Inter-war Irish-German diplomacy: Continuity, ambiguity and appeasement in Irish foreign policy

This article argues that inter-war Irish–German diplomacy was shaped by intersecting patterns of continuity, ambiguity and appeasement, and that these dynamics illuminate both the limits and evolution of Irish foreign policy between the wars. It traces the fitful development of Irish representation in Berlin from the improvised Dáil missions and trade office of the early 1920s to the formal legation established in 1929, highlighting the difficulties Irish envoys faced in securing recognition from a Weimar state that subordinated Irish concerns to its overarching goal of improving relations with Britain. Through close analysis of the reports and careers of Daniel Binchy, Leo McCauley and Charles Bewley, the article reconstructs Irish diplomatic perceptions of Weimar’s collapse, Hitler’s ascent and the consolidation of Nazi rule, showing how personal predispositions, professional socialisation and the Berlin environment combined to produce sharply contrasting readings of German politics. It assesses Bewley in particular, arguing against a purely deterministic portrayal of him as an unchanging Nazi sympathiser by situating his radicalisation within a longer trajectory of anti-communism, authoritarian leanings and tensions with HQ, while underlining his anti‑Semitism, proto‑fascism and ultimate unreliability. At the policy level, the article demonstrates that de Valera and the Department of External Affairs condemned Nazi domestic repression—especially against the Catholic Church and Jews—yet endorsed a principled appeasement of German revisionist territorial claims up to the destruction of rump Czechoslovakia in March 1939, partly because they read German grievances through the prism of Versailles, the Anglo–Irish Treaty and Irish irredentism. The study concludes that Irish neutrality in the Second World War must be understood against this background: a small state's diplomacy that sought a “middle way” between great powers, was morally discomforted by Nazism but also attracted to its anti‑communism, but ultimately it adopted “benevolent neutrality” towards Britain and the United States.