Ireland, West Germany, and the new Europe, 1949-1973: Best friend and ally?

This book contextualises the dilemmas facing modern Ireland. It analyses the relationship between Ireland and the FRG, critiquing simplistic depictions of postwar Irish-German relations as remarkably cordial. Inherent differences over trade, Britain, neutrality, NATO, Northern Ireland and the Cold War existed. Nonetheless, the German 'economic miracle' was the vital stimulus for Ireland's belated retreat from protectionism in the late 1950s and 1960s. The book explores how Ireland's reorientation toward foreign direct investment, European integration and free trade was informed by the seminal lessons it gleaned from fraught Irish-German economic relations in the mid-1950s. The appeal of the German industrial investment offered a powerful incentive to Dublin's decision-makers to contemplate a new economic development path. Germany, therefore, had a formative influence on the shape and direction of modern Ireland, an influence that has been overlooked.

CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Ireland and Germany before 1949
2. Honeymoon
3. Emerging dissonance
4. Trade and agriculture in the 1950s
5. Irish industrialisation and the German 'economic miracle'
6. Germany, Lemass and foreign policy adaptation
7. Germany and Ireland's application to the EEC, 1961-63
8. The long road into Europe
9. Land wars, Nazis and the Troubles
Epilogue: Ireland, German reunification and remaking Europe