary period are the writers of the period. This is an important choice by the author, and this reader grants the premise. Wills writes, "Because Irish intellectual life lacked a tradition of political theory or sociology, literature had taken on responsibility for recording Irish life, and in particular for investigating the clashing moralities and value systems in Irish society." In short, with no Irish equivalent of Max Weber, Abraham Kuyper, R.H. Tawney, or Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Ireland looked to its literary élite. In an earlier generation it was Shaw, Yeats, and O'Casey. In the Depression and war years it was Samuel Beckett, Sean O'Faolain, Kate O'Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, and Louis MacNeice. In a short review like this one cannot begin to do justice to the insightful ways the author uses various literary genres to illumine the Irish mind and heart. But a careful reader of Wills' outstanding achievement will see how effectively she has utilized these sources. I was particularly taken with the work of Kate O'Brien and Elizabeth Bowen.
For readers a bit vague about recent Irish history, herewith a few key dates. When the war started in Europe in 1939 (not 1941 as it did here), it had only been 23 years since the Easter Rising of 1916; further, 1939 was only 18 years since the establishment of the state. A bloody civil war raged in the early 1920s, pitting those who crafted the expedient partition of Ireland against those who bitterly opposed the treaty that enabled it. Therefore, when Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Éamon de Valera stood up in the Parliament (the Dáil) in Ireland's (Éire's) capital of Dublin, he realized what a fragile nation he headed. As Sean O'Casey remarked during World War II, "Ireland is the oldest country in Europe, though she is still in her teens." For de Valera, the decision to remain neutral was pragmatic. As one of his cabinet ministers said, before Ireland could have entered the war, it would have had to fight a civil war to determine which side to join. In truth, many Irish citizens distrusted Britain so thoroughly, they wondered if Éire wouldn't be better off with a German victory—or at least, as one newspaper editor wrote, the Irish hoped that Britain would nearly lose the war. At the same time, there was a sizable minority which saw Britain's historic stand for democracy as worthy of Irish support.
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